Featured Research: Language & Communication

Story

RE.SEARCH Issue 4: Transdisciplinary

Our latest issue of RE.SEARCH is out and focuses on how the University of Pretoria (UP) is implementing transdisciplinary research to co-create new knowledge to develop solutions and design new futures for us all.

Talking Point

A new way to name bacteria: 300-year-old system revised thanks to scientific advances

Nearly 300 years ago the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus secured his place in scientific history when he created what’s known as the binomial system. The year was 1737 and, due to the large diversity of plants and animals collected by naturalist explorers in different parts of the world, Linnaeus saw the need to develop a logical system to classify and group this material in a systematic way.

Lecture

'Riendzo ri lehile: Tackling Natural Language Processing for African languages to make better sense of our world'

Low-resourced languages pose an interesting challenge for machine learning algorithms, representation, data collection and accessibility of machine learning in general. For African languages this challenge is even more consequential as it also coincides with the challenges of shaping the current revolution in artificial intelligence with the global landscape. In this talk I present our research...

Talking Point

Four novelists, one ocean: how Indian Ocean literature can remap the world

Novels make worlds. They create an intuitive sense and mental image of a place. And the senses of space produced by fiction shape how readers see the world itself, just like maps do.

Talking Point

Curious Kids: do cats and dogs understand us when we miaow or bark?

Do cats and dogs understand humans when they make miaowing or barking noises?

Video

Giving a voice to persons with disabilities

Researchers at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) are working to stop the abuse of the human rights of persons with disabilities. The researchers want to help victims with Complex Communication Needs.