Kirrkirr: A Java-based visualisation tool for XML dictionaries of Australian Languages

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Kirrkirr A Java-based visualisation tool for XML
dictionaries of Australian Languages

• Kevin Jansz
• Department of Computer Science, University of
  Sydney, Australia
• Christopher Manning
• Computer Science and Linguistics, Stanford
  University, USA
• Nitin Indurkhya
• School of applied Science, Nanyang Technological
  University, Singapore

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Project Objectives

• providing innovative ways for representing a
  dictionary, through creative use of the medium of
  computers
• providing practical educationally useful programs
  as a result (at low labour cost)
• examining the richness of lexical structure
• Initial target the Warlpiri dictionary.

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Talk Outline

• The research agendas
• Kirrkirr A Warlpiri dictionary browser
• The Lexical Database
• exploiting the strengths of XML
• indexing XML data
• User interface and visualization
• User studies

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Research Program Lexicon

• A language is more than individual words with
  their definitions
• it is a vast network of associations between
  words and within and across the concepts
  represented by words
• The aim of this work is to provide people with a
  better understanding of this conceptual map.
• Traditional paper dictionaries offer very limited
  ways for making such networks visible
• On a computer, one can imagine all sorts of ways
  of bringing out such relationships

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Research Computational Lexicography

• Dictionaries on computers are now commonplace
• But there has been little attempt to utilize the
  potential of the new medium
• Goal fun dictionary tools that are effective for
  language learning, browsing, and research
• Special interest dictionaries for minority
  languages. Here economic, motivational, and user
  support reasons all point to an important role
  for computers.

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MRD Structure

• The internal structures of current Machine
  Readable Dictionaries (MRDs) usually merely mimic
  the structure of the printed form (Boguraev 1990)
• Some work, notably WordNet (Miller 1995) has
  involved a fundamental rethinking of dictionary
  content and organization (in WordNet,
  organization via synsets which are related via
  links of part, subkind, opposite)
• But there has been little in the way of software
  to make such research truly usable by different
  communities of users.

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Initial focusKirrkirr a Warlpiri browser

• Warlpiri is an Australian Aboriginal language
  spoken in the Tanami desert (NW of Alice)
• Rich lexical materials have been collected by
  linguists over decades (Ken Hale, MIT, from
  1950s) resulting in one of the most
  comprehensive lexical databases for any
  Australian Language
• There is a relatively large community of people
  interested in learning their traditional language
• Until now, results havent been produced in a
  format usable by the community (only raw
  printouts)
• Kirrkirr aims to build a computer interface for
  browsing the Warlpiri dictionary.

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Educational goals

• Dictionary structure and usability are often
  dictated by professional linguists, while the
  needs of others (speakers, semi-speakers, young
  users, second language learners) are not met
• Aim is to avoid this
• A low level of literacy makes an e-dictionary
  potentially more useful than a paper edition as
  it is less dependent on good knowledge of
  spelling and alphabetical order.
• Making it fun and easy to use, and providing
  multimedia content and the pronunciations of
  words is a considerable help as well.

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Target user community
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Kirrkirr A Warlpiri dictionary browser

• (Jansz 1998 Jansz, Manning and Indurkhya 1999)
• An environment for the interactive exploration of
  dictionaries.
• Although our current work has just been with
  Warlpiri, the design is general (Arrernte coming
  soon!)
• Attempts to more fully utilize graphical
  interfaces, hypertext, multimedia, and different
  ways of indexing and accessing information
• Written in Java, it can either be run over the
  web high bandwidth or run locally (here Javas
  main advantage is cross-platform support).

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Specific goals

• An interactive environment that encouraged
  exploration easy and fun to use
• Reduction of the dependence on alphabetical order
• Catering to the needs of different user groups
  (kids, teachers, professionals)
• Flexible enough to display appropriate
  information in appropriate ways depending on user
  level

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Overview

• Kirrkirr provides various modules
• Graph layout of word relationships
• Formatted dictionary entries
• Semantic domain browsing
• A notes facility for jotting in the margin
• Multimedia audio, pictures
• Advanced searching interfaces
• others in planning formatting (XSL) editing,
  figuration patterns
• These attempt to cater to users with different
  interests and competence levels

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(Kirrkirr screen shot)
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The lexical database

• Original materials are stored in an ad hoc format
  of markup using backslash codes with some (rather
  odd) nesting of structural tags
• These were converted to XML using an
  error-correcting stack-based parser (written in
  PERL).
• The inconsistency and flexibility of dictionary
  entries actually made this a surprisingly
  difficult task.
• But parser tries to impose data integrity
• Use of XML gives a clear structure to the data,
  and makes available many (free) tools

