Using Jargon to Identify Author's Perspective
The primary objective of this research is to test the hypothesis that
information in a document, called jargon, can help to identify the
background opinions or beliefs of the author. The first phase of the
project tests whether an author's opinion can be identified for a text that
explicitly addresses an issue about which the author has an opinion. The
second attempts to identify the author's background beliefs for an article
that deals with some topic in the general domain to which those beliefs are
related. The final phase attempts to identify the author's opinion or
background system of beliefs for articles that do not directly deal with an
issue or topic in the general domain related to the opinion or system of
beliefs.
The intellectual merit of the project lies in developing more rigorously
the linguistic notion of jargon, broadening it to include not only technical
terms in domains of activities, but also ideological terms in issue-oriented
domains and identifying that ideological jargon in texts that are somewhat
removed from the original issue-oriented or activity domain. Although there
exist methods for categorizing texts based on information directly available
from the text itself (e.g., is it a fact or an opinion, what is the topic),
this research goes beyond this to ascertain whether there are properties of
the author that are not immediately accessible from the text itself that
indicate possible views and beliefs of the author. The immediate impact of
the proposed research is the development of a set of tools for identifying
jargons and attempting to determine possible attitudes of the authors of
texts on the basis of these jargons. If the results are positive, the
approach may enable sophisticated text retrieval or web search procedures
that allow the search to be constrained by author attitude and belief.
For further information about this project contact Dr. Steve Helmreich
or Dr. David Farwell
