Parsing and Real-World Applications

Much recent research in natural language parsing takes as input carefully crafted, edited text, often from newspapers. However, many real-world applications involve processing text which is not written carefully by a native speaker, is produced for an eventual audience of only one, and is in essence ephemeral. In this talk I will present a number of research and commercial applications of this type which I and collaborators are developing, in which we process text as diverse as mobile phone text messages, non-native language learner essays, and primary care medical notes. I will discuss the problems these types of text pose, and outline how we integrate information from parsing into applications.