420011 SE Bring your own (corpus): An introduction to the opportunities and challenges of machine learning (2018W)

The aim of the seminar is to demonstrate the opportunities and limitations of machine learning algorithms. The demonstration will be based on corpora supplied by the participants or texts downloaded from databases or scraped from websites. We will demonstrate how algorithms can aid the identification of patterns of meaning and making text amenable for statistical analysis. Participants will also learn how methods of corpus linguistics can be applied to texts in various languages and how sources can be classified using a variety of technologies. Specifically, they will learn where machine learning technologies can be usefully applied to their own dissertation projects, and where the use of machine learning is not recommended. The participants are required to briefly introduce their projects. Based on this, possible applications of machine learning algorithms will be identified, demonstrated and critically evaluated.