ACDH-CH Lecture 10.1

Digital Linguistics is a growing interdisciplinary field at the crossroads of traditional linguistics, information technology and social sciences. Rather than focusing on the use of computers for performing language-related tasks (such as machine translation or voice recognition), Digital Linguistics analyses, preserves and disseminates language data, i.e. digital artefacts that use language as a means of human expression. Closely related to Digital Humanities, Digital Linguistics is attracting increasing attention from the academic community as well as the public and private sectors, since skills in handling digital language data are considered essential in the modern economy and society. The lecture will discuss the short history of Digital Linguistics, its relation with other disciplines such as Digital Humanities and Computational Linguistics, as well as current and future challenges.

This ACDH-CH Lecture is organized in close collaboration with the University of Vienna within the framework of the Digital Humanities Lecture Circuit.

Andreas Witt

Head of the Digital Linguistics Department at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim,
Professor of Computational Humanities & Text Technology & Professor of Digital Humanities.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Witt heads the Digital Linguistics Department at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language in Mannheim. He is also Professor of Computational Humanities and Text Technology at the University of Mannheim and Honorary Professor at the Institute for Computational Linguistics of the University of Heidelberg. For many years he has been very active in the field of data preservation and infrastructures for language data. Currently, he serves as Spokesperson for Text+, a consortium of the German National Research Data Infrastructure specialised in text data; the National Coordinator of CLARIN-D, the German national consortium within CLARIN ERIC; and a member of the Executive Board of Nestor, a Competence Network for Digital Preservation. He is also an editor of the Digital Linguistics book series (de Gruyter) and co-editor of an upcoming Routledge Handbook of Digital Linguistics.