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Source: University of Maryland, College Park

Released: Fri 02-May-2003, 00:00 ET

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Language Study Critical for Nation's Security Will Be Focus of Center

Libraries Life News (Education)		Keywords national security language defense terrorism translation intelligence foreign
Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only
Description The University of Maryland is teaming with the federal government to create a new and unprecedented research facility that will support the nation's critical need for increased language capabilities.

The University of Maryland is teaming with the federal government to create a new and unprecedented research facility that will support the nation's critical need for increased language capabilities.

The Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) will conduct groundbreaking research that focuses on less commonly taught languages, language acquisition, contextual analysis of language, and human computer interaction and machine (computer) translation. At its core, the center will look at a wide range of factors affecting how languages are used and how they are learned.

Richard Brecht, director of the University of Maryland's National Foreign Language Center, will head the CASL. "The new center will draw upon the university's great strengths in applied, computational and theoretical linguistics, as well as in other cognitive science disciplines, providing research and development that is vital to the nation's security," says Brecht.

According to Brecht, the center is the result of recognition by U.S. intelligence and military communities of a greatly increased need for people and technologies capable of interpretation, analysis and communication in languages critical to national security. The center represents an investment in advanced study of language that will serve immediate as well as strategic needs and will rely on a broad community of scholars and practitioners from the academic and federal communities.

Language professionals from the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense, with the National Security Agency/Central Security Service as the executive agent, have collaborated to lay groundwork for the center.

"Through this partnership between the university and the federal government, we can make major strides in our ability to translate, analyze and understand the complexities and subtleties of foreign languages," says Maryland's Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies Dennis O'Connor.

A multidisciplinary approach will be integral to the center's work, which will draw expertise from across the university, other institutions of higher education, government and industry. Support will be provided from many disciplines, including linguistics, computer science, engineering, mathematics, operations research, cognitive and industrial psychology, anthropology and sociology.

The new center will have five basic responsibilities:

* Conduct research into language use and acquisition;
* Develop ways to quickly acquire the ability to learn less well-known languages and the cultural skills that go with those languages;
* Conduct research and develop innovative ways to learn and maintain foreign language skills, with an emphasis on advanced skills and adults working in agencies and offices concerned with national security;
* Conduct research into how information from around the world is analyzed and processed by language professionals in the intelligence community and elsewhere and look at ways to improve those skills;
* Conduct research on how language professionals in the federal government use specific tools and technologies in their work and propose ways to improve them.

In addition, the new center will organize a wide range of conferences, seminars and workshops in FY 2006 and 2007. A series of summer workshops to conduct research on specific topics are also planned.

Federal support for CASL will be provided through the Department of Defense. The Center for Advanced Study of Language will be part of the University of Maryland's new 130-acre research park.

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