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XML

• XML separates the structure of the data from its
  presentation
• Much of the recent enthusiasm for XML has
  centered around representing simple and rigid
  structures such as database records
• The rich hierarchical and variable structure of
  dictionary entries is really more what something
  like XML excels at!
• Result remains a portable, tangible text file

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Alternative a standard database

• The obvious thing for storing a lot of data
• Has clear advantages structure, indexing, query
  language, relationships, integrity.
• Many people have suggested using a database for
  lexical data and some have actually done it
  (IITLEX, Austin and Nathan)
• But in general lexicographers oppose the
  rigidity, and, in practice, standard relational
  databases are quite ill-suited to dictionaries

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Problems with using a Relational Database

• Dictionary entries vary enormously in structure
• Data is fragmented
• Dictionaries are only loosely structured
• Same element can appear at many levels (dialect,
  cross-reference, )
• Database model is inflexible to extending the
  dictionary structure
• Lessens portability

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Alternative Object Databases

• Dictionary can be viewed as a set of entries
  (objects)
• Object-oriented databases for storage
• Problem retrieval via customized query languages
• Problem off-the-shelf products not widely
  accepted
• Proprietary storage formats reduce portability
• ObjectStore, Versant, Objectivity the main big
  vendors
• Restricted API places limits on extensibility
• Generic object browsers not suitable for
  dictionaries

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XML database

• Document Object Model widely accepted
• XML document can be searched and accessed
• XQL a recent (and evolving) W3C proposal for
  querying XML documents

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XQL - Potential

• An alternative to investigate for the future is
  using a standard query language such as XQL
  to get material out of the XML dictionary, rather
  than using our ad hoc index.
• At the moment not a huge issue since most
  retrieval is focussed on components of a
  particular word
• XQL standard not stable yet
• Very preliminary implementations from vendors

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Extracting information from an XML document

• Build an index of its contents
• Index contains details of what is where (in an
  XML document)
• Facilitates quick access to contents
• Two steps for extracting information look up
  index, then look up XML document
• A good index can considerably speed up the 2nd
  lookup.

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XML indexing - challenges

• Despite the various XML parsers available, it is
  surprising that there has been little
  consideration in making single entries
  retrievable from the file
• Present XML Parsers tend to put the entire XML
  document in memory (or its parsed tree form),
  before the data extraction process begins
• This is not practical when parsing significant
  XML databases (e.g., the Warlpiri dictionary is
  approx. 10Mb).

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XML Indexing - solutions

• The hierarchical structure of XML lends itself to
  indexing, as each separate entry in the XML file
  can be considered as a separate entity
• To make the Warlpiri dictionary usable for
  Kirrkirr an ad hoc indexing system was developed
• Uses a slightly modified Ælfred XML parser
• Entries are indexed by headword in a separate
  index file
• The system returns an XML document object
  containing the single dictionary entry,
  facilitating
• processing for related words (Graph layout)
• XSL processing to HTML

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XML Indexing - solutions (2)

• The use of the XML indexing process considerably
  improves efficiency as only requested entries are
  parsed, hence conserving time and bandwidth
• Once whole entries are parsed, they are kept
  temporarily in a cache
• Thus the system uses XML as a median between the
  structure and indexing of a relational database,
  and the freedom and functionality of text.

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Kirrkirrs XML Index Process
Index in Memory
Kirrkirr
XML document object
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Visualization of dictionary information

• For dictionaries with simple textual content
  behind them, there is little that can be done but
  an on-line reflection of a printed page
• But we want more than just definitions of words
  we want to know their relationships to other
  words, and the patterning in these relationships
• In a computational approach, the program can
  mediate between the lexical data and the user
• The interface can select from and choose how to
  present information (according to the users
  preferences) in many different ways

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Previous work

• Current systems present the search-dominated
  interface of classic Information Retrieval
  systems you type a word in a search box
• Results try to mimic, but are generally inferior
  to, the printed version of the dictionary
• Good feature rapid searching
• But these systems do little to utilize the
  captivating qualities of computers
  interactivity, user control and adaptability
  (Brown 1985).

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Previous work (2)

• Current systems are only effective when user has
  a clearly specified information need even here,
  we are ignoring the distinction between
  information gained and knowledge sought (Sharpe
  1995)
• Lack browsing, and chances for incidental or
  curiosity driven learning
• Lack tangibility and situatedness of paper
  ineffective for getting an idea of a collection
• We wish to exploit the essence of hypertext,
  which is click to explore browsing

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Previous work (3)

• Little research work (in corpus linguistics,
  visualization etc.) on dictionary visualization
• WordNet built a rich network of relationships,
  which fundamentally departed from the paper
  dictionary tradition, and has been used in many
  computational projects
• However very little has been done in the way of
  interfaces that make these relationships visible
  and intelligible to users.
• Graphical representations seem particularly
  important given our target users.

