Dixi...

Ci-dessous, un petit texte à la fois drôle et touchant sur la langue française, originellement publié dans le cadre de « l'année européenne des langues », en 2001 (source: Parlement européen).

For those of you who cannot read French (how unfortunate ), an English translation is underlaid below the original French text.

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Some personal news:

1. Most importantly, my paper "Salience-driven contextual priming of speech recognition for human-robot interaction", that I co-wrote with my supervisor, got accepted to ECAI 2008! I'll be the one presenting the paper there, so I'll have the chance to spend one week in Greece (Patras), at the end of July! Woohoo . I haven't been in Greece for years, and I just love this place. I hope I'll be able to spend a few days of vacations after the conference, either in the Peleponese, in central Greece (ie. visit Delphi?) or in the Ionian Islands. Don't know exactly yet, but in any case I'm sure to have a fantastic time
2. from Wednesday to Sunday (7th to the 11h of May), I'll be in Amsterdam for the 43rd Studentische Tagung der Sprachwissenschaft, where I'll be giving a talk on my current research on robust parsing.

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"La musique, ce qu'elle est: respiration. Marée. Longue caresse d'une main de sable."
Christian Bobin.

As some of you may know, I have a long-lasting interest in microfinance, which I see as one of the most effective means to empower people to lift themselves out of poverty and achieve more social justice on a worldwide scale.

Recently, I discovered Kiva [ www.kiva.org ], a non-profit organisation promoting development through microfinance. Kiva allows you to lend money via the Internet to specific low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Here's how it works:

1. Accredited microfinance institutions around the world, called "Field Partners", post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on the Kiva website.
2. Lenders browse and choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund.
3. Kiva aggregates loan capital from individual lenders and transfers it to the appropriate Field Partners to disburse and administer.
4. As the entrepreneurs repay their loans, the Field Partners remit funds back to Kiva.

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The great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations of Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 988).

Downright sublime.

(The video above is the first part of a set of three, the two others can be found easily).

Short and sweet:

1. Good news: my paper "A salience-driven approach to speech recognition for human-robot interaction" has been accepted to the ESSLLI student session!
2. I consequently also registered to ESSLLI, which will take place in Hamburg in the first two weeks of August.
3. From the 7th to the 11th of May, I'll be in Amsterdam to participate to StuTS 2008, a linguistic conference organised by and for students. I submitted a talk proposal there (on spoken dialogue comprehension), I hope it will be accepted.
4. I'm currently busy writing a paper for CoNLL-2008 (a conference on computational natural language learning). The deadline is set on April 28th, I hope I'll be able to finish everything by then...
5. I've been kindly invited to participate to a colloquium in Nancy on June 24-26th, where I'll present the work done for my master thesis.

Oggi è un triste giorno per l'Italia et per l'Europa... La destra populista di Silvio Berlusconi ha appena vinto le elezioni legislative italiene.

Questi risultati elettorale non lasciano presagire nulla di buono per i europei. Sono particolarmente preoccupato per l'ascesa della Liga Nord, partito xenofobo e separatista, vicino politicamente al "Vlaams Belang" in Belgio.

Un'analisi interessante della situazione politica, estratto dal giornale tedesco "Die Zeit":

« Für Italien ist dieses Wahlergebnis ein großer Rückschritt. Es wird die Distanz zum übrigen Europa noch weiter vergrößern – Berlusconi und seine Verbündeten haben nie einen Hehl daraus gemacht, dass sie von Europa rein gar nichts halten. Für Bossi ist die EU ein Konstrukt von “Kommunisten und Freimaurern.” Und Berlusconi tut sowieso so, als müsse sich Italien von Brüssel überhaupt nichts sagen lassen. Im einst so europafreundlichen Italien gibt es seit Jahren eine europafeindliche Stimmung. Dieses Wahlergebnis ist ein eindeutiges Signal.

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Toujours sur George Steiner, deux conférences de ce grand monsieur, une en francais et une en allemand:

1. "Culture et savoirs : la responsabilité de transmettre", 19 Novembre 2006 (en francais).
2. "Das Cordelia-Paradox", 8. Mai 2003, anlässlich der 17. Jan Patocka-Gedächnisvorlesung (auf Deutsch).
   NB: Es gibt kein Link für die Teile 5-12, aber diese sind jedoch da - z.B. ist der Teil 5 hier erreichbar.

