1.1 Introduction
Natural Language processing is a branch of computer science, artificial intelligence and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) language. Natural languages are languages spoken by humans. Natural language processing came into existence to ease the user’s work and to satisfy the wish to communicate with the computer in natural language. Since all the users may not be well-versed in machine specific language, NLP caters those users who do not have enough time to learn new languages or get perfection in it. A language can be defined as a set of rules or set of symbol. Symbol are combined and used for conveying information or broadcasting the information. Symbols are tyrannized by the Rules.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Natural language processing (NLP) has recently gained much attention for representing and analyzing human language computationally. NLP applications comprise a number of fields of studies, such as natural language text processing and summarization, machine translation, user interfaces, multilingual and cross language information retrieval, speech recognition, artificial intelligence and expert systems, and so on (Jusoh et al., 2007; Ringger et al., 2004).
Most of the work in Natural Language Processing is conducted by computer scientists while various other professionals have also shown interest such as linguistics, psychologist and philosophers etc. One of the most ironical aspects of NLP is that it adds up to the knowledge of human language. The field of Natural Language Processing is related with different theories and techniques that deal with the problem of natural language of communicating with the computers. Ambiguity is one of the major problem of natural language which is usually faced in syntactic level which has subtask as lexical and morphology which are concerned with the study of words and word formation. Each of these levels can produce ambiguities that can be solved by the knowledge of the complete sentence.
The importance of NLP in processing the input text to be synthesized is reflected. The naturalness of the speech utterances produced by the signal-processing modules is tightly bound to the performance of the previous text-processing modules. In ASR the use of NLP particularly is complementary (Zhou et al., 2003). Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a tract of Artificial Intelligence and Linguistics, devoted to make computers understand the statements or words written in human languages.
Liddy (2001) defines NLP as a theoretically motivated range of computational techniques for analyzing and representing naturally occurring texts, at one or more levels of linguistic analysis for the purpose of achieving human-like language processing for a range of tasks or applications. The term NLP is normally used to describe the function of software or hardware components in a computer system which analyze or synthesize spoken or written language (Jackson et al., 2012). The natural epithet is meant to distinguish human speech and writing from more formal languages, such as mathematical notations or programming languages, where vocabulary and syntax are comparatively restricted (Jackson et al., 2012).
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Relevance of Natural Language Processing in Computing.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that misspelled or misused words can create problems for text analysis. Autocorrect and grammar correction applications can handle common mistakes, but don't always understand the writer's intention. The field of Natural Language Processing is related with different theories and techniques that deal with the problem of natural language of communicating with the computers.
Also, ambiguity is one of the major problems of natural language which is usually faced in syntactic level which has subtask as lexical and morphology which are concerned with the study of words and word formation. Each of these levels can produce ambiguities that can be solved by the knowledge of the complete sentence.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to examine the Relevance of Natural Language Processing in Computing. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To examine the human words used during natural language processing;
- To assess computer systems that are able to analyze natural languages; and
- To examine the factors inhibiting the use of Natural Language Processing in Computing.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Are the factors inhibiting the use of Natural Language Processing in Computing?
- What are the human words used during natural language processing?
- What are the computer systems that are able to analyze natural languages?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: There are no significant factors inhibiting the use of Natural Language Processing in Computing
- H1: There are significant factors inhibiting the use of Natural Language Processing in Computing
1.7 Significance of Study
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Relevance of Natural Language Processing in Computing.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