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Graph-based visualization

• There is a little previous work on graphical
  representations of dictionaries
• For instance, the visual-thesaurus by plumbdesign
  derived from WordNet
• But it is also a good demonstration of how
  chaotic and confusing graphical interfaces can
  become.

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Perils of visualization
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Graph-based visualization

• (Jansz 1998 Jansz, Manning and Indurkhya 1999)
• Classic graph layout problem
• Adapts work by Eades et al. (1998) and Huang et
  al. (1998) on visualization and navigation of WWW
  document linkages
• Uses the spring algorithm. Big advantage is that
  it is an iterative updating algorithm, and so
  gives an easy interactivity
• it wiggles and people can play with it.
• Clarity and simplicity of graph Software
  maintains a set of focus nodes to prevent
  overcrowding

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Educational advantages

• Alphabetical order is important, but
• A web of words offers other effective
  opportunities for learning
• A student can opportunistically explore words
  that are related in various ways
• Important semantic relationships can be
  understood

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Kirrkirr network display
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Kirrkirr network display
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Formatted dictionary entries

• Are produced automatically from the XML by using
  XSL (via James Clarks XT)
• XSL allows easy modeling of some user
  preferences.
• Most trivially, one can leave out information
  such as part of speech, or detailed definitions,
  which we do by providing several stylesheets to
  choose from
• This is useful as many users find information
  overload quite confusing and demotivating
• Can produce bilingual or monolingual dictionary
• Opportunities for various output styles, and
  formats such as RTF or TeX for printing.

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Formatted dictionary entries
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Rich typology of link types

• The semantically rich types of linkages present
  in a dictionary (synonym, antonym, hyponym,
  subheadword, variant, coverbs, ) solves one of
  the major problems of the web we have many link
  types with a clear semantic interpretation
• Use consistent color-coded text and edges to show
  these link types
• Gives a richer browsing experience
• Unlike HTML, you can tell where you are going
  before clicking

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Browsing

• Work (at PARC and elsewhere Pirolli et al. 1996)
  has stressed role for browsing as well as
  searching in information access
• It provides a context for learning
• We provide browsing in several ways
• conventional hypertext
• but with rich semantically-interpreted links
• their color-coding matches network edges
• network-based display of words
• Other methods being investigated
• browsing through semantic domains
• deriving terminology sets (words that are used
  together in culturally important activities)
  automatically from text corpora

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Other components

• Multimedia (currently pictures and audio)
• Can hear pronunciations / see objects
• Im keen to put in videos of Warlpiri sign
  language
• Advanced search page
• search various fields, regular expressions, etc.
• Notes one can annotate dictionary entries (to
  correct or personalize)

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User study

• Mim Corris (Yuendumu, Willowra)
• Jane Simpson (Lajamanu)
• User testing with primary and (lower) secondary
  students
• Observation of trainee Warlpiri literacy workers
• Comments from teachers, other adults etc.
• Purely qualitative observational study of
  dictionary use. (Doing anything much else would
  be difficult.)
• Initial reactions are very enthusiastic
• Could use as a basis for classroom activities
  (better with some further development games and
  puzzles)

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A positive anecdote

• One of the introductory Warlpiri literacy
  students, who had not been very interested in the
  literacy class, spent nearly 3/4 hour looking at
  Kirrkirr apparently in absorbed concentration.
  She wasnt especially interested in the sound and
  picture possibilities. She moved between words,
  scrolling along the list, typing in the search,
  clicking on the words in the network pane. She
  wasnt even put off when the dictionary
  definitions stopped appearing looking at the
  networks of words instead. This is quite unlike
  her attitude to the backslash coded electronic
  dictionary (where she lost interest quickly
  because of the difficulty for her of narrowing
  down searches). After the Kirrkirr demo she
  asked if she could have a printed dictionary to
  take away with her to use in camp to learn the
  words. I interpret this as a desire to learn
  words in her own time and place.

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Conclusions

• Kirrkirr is just a prototype of what one can do
  to develop new ways to visualize lexicons
• We have addressed the challenge of making
  dictionary information usable in the creation of
  an application which mediates between
  well-structured data and users needs for
  searching/browsing and presentation
• While we have focused our research on Warlpiri,
  the system can be easily applied to other
  languages

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Conclusions (cont.)

• ... The best future applications of MRDs in
  education will be those most able to respond to
  the insights and needs of their users (Kegl
  1995)
• Kirrkirr can be seen as a step towards the future
  of edictionaries

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