Human Language Technology (HLT) is a developing interdisciplinary field encompassing most subdisciplines of linguistics and computational linguistics, natural language processing, computer science, artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics.
Anywhere language meets information technology or where humans need to interact with computers, language needs to be organized so that it can be handled and processed by computational means. This often requires broad knowledge about linguistics and how languages work and computer science and related fields.
Well-known topics in human language technology include web search engine technology (an instance of information retrieval), speech recognition (computer dictation), speech synthesis (computer-generated speech), optical character recognition (OCR), machine translation, electronic dictionaries, spell checking, grammar checking, word processing, computer typesetting, computer-assisted language teaching, automatic captioning on TV - in short, any and all tasks where human language and information technology meet.
For a more in-depth perspective of the field, see the first chapter of Dan Jurafsky's and James Martin's book, Speech and Language Processing, which is available online and provides a good overview of the field.
What studies are included?
At the University of Arizona, our objective is to provide a balanced curriculum in linguistics, computational linguistics, and practical skills like business training. Upon completion of the program, students will have the skills required to enter a competitive workforce. We also work closely with providers of internship opportunities in the industry to assure that students receive strong hands-on experience in the form of a final project, preferably done in the industry. The minimum number of credits to be completed is 36, and students will also write a master’s thesis documenting an actual completed implementation. Possible local industrial internship opportunities include Lockheed Martin (Phoenix), Intel (Chandler), Raytheon (Tucson), and Motorola (Phoenix).
What kinds of jobs require knowledge of HLT?
Many jobs are centered in the IT industry, where a variety of companies need trained HLT professionals. But the wide coverage of the field also guarantees a wide choice of careers, some of them closer to language-related work, some closer to computer science.
Human Language Technology represents the fastest growing field of language research. Because of its industrial applications, it provides far more employment opportunities than are available in traditional academic research. The Master of Science degree in HLT is designed for students who are interested in going directly into the industry rather than going into academia on the Ph.D. track.
What kind of background should I have as an applicant?
We are looking for students who feel comfortable in linguistics or language-related liberal arts disciplines and the more scientific fields HLT includes - computer science, mathematics, or engineering. Applicants will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Programming skills are a prerequisite, but studies can be undertaken during the summer preceding entrance to the HLT program if admitted.
Mission Statement:
Human language technology (HLT) is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of linguistics, computer science, mathematics, artificial intelligence, engineering, and information technology. It refers to the development of computer technologies that involve language, such as speech recognition and speech synthesis, machine translation, intelligent search, information extraction, parsing, and more. HLT is a massively growing enterprise and is a key part of technologies that deal with huge digital datasets, given the explosive growth of the multilingual Internet. Because of its industrial applications, the field provides far more employment opportunities than are available in traditional academic research. Demand is growing for trained HLT professionals including programmers, computational linguists, data scientists, and natural language processing engineers.
Our Master of Science in Human Language Technology program brings to this task the requisite skills in programming and computational methods, but our department as a whole has additional strengths which enrich our program, for example, a deep appreciation for language as an object of scientific study. Complementing the core competencies of HLT, our department’s ongoing commitment to the documentation, preservation, and revitalization of Native American and other endangered languages also provides valuable elective coursework and other opportunities for students to engage in language technology projects beyond data-abundant languages like English, and to do so in ways that respect, support, and bring benefit to language communities.
The mission of our HLT program is to train students for HLT-related jobs in industry at the master’s level, placing HLT graduates in this burgeoning high-tech domain both in Arizona and worldwide. Students admitted to the PhD linguistics program may also acquire an HLT MS degree along the way to a PhD. We have also established an “accelerated” version of the program so that students in appropriate majors can begin the Master of Science degree while still enrolled as undergrads at the University of Arizona.
Upon completion of the degree, students will have the skills required to stand out and advance their career in a competitive workforce. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the program, they will be prepared for language-related careers in a wide variety of industries.
(Adopted Oct 4, 2024)