A communiqué from Graham Wilcock (University of Helsinki, Finland) contains a Call for Papers issued in connection with the 2nd Workshop on NLP and XML (NLPXML-2002). The workshop "will be held at COLING-2002 in Taipei on September 1, 2002. This workshop follows on from the First NLP and XML Workshop at NLPRS-2001 in Tokyo. The goal of the workshop is two-fold: (1) to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of XML use in NLP, including resource and software development, applications, tools, etc.; and (2) to clarify the 'big picture' for NLP [natural language processing] applications and resources vis-à-vis the XML framework and development of the Semantic Web. As such, the workshop is intended not only for those already using XML, but also for members of the NLP community who seek a fuller understanding of the motivations and implications of XML and related standards for the field." The organizing committee welcomes papers articulating position statements concerning the implications of XML, RDF, and the Semantic Web for NLP resources and applications; papers may also address the use of XML for linguistic annotation, including overall data architecture, implications for editorial practices, linkage mechanisms, and issues of NLP data management.

Workshop description:

Within the NLP community, XML is accepted as the standard for data representation, especially for purposes of interchange and software interoperability. However, XML and the standards that surround it (XML schemas, XSL and XSLT, etc.) not only provide a standard representation format, but, more abstractly, also define a modeling language that has important ramifications for the ways in which we organize data, annotations, software architecture, etc. In addition, the Resource Definition Framework (RDF) and the Semantic Web define an overall architecture for resources of all kinds whose eventual implications for natural language processing are less well understood within the NLP community.

This workshop follows on from the 1st NLP and XML Workshop, which was held at NLPRS-2001 in Tokyo on 30 November 2001. The Tokyo workshop drew a large number of participants, demonstrating the interest in XML within the NLP community. We hope to establish an on-going series of NLPXML workshops, in order to enable communication and cooperative development of XML practices and standards for language resource creation and use, application development, etc.