I'm currently reading George Steiner's wonderful book "After Babel: Aspects of Langage and Translation", and I accidentally came across a recent interview of him on Youtube (in two parts), which I thought you could find interesting (at least I did). George Steiner is one of my favourite contemporary essayist - I find his writings on language and poetic creation to be really captivating, and his scientific and literary erudition is phenomenal.

Part 1:

Part 2:

(version francaise ci-dessous)

As some of you may know, I'm a long-time member of Amnesty International, and regularly participate to their campaigns - againgst arm trade, violence against women, inhumane immigration policies, etc. I would like to draw your attention to one of their most important international campaigns, related to the illegal US detentions, in Guantánamo and abroad (remember Abu Ghraib?).

In its so-called "war on terror", the US government has used practices that are prohibited under international law. These include secretly transferring terror suspects to locations where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and indefinite detention without charge.

The US detention centre at Guantánamo is a symbol of this illegality. Despite international condemnation and the US government’s own stated wish to close Guantánamo, six years after detentions began at the base, many detainees languish there in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions.

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I'll be traveling a lot this month, and hence be away from Saarbrücken most of the time:

• from Friday 7.03 to Friday 14.03, I'll be in Günne (Möhnesee) to participate to the Interdisciplinary College (IK 2008), a spring school offering an intensive course program in neurobiology, cognitive science/psychology, artificial intelligence, robotics and philosophy. Seems very interesting, I'm definitely looking forward to being there!
• from Friday 14.03 to Sunday 16.03, I'll be back in Belgium to see my family.
• from Wednesday 19.03 to Monday 24.03, I'll be in Marseille for the annual trip of the French-German theatre troupe in which I'm involved. We'll be busy doing rehearsals and work on theatrical expression there.

In other words, it means that, in the next three weeks, I'll be in Saarbrücken only from Monday the 17.03 to Wednesday the 19.03. So if you want to meet/see me, choose your time wisely

Comme la plupart d'entre vous le savent déjà, j'ai la chance de faire partie depuis septembre d'une troupe de théâtre franco-allemande, "Le Pont".

Nous jouons cette année "Rhinocéros", d'Eugène Ionesco. Trois représentations sont prévues, le 2, 3 et 4 juin 2008, à l'Aula de l'Universität des Saarlandes (Gebäude A3 3). Plus d'informations pratiques (prévente de tickets etc.) suivront bien entendu dans quelques semaines, mais réservez déjà ces dates dans vos agendas!

La pièce raconte en trois actes l'histoire d'une petite ville de province dont les habitants se transforment progressivement en rhinocéros sous l'effet d'une épidémie de "rhinocérite". Au final ne restera plus qu'un seul personnage, Bérenger, un homme ordinaire qui refuse de succomber à cette hystérie collective et décide de la combattre. Cette pièce fait partie de ce que l'on appelle le Théâtre de l'Absurde. Elle est souvent interprétée comme une métaphore de la montée du fanatisme et du totalitarisme.

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Pour les amateurs de poésie: je viens de tomber par hasard sur un site tout entier consacré à un poète que j'aime beaucoup, Stéphane Mallarmé.

Il inclut notamment une copie PDF de son merveilleux poème, "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard" (publié en 1914 dans la Nouvelle Revue Francaise).

Si vous ne le connaissez pas encore, il est à découvrir d'urgence!

Ich habe gerade erfahren, (dank des Blogs von Alain Gerlache), dass morgen (19.02.08) eine Sondersendung über Belgien auf ARTE einprogrammiert ist.

Der (deutschsprachige) Titel der Reportage: "Belgien, oder Wenn ein Land Amok läuft?".

Für die jenige von euch, die wie ich keine Fernsehen zuhause haben, erwähne ich beiläufig, dass die meiste Sendungen von Arte nach der Fernsehausstrahlung weitere sieben Tage lang kostenfrei als Streaming auf ihrem Website verfügbar sind.

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Je viens d'apprendre (grâce au blog d'Alain Gerlache) qu'une émission spéciale sur la Belgique est programmée demain (19.02.08) sur Arte.

Le titre (francais) du reportage: La fin de la Belgique?.

Pour ceux qui comme moi n'ont pas de télévision chez eux, je signale au passage que la plupart des reportages sur Arte sont disponibles en streaming après la diffusion, et ce durant 7 jours.

I finished this weekend the first draft of a paper I plan to submit to the ESSLLI 2008 student session, which will take place this year in Hamburg. I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think I'll submit it in the poster track.

The title of the paper is: "A salience driven approach to speech recognition for human-robot interaction". The draft (as of today, 18th February 08) is available at this address.

I'd greatly appreciate if you could have a look at the paper and give me your opinion on it!