This course provides an introduction to foundations and the state-of-the-art technology enabling natural language communication with artificial agents. Topics include speech recognition, acoustic modeling and language modeling, syntactic and semantic processing, dialogue and discourse modeling, and their applications in conversation agents and human-robot dialogue. These topics will be examined through reading, discussion, and hands-on experience with dialogue systems. This course focuses on language processing for interacting with artificial agents. Topics related to text processing such as question answering, information extraction, and machine translation are covered in CSE842: Natural Language Processing 

Text book:

There is no required textbook for this course. The following books are reserved in the Main Library for your reference: 

• Speech and Language Processing (2nd edition) by Jurafsky and Martin, second edition, Prentice Hall. (JM)
• Spoken Language Processing: A Guide to Theory, Algorithm and System Development by X. Huang, A. Acero, H. Hon, and R. Reddy.  Prentice-Hall, 2001. (Huang et al.)
• Reinforcement Learning, an Introduction. by Sutton and Barton, the MIT Press. 
• Design and Analysis of Experiments (7th edition), by D. Montgomery, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2009

Grading

The final grade is determined based on the following: 

• Class participation and paper presentation: 10%
• Five homework assignments (may include both written and programming assignments): (65%)
• HW1, assigned Jan 17, due Jan 31
• HW2, assigned Jan 29,  due Feb 14
• HW3, assigned Feb 14, due Feb 28
• HW4, assigned Feb 28, due Mar 14
• HW5, assigned Mar 14, due Mar 28
• A final project: 25%
• Proposal due Mar 28
• Presentation: April 23, 25 
• Final report: May 2

Tentative Schedule of Topics

Academic Honesty

It is your responsibility to follow MSU's policy on academic integrity. Copying or paraphrasing someone's work (code included), or permitting your own work to be copied or paraphrased, even if only in part, is not allowed, and will result in an automatic grade of 0 for the entire assignment in which the copying or paraphrasing was done. Violation of academic integrity policy will result in a Grade F in the course. 

Alternative Testing:

Alternative testing is available to those with a documented disability affecting performance on tests. Students with documented disabilities requiring some form of accommodation receive a Verified Individualized Services and Accommodations (VISA) document which displays verified testing accommodations when appropriate. Please visit Alternative Testing Guidelines if applied. 

Notes: The instructor reserves the right to modify course policies and the course calendar according to the progress and needs of the class.