Computational Linguistics


What is Natural Language Processing?

The B.Sc. in applied Computational Linguistics is a program that reflects advances in the area of Natural Language Processing, in other words the use of computers to carry out tasks involving natural language.

What is Computational Linguistics?

Computational Linguistics involves the study of linguistics, languages and computer studies. CL examines all the areas involved in the processing of natural language on computers. Examples of computer systems within the area of NLP are, systems which can process spoken English and produce written English, systems which can translate between the different languages such as English and French or even systems which can extract the most important information from electronic texts.

Applied Computational Linguistics in DCU?

The aim of the course here in DCU is to give the students the necessary skills required to develop computer programs which can be used for the processing of human speech and writing. In general the applications used for the recognition, production, translation and analysis of human speech have become increasingly more successful. The ACL degree takes four years to complete. There are practical applications on computer of the many theories learnt. Especially interesting courses in fourth year are machine translation, speech, semantics and psycholinguistics.

The first and second year.

In first year an introduction to linguistics offers a general overview to the main areas of linguistics as a basis for a later in depth study of the specific areas involved. There are introductory courses in syntax, semantics, phonology and morphology in the first two years. An intermediate knowledge of a second language such as German, French or Spanish is a prerequisite of the course.

In the software labs practical instruction on working with computers is provided whereby the students become familiar with the UNIX operating system along with the programming languages which are most relevant for computational linguistics such as C++, Prolog and Java.

The third year of the course is spent at a host university abroad. All students therefore get a chance to improve their foreign language skills and also to have a lot of fun.

In the final year the students can specialise in some area of linguistics which they found especially interesting. They can choose from a range of different courses on offer and they must also develop a final year project of their choice. The courses on offer here in DCU are very interesting, exciting and up to date!

For Example:


Computer Applications also offers many courses:



Web parser showing linguistic diagrams output in a Java applet's canvas
Web parser showing linguistic diagrams output in a Java applet's canvas


For more information on computers, linguistics or languages, please click here. Thank you!