Transcript Amazon Echo

Professional Development Workshop
Getting a Linguistics Job outside of Academia
Jobs in the Industry
Chilin Shih
February 18, 2016
UIUC Linguistics
Today's Linguist List Jobs

60 jobs under “manager” and “other”
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There are more:
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Many industrial jobs are not advertised on
Linguist List
Some advertise on linkedin.com,
Many companies are hiring when a good
candidate turns up. They don't necessarily recruit
by posting job ads
Jobs in the Industry
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Computational linguistics
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Speech technologies
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Google, Apple, Amazon, IBM, AT&T, Nuance …
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Translation
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Language teaching
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Language testing
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ETS, Pearson …
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Data mining
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Dialog system
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Advertising, and many others
Companies from A to Z are
Hiring Linguists
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Amazon
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Microsoft
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Apple
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Nuance
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ETS
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Oracle
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Facebook
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Youtube
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Google
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IBM
Language-based Technologies
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Computational linguistics:
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Speech technologies:
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Text analysis, parsing, morphological analysis,
information retrieval (IR), machine translation (MT),
document analysis, document classification,
character recognition (OCR), name pronunciation
…
Speech recognition (ASR), Text-to-speech
synthesis (TTS), language/speaker identification,
name pronunciation
Language testing:
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Automatic scoring of speech fluency and essay
Language-based Technologies

Computational linguistics:
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
Speech technologies:


Text analysis, parsing, morphological analysis,
information retrieval (IR), machine translation (MT),
document analysis, document classification,
character recognition (OCR), name pronunciation
…
Speech recognition (ASR), Text-to-speech
synthesis (TTS), language/speaker identification,
name pronunciation
Language testing:

Automatic scoring of speech fluency and essay
What Skills are Needed?

In the industry, you are typically THE linguist on
the team, and you are the expert on
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Languages
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Syntax, Semantics
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Phonetic, Phonology, Acoustics
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Social linguistics
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Language variation
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Historical linguistics
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Discourse
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Pragmatics
Speech Technologies with
Natural Language Processing
Google has Google Voice
Apple has Siri
AT&T has Watson
IBM also has Watson
Amazon has Echo
Facebook tested it in Messenger a year ago
They are all perfecting it and building for more and
more languages—creating many job
opportunities for linguists
Localization
All companies want to grow from local to global
market. When a product involves languages, it
means adapting to all of the local languages and
cultures.
In today's Linguist List jobs:
Amazon: Japanese, German
Artificial Solutions (talk to your devices in natural
lang): Spainish, German
Lionbridge (translation): Danish, French, Hebrew,
Chinese, Mandarin, Wu, Dutch, Portuguese,
Russian, Turkish, Korean
Amazon
Two Amazon jobs were announced on the Linguist
List yesterday (2/17)
(1) General Linguistics
(2) Computational linguistics; discourse analysis;
phonetics; semantics; sociolinguistics; English;
Japanese
Amazon is building Amazon Echo – a wireless
voice command device with speech recognition,
speech synthesis and dialogue system, hence
all the listed linguistic fields.
Amazon Echo Job Descriptions
(1) Data specialist: Comp Ling, Discourse
analysis, phonetics, semantics, sociolinguistics
MA or PhD in linguistics, sociolinguistics,
computational linguistics, or human-computer
interaction.
Work with language modelers and speech scientists
as well as data analysts to provide analysis of
speech interactions with Amazon devices.
(2) Data specialist; General Linguistics
Condense complex and ambiguous concepts into
clear, straightforward conventions materials
Adecco Job Descriptions for TTS
Localization
(1) Speech data evaluator
–
Developing rules for a text normalization system
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Large scale data mining
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Customizing language building tools for your
language
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Text-to-Speech quality evaluation and testing
(2) Manager
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Creating verbalization rules, such as expanding
URLs, email addresses, numbers
–
Creating annotation conventions
Nuance Job Description for
Dialog System
Language engineer
Implementation of dialog flows and grammar (with
customer)
Test dialog in development environment and on the
infotainment system
Evaluating system, analysis of tickets, provide bug
fixing
Localization
The more a company considers language
diversity in the design and implementation of a
language-based technology, the easier it is to do
rapid localization.
Analysis of tickets?
Fixing bugs?
Why Industry Needs Linguists
Case I
When speech recognition was just robust
enough to get out of research and into
the market place, one of the first
applications is pay by phone
(There was a time before smart phones)
Please say your credit card number and pin
Problems!
Many transactions were not completed.
No payment? No business.
Go look at the costumer log/tickets.
Five four one two seven five one two one two three four four
three two one ten
Five five two nine four two zero three five six seven eight five
six five six ten
Four three two one five five three one one two three four one
two three four ten
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Aha! Pin-pen
merger!(social
linguistics knowledge
kicked in)
Aha! Telephone
speech! Possible p/t
confusion (acoustics
knowledge kicked in)
Ten = Pin
Linguist Saved the Day
(And millions of dollars)
Problem: Some people heard
Please say your credit card number and ten
Solution: Change the prompt to
Please say your credit card number and personal
identification number
Why Industry Needs Linguists
Case II
Names
Brand Names
Lexicon Branding
“Just how important is
a name? My simple
answer to this is,
nothing will be used
for a longer period
of time or more
often than a
company’s name.
It’s not just a
creative exercise.
It’s a strategic one.”
- David Placek, The
Pentium
BlackBerry
PowerBook
Zune
Swifter
Subaru Outback
DeskJet
Dasani
Linguists at Lexicon Branding
Will
Leben,
phonolo
gist at
Applying linguistic
analysis to brand
names:
Lexicon (of course)
Semantics
Imagery
(Universal) Sound
symbolism
History
Cross-cultural
interpretations
How to Prepare for an Industrial Job
Courses
Mindset
All areas of linguistics
Enjoy your work
Computational Linguistics
Develop linguistic
awareness in all areas
(Big) Data analysis
Language technologies
Attune to the need of the
society, company,
application
Find your niche
Provide value
Enjoy more
How to Find an Industrial Job
Many companies don't advertise jobs. Wouldn't it
be nice if they contact you.
That may happen if you say or write the right thing
at the right time in the right place.
Build credential (beyond your linguistic specialty):
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•
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Know the companies, technologies and
applications that interest you
Analyze designs, problems and solutions
Make a hobby collecting linguistic patterns
Build network:
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Go to conferences
Join relevant professional social networks