Preface to R. Piotrowski’s Readings in Language Engineering and Applied Linguistics (PRLEAL-2019) Andrey Ronzhin 2 Sergey Bogdanov 1 ronzhin@iias.spb.su rector@herzen.spb.ru Vladimir Laptev 3 Larisa Beliaeva 1 prorector@herzen.spb.ru lauranbel@gmail.com Xenia Piotrowska 1 Olga Kamshilova 1 krp62@mail.ru onkamshilova@gmail.com 1 Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg 2 Saint Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg 3 Russian Academy of Education, Moscow Russian Federation Abstract The paper presents a critical survey and record of the III International Con- ference “PRLEAL- 2019” held in memory of R.G. Piotrowski, a Soviet and Russian scholar philologists, founder of Computer Linguistics in the USSR and Russia. It lays stress upon professor Piotrowski’s historical and academic impact on Machine Trans- lation development and Computer Linguistics researches in Russia and post-USSR countries and briefly describes his scientific interests and precept. It introduces the Conference main topics and describes the academic and research standing of the Conference participants. It also provides the reader with the Conference relevant links. Keywords: Language Engineering, Evidentiary-Based research methodology, “Speech Statistics” Group, Evidence-Based Philology, Language Engineering strategy 1 1 Introduction As Natural Language Processing in its theoretical and practical spheres is ever-widening domain attracting interest of specialists in many areas there is an increasing need to discuss its modern methods, results and prospects. Two years interval for such international discussion seems most favourable as it permits to show new methods tested experimentally and results received. Traditionally “R. Piotrowski’s Readings in Language Engineering and Applied Lin- guistics” conference being a place for such a discussion solves this task and permits its participants to present their results and ideas and is organized as Readings. Materials on previous Readings are available on the site of journal "The Scientific Opinion", №9, 2012 and on CEUR-WS platform: PRLEAL-2017, as well as on the R. Piotrowski’s Readings site. The III International conference “PRLEAL-2019” held on November 27th, 2019 in Herzen State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) was orga- nized by its Philology Faculty (Educational Technologies in Philology Chair), Mathemat- ical Faculty(Chair of Methodics of Education in Math and Informatiсs) and Scientific School “Applied Studies of Language and Speech, R.G. Piotrowski’s School”, together with Saint Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS) and Saint Petersburg State University (Philology Faculty, Mathe- matical Linguistics Chair). We organize our Readings in memory of Raimund G. Piotrowski – our outstand- ing colleague and teacher, whose continued interests and extensive knowledge remain the source of ideas and research trends for modern specialists in language engineering and applied linguistics. He was the founder of Russian Engineering (Computer) Linguistics, a pioneer of machine translation (MT) in Russia, one of those who started statistical research in linguistics. His main lines of investigations were text statistics, machine trans- lation and applied lexicography, semantic modelling and cognitive science. Nowadays statistical linguistics receives new impetus to work with vector space model, support vec- tor machine method, at the same time natural language processing is now being enriched with corpus linguistic data and methods. Taken together these all enhance the potential of language engineering implementation in both philology and paralinguistics. The present state and achievements in those applied linguistics directions that were largely started by R.G. Piotrowski and his school traditionally are the focus for R. Pi- otrowski’s Readings. Forums like this are also meant to support tradition and consistency in Russian science and to educate and develop a new generation of researchers. Thus, during the Readings both experienced specialists and young participants (master- and post-graduate students) were exposed to the modern state of the problems in question. The conference topics concerned modern MT systems development, statistics in natural language processing and text studies, and new approaches in the field of evidentiary-based linguistics. 2 Topics of Interest The conference topics concerned automatic dictionaries and terminology databases de- velopment and management, statistics and machine learning methods in natural language 2 processing and text studies, new approaches in the field of evidence-based philology, com- puter assisted language learning and language worker training. 3 The Committee members of PRLEAL-2019 Organizing Committee Sergey Bogdanov (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation), Chair Vladimir Laptev (Russian Academy of Education, Russian Federation) Andrey Ronzhin (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation) Natalia Shubina (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa- tion) Proceedings Editors Andrey Ronzhin (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation), Chair Tatiana Noskova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation), Alexey Karpov (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation) Proceedings Program Committee Andrey Ronzhin (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Rus- sian Federation), Сhair Sergej Andreev (Smolensk State University, Russian Federation) Alexey Karpov (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Russian Federation) Emmerich Kelich (University of Vienna, Austria) Irina Kipyatkova (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Rus- sian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) Sven Nõmm (Tallinn University of Technology, School of Information Technology, Estonia) Tatiana