<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:small"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"><b>When:</b>         October 25th<b> at <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">12:30pm CT  </span></b></font><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"> <br><b>Where:</b><b>  </b>      Talk will be given<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"> </span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"><font style="font-weight:bold"><u>live, in-person</u></font><font style="font-weight:bold"> </font></span>at</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif">                       TTIC, 6045 S. Kenwood Avenue</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif">                        5th Floor, Room 530<b>              </b>   </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><b><span class="gmail_default"></span>Virtually:</b>    via Panopto (<a href="https://uchicago.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a6c55e8c-fd91-4aee-92ce-b1a901057953" target="_blank">Livestream</a>) </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><b>Who:</b><b> </b>          Zhewei Sun, TTIC</font></p><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="0" style="width:0in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;border-collapse:collapse"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0in"></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"> <span class="gmail_default"></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><b>Title</b>:           Making NLP Systems Robust to Language Variation: The Case of Slang</font></p><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><br></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><b>Abstract</b>:   Humans can leverage a rich set of linguistic expressions to describe similar concepts. Such variations often reflect one’s emotion and social identity. Natural language processing (NLP) systems, on the other hand, tend to be trained on formal language corpora that lacks variety. As a result, systems show diminished performance when tasked to process under-represented varieties of language.</font></p><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><br> <br><br>In this talk, I will discuss different avenues of research that can be pursued to address this limitation. In particular, I will focus on both data-driven and knowledge-driven approaches that have been proposed to allow NLPs systems to process slang, a specific variety of contextual language. The first part of my talk will cover knowledge-driven approaches that inject linguistic and cognitive knowledge about slang into foundational NLP models for zero-shot generation and interpretation of novel slang. Next, I will discuss emerging data-driven approaches based on large language models (LLMs), examining the extent of knowledge LLMs have acquired about slang and how such knowledge may have been obtained. Finally, I will discuss potential future directions in further enhancing NLP systems’ robustness to language variation.<br><br></font></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default"><b><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif">*********************************************************************************************</font></b></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000"><b>Masks are optional in all common areas. </b><b>Full visitor guidance is available at <a href="http://ttic.edu/visitors" target="_blank">ttic.edu/visitors</a>.</b></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px"><b><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif">*********************************************************************************************</font></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><b><i><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif">Research at TTIC Seminar Series</font></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#000000" face="georgia, serif"> </font></p><div class="gmail_default"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="georgia, serif" color="#000000">TTIC is hosting a weekly seminar series presenting the research currently underway at the Institute. Every week a different TTIC faculty member will present their research.  The lectures are intended for students seeking research topics and advisors and for the general TTIC and University of Chicago communities interested in hearing what their colleagues are up to.</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><font color="#888888"><div><br style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"></div></font></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><b style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6">Brandie Jones </font></b><div><div><div><font color="#3d85c6"><b><i>Executive </i></b></font><b style="color:rgb(61,133,198)"><i>Administrative Assistant</i></b></div></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6">Toyota Technological Institute</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6">6045 S. Kenwood Avenue</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6">Chicago, IL  60637</font></span></div></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6"><a href="http://www.ttic.edu" target="_blank">www.ttic.edu</a> </font></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#3d85c6"><br></font></span></div></div></div></div>