This paper looks at computer-mediated conferencing (CMC) in the international arena, and considers whether culturally influenced behaviour has an effect on communication online. There is consideration of the indicative areas for cross-cultural misunderstanding taken from research into management communication, and also from research into gendered difference in posting styles on newslists and in ‘netiquette’ guidelines. The results from a small sample of questionnaires exemplify the cultural attitudes towards learning of a UK-based group of respondents. Trie question is raised of whether the ‘reduced social dimension’ of CMC allows participants in a conference to overcome social barriers, or whether the lack of social clues present in face-to-face interaction leads to greater confusion.

Au dix-neuvième coup du 6ème jeu de son match contre Deep(er) Blue, le 13 mai 1997, le grand maître Garry Kasparov déclare forfait pour éviter le déshonneur d'un échec et mat en bonne et due forme.

Avant le match, la presse spécialisée, et l'autre déclaraient en substance: si la machine gagne e'en est fini du monde “moderne” tel que nous le connaissons depuis la Renais-sance; e'est le début d'une ère inconnue

This paper explores the impact of multimedia audio delivery and recording as a tool in language learning, in comparison with traditional technology. It traces the development of the field, and the experience of MLS Ltd. Two general approaches have evolved: Language Practice and Interactive Communication. These are described, with examples and observations on each type. The paper concludes with feedback and lessons learned from field studies, and pointers to potential future developments.

This paper sketches the place and function of grammar in the context of language learning in general and attempts to show the relevance and usefulness of these formal concepts of grammar to Computer-Assisted Language Learning in particular. The approach to grammar described here will be illustrated through a brief discussion of a grammar checker for English learners of German, ‘Textana’, which is being developed at UMIST.

LLCP - the acronym covers the Learning Latin Computer Package and the Learning Latin Computer Project - started as a Computers in Teaching Initiative project under my direction in April 1986. Its aim was to create PC software to support Latin parsing and metaphrasing exercises based on the course book Learning Latin: an Introductory Course for Adults by John Randall et al, which was published to coincide with the project. Learning Latin is unique among Latin courses in a number of ways: it uses only real Latin, that is, Latin by classical Latin-speaking authors, it is in essence intelligence-based rather than rote-memory based, and it was designed to lead to computer assistance. Learning Latin is aimed primarily at beginners; but it can and does function also as a rapid revision course for students who have already studied and gained qualifications in Latin al secondary or high school.

When engineering content is created and applied during the product life cycle, it is often stored and forgotten. Current information retrieval approaches based on statistical methods and keyword matching are not effective in understanding the context of engineering content. They are not designed to be directly applicable to the engineering domain. Therefore, engineers have very limited means to harness and reuse past designs. The overall objective of our research is to develop an engineering ontology (EO)-based computational framework to structure unstructured engineering documents and achieve more effective information retrieval. This paper focuses on the method and process to acquire and validate the EO. The main contributions include a new, systematic, and more structured ontology development method assisted by a semiautomatic acquisition tool. This tool is integrated with Protégé ontology editing environment; an engineering lexicon (EL) that represents the associated lexical knowledge of the EO to bridge the gap between the concept space of the ontology and the word space of engineering documents and queries; the first large-scale EO and EL acquired from established knowledge resources for engineering information retrieval; and a comprehensive validation strategy and its implementations to justify the quality of the acquired EO. A search system based on the EO and EL has been developed and tested. The retrieval performance test further justifies the effectiveness of the EO and EL as well as the ontology development method.