Noskova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation) Tatiana Sherstinova, (St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation) Victor Zakharov (St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation) Conference Programme Committee Larisa Beliaeva (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa- tion), Сhair Sergej Andreev (Smolensk State University, Russian Federation) Yurij Gorbunov (Togliatti State University, Russian Federation) Olga Kamshilova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation) 3 Alexey Karpov (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Russian Federation) Emmerich Kelich (University of Vienna, Austria) Irina Kipyatkova (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Rus- sian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) Mikhail Marusenko (St. Petersburg State University, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation) Sven Nõmm (Tallinn University of Technology, School of Information Technology, Estonia) Tatiana Noskova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation) Xenia Piotrowska (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation) Andrey Ronzhin (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, Rus- sian Federation) Tatiana Sherstinova, (St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation) Victor Zakharov (St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation) Alexandr Zubov (Minsk State Linguistics University, Belarus) Executive Committee Xenia Piotrowska (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation), Chair Olga Kamshilova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Feder- ation), Secretary Larisa Beliaeva (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa- tion) Olga Demchuk (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa- tion) 4 The Readings Informational Support Сonference events were covered by the R. Piotrowski’s Readings site and official Herzen University site. 5 Conference Facts The Readings participants were over 60 researchers – linguists, mathematicians, IT spe- cialists and teaching professors from Minsk (Belarus), Tallin (Estonia), Riga (Latvia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Prague (Czech Republic), Lanzhou University of Technology (China) and Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Grozny, Perm, Tomsk, Togliatti, Smolensk, Ulyanovsk, Vladivostok (Russian Federation). The high research level was proved by the participants’ academic level and their research standing: 51% had the status of Full Doctor or PHD in linguistics, applied mathematics, IT-technology, pedagogics, medicine and psychology. More than half of the participants (46%) were young scientists under 39 whose interests apportioned the conference topics. 4 The PRLEAL-2019 joined scientists from Belarus, Latvia, Austria, Estonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, China and Russia. In general, the representatives from 6 Universities from around the world and 13 Russian Federation, as well as 4 research science centers and 3 international companies have taken part in conference: • University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria • Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic • Tallinn University of Technology, School of Information Technology, Tallinn, Estonia • Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Bratislava, Slovakia • Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, China • Minsk Linguistic State University, Minsk, Belarus • Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation • St. Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • Herzen Pedagogical State University of Russia, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • Smolensk State University, Smolensk, Russian Federation • Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russian Federation • ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation • Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics, Tomsk, Russian Federation • Perm National Research Polytechnical University (PNRPU), Perm, Rus- sian Federation • Togliatti State University, Togliatti, Russian Federation • Pavlov First Saint-Petersburg State Medical University, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS), Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation • V. A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control, Moscow, Russian Federation 5 • Institute for Regional Economy Studies RAS, Saint Petersburg, Russian Fed- eration • Center for Prevention and Control of HIV and Infectious Diseases, Saint- Petersburg, Russian Federation • Tilde Company, Riga, Latvia • Linguistic and Information technologies, LLC, Moscow, Russian Federation • Rostelecom, Vladivostok, Russian Federation. The Readings Program included Plenary session and 3 Sections: • Section 1: Language Engineering, Quantitative and Machine Learning Methods for Text Analysis and Recognition • Section 2: Language Engineering in Text Processing and Applied Lexicography • Section 3: Language Engineering in Corpus Studies. The participants presented over 25 reports on key issues which were followed by an inter- esting and constructive discussion. The Readings managed to show the ever-lasting interest in different aspects of natural language processing methods and their practical realization, which were the main sphere of interest and studies of R.G. Piotrowski and are maintained today by his followers and young researchers. The Conference Proceedings with CEUR-WS include 25 papers in English, 5 papers in Russian will be published in Herzen University scientific journal “Izvestia: Herzen University Journal of Humanities Sciences”. Acknowledgments We would like to thank all the participants of the conference, the authors, reviewers and members of Organizing, Program, Post Proceedings and Executive Committees, who helped in the selection of the papers by providing timely assistance. 6