acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

ACM TechNews

US Sets $1.4m to Get Unique Metaphor-Recognizing Software System Humming


View as: Print Mobile App Share:
speech bubble

Credit: iStockPhoto.com

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has awarded a $1.4 million contract to a team that plans to develop software that can automatically recognize metaphorical speech in five languages.

The Autonomous Dynamic Analysis of Metaphor and Analogy (ADAMA) project will build systems to identify, access, and analyze huge quantities of online data. The plan is to develop a repository of speech metaphors from American/English, Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish, and Russian speakers.

The U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is backing the research, which should help lead to a better understanding of messages and intentions of people from different communities around the world by delving into the deeper meanings found in metaphoric and figurative language.

"On a very basic level we want to understand the different ways different word or phrases are interpreted in different languages," says Illinois Institute of Technology professor Shlomo Argamon, who is heading the research team. "We will develop technology that can identify such metaphorical speech to get a much better understanding of the way people think about things."

The researchers say ADAMA could have immediate applications in forensics, intelligence analysis, business intelligence, sociological research, and communication studies.

From Network World
View Full Article

Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc. External Link, Bethesda, Maryland, USA 


 

No entries found

Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account