North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) 2020

语言学是研究语言的科学。语言学家对世界上6,000多种语言的结构进行正式研究，调查典型和非典型人群中语言的习得和使用，寻求理解使人类能够学习和使用语言的神经结构，并创建用于计算环境的语言模型，如人工智能和机器翻译。该领域的广泛应用使其对技术和医学进步、全球经济中的经济竞争力、人道主义援助和美国国家安全至关重要。鉴于该领域对国家的多方面重要性，投入资源向高中生介绍该领域至关重要，并招募该国最聪明的人才从事语言学职业。该项目支持北美计算语言学公开赛（NACLO），其使命是向高中生介绍语言学，为感兴趣的学生提供培训，为他们的教师提供支持，选择和指导代表美国参加国际语言学奥林匹克竞赛（IOL）的美国学生团队，并支持美国语言学会（LSA）目前的工作，重点是创建和促进高中生语言学的先修课程的教学。具体而言，该赠款支持与培训来自美国各地的八名高中语言学家团队并护送他们参加2020年IOL相关的费用。自2007年以来，参加IOL的美国团队成员中约有25%继续参与语言学和语言技术领域。几乎所有的团队成员都在大学里学习语言学课程，为他们的学习和未来的职业生涯带来了更广阔的语言视野。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Linguistics is the science of language. Linguists conduct formal studies of the structure of the world’s over 6,000 languages, investigate the acquisition and use of language in typical and atypical populations, seek to understand the neural structures that enable humans to learn and use language, and create the language models used in computational contexts, such as artificial intelligence and machine translation. The breadth of the field’s applications makes it vital to technological and medical advancements, economic competitiveness in a global economy, humanitarian aid, and U.S. national security. Given the multi-faceted importance of the field for the country, it is crucial to devote resources to the introduction of this field to high school students, and to recruit the brightest minds in the country to pursue careers in linguistics.This project supports the North American Computational Linguistics Open competition (NACLO) in its mission to introduce linguistics to high school students, to provide training to interested students and support to their teachers, to select and coach the team of U.S. students that represent the country at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), and to support the current work of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) focused on creating and promoting the teaching of an Advanced Placement course in linguistics for high school students. Specifically, the grant supports the costs associated with training a team of eight high school linguists from across the United States and escorting them to the 2020 IOL. Since 2007, about twenty-five percent of US team members who attend IOL have continuing involvement with the fields of linguistics and language technologies. Nearly all team members take linguistics courses in college, bringing a broadened view of language to their studies and future careers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.