Special Interest Group on Writing Systems and Written Language
The ACL Special Interest Group on Writing Systems and Written Language (SIGWrit) will focus on advancing research and sharing of knowledge on topics in computational linguistics related to the properties of written language, the ways in which writing systems encode language, applications specifically focused on characteristics of writing systems and written language and the relationship between written and spoken language.
Most work on NLP focuses on language in its canonical written form. This has often led researchers to ignore the differences between written and spoken language or, worse, to conflate the two. Instances of conflation are statements like “Chinese is a logographic language" or “Persian is a right-to-left language", variants of which can be found frequently in the ACL Anthology. These statements confuse properties of the language with properties of its writing system and erode the image of the NLP field in the eyes of other professions (linguistics, psychology, etc.).
Furthermore, methods for dealing with written language issues (e.g., various kinds of normalization or conversion) or for recognizing text input (e.g. OCR and handwriting recognition or text entry methods) are often regarded as precursors to NLP rather than as fundamental parts of the enterprise, despite the fact that most NLP methods rely centrally on representations derived from text rather than (spoken) language. This general lack of consideration of writing has led to much of the research on such topics to largely appear outside of ACL venues, in conferences or journals of neighboring fields such as speech technology (e.g., text normalization) or human-computer interaction (e.g., text entry).
The purpose of the SIGWrit shall be to promote interest in written language and its relation to spoken and signed languages as an area of study. Specifically the SIG will organize a workshop named Computation and Written Language (CAWL), which will invite submissions on the relationship between written and spoken language, the properties of written language, the ways in which writing systems encode language, and applications specifically focused on characteristics of writing systems. The SIG will also work to promote better understanding of the relationship between writing and language. In addition to ACL-internal promotion of these ideas and topics, we will also work to bring computational issues to the attention of those researching writing systems, and in such a way broaden participation in the SIG to include those not currently engaged with the ACL.
The SIG will operate within the framework of the general guidelines for ACL SIGs.
The elected officers of the SIG shall consist of a President, a Vice President, a Secretary‐Treasurer and a Student Member. These officers shall be members in good standing with the ACL.
The term of all elected officers of the SIG shall be 2 years, dating from January.
The duties of the President shall be: (1) To have primary executive authority over actions and activities of the SIG. (2) To prepare a written report on the activities of the SIG for the Executive Committees of the ACL, for presentation to the ACL at their Annual Business Meeting. (3) To be responsible for communication with the ACL Executive Committee. (4) To assist in facilitating meetings/workshops put on by the SIG.
The duties of the Vice President shall be: (1) To have secondary executive authority over actions and activities of the SIG (in conjunction with the President). (2) To be the primary facilitator of the meetings/workshops put on by the SIG.
The duties of the Secretary‐Treasurer shall be: (1) To maintain a membership roster of the SIG. (2) To be responsible for any moneys awarded to the SIG by the ACL, including corporate sponsorships awarded to the CAWL workshop; to collect and manage any dues that may be required by the organization; and to present a written annual report on the SIG finances to the Executive Committee of the ACL. (3) To act as a Liaison Representative, who shall be primarily responsible for communication with members of the SIG, and answering inquiries about the SIG. (4) To assist in facilitating meetings/workshops put on by the SIG. (5) To call for nominations for elected officers prior to elections.
The duties of the Student Member shall be: (1) To act as the Webmaster for the SIG. (2) To interact with the other SIG officers in making decisions concerning the SIG. (3) To run/collect and tally votes for elections (assuming the Student Member is not running him/herself).
All officers of the SIG shall be elected by a vote of the membership. The vote shall take place at least 4 weeks before the expiration of the terms of the officers to be elected, with at least 4 weeks' notice of nominations to SIG members. Elections will be electronic. In cases where nominations from the membership do not result in a full slate of officers, all of the officers will work together to establish a slate.
Elections shall take place every two years. Terms of office will normally be aligned to the calendar year. If an officer leaves their post prematurely, a replacement may be elected to complete their term of office.
To ensure continuity, the outgoing President will serve as the Past President for the two years following them stepping down from that position.
To be eligible to stand for election as a student board member, candidates should be expected to complete at least one year of their term of office before their Ph.D. defense would reasonably be scheduled.
Changes to the SIGWrit constitution may be proposed by the SIGWrit officers or by ten SIGWrit members. They will first be posted on the SIGWrit web page, with SIGWrit members invited to comment on the changes. Afterwards the proposed change will be circulated to the SIGWrit membership, and a ratification vote will be held. The amendment will be adopted if a majority of those voting approve it.
The ACL Executive Committees may veto proposed constitution changes if they are incompatible with the ACL Constitution or SIG guidelines.