Sofie Johansson Kokkinakis

Ph. D. in Language Technology, MA. in Computational Linguistics
Researcher in language technology and Director of the Institute for Swedish as a Second Language, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg.
Email: sofie@svenska.gu.se
Tel: +46(0)31-7864203

Research interests

• Language technology
• Computer-based lexical and content related analysis of text (in particular secondary school text books and student written texts)
• Lexical profiling and readability
• Genre specific texts and academic language use
• Morpho-syntactic and semantic analysis
• Computer-based assessment of language skills
• Corpus linguistics and learner corpora
• Intelligent computer-assisted language learning

Present employment

Senior Researcher at the Department of Swedish at University of Gothenburg, Språkbanken and the Institute for Swedish as a Second Language. I have been employed at the university since1991. I work 70% with research related issues and 30% as Director of the research institute for Swedish as a Second Language.

Supervision of PhD Students

• Katarina Heimann Mühlenbock (Language Technology, GSLT), main supervisor.
• Carola Ribeck (Language Technology), main supervisor.
• Karin Cavallin (Language Technology), co-supervisor.
• Ninni Sirén-Blomgren, licentiate student in Humanities and educational science, graduated 2011, main supervisor.

Teaching

• Computational lexicology, post-graduate level, 2011
• Corpus linguistics, post-graduate level, 2011

Board member

• the department of Swedish at University of Gothenburg
• the Centre for Language Technology, University of Gothenburg
• the national graduate school in Language studies, mathematics and natural sciences, financed by the Swedish National Council of Research (also co-applicant, supervisor and teacher)
• the national master program in Swedish as a Second Language
• the national network Samspråk (focusing on issues related to education in Swedish as a Second Language)

Project manager of research projects

• Measuring the vocabulary, 2009-ongoing, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The project involves development of methods and techniques for computer-based assessment of the vocabulary of multilingual students. Development of computer-based tools and implementing language technology.
• EU-project Kelly - Keywords for Language Learning for Young and adults alike (2009-ongoing). Lifelong Learning KA2. Financed by the EU. (Scientific management group, responsible for research and development in the Swedish part of the project. The project has nine European partners. The project aim is to develop a multilingual tool for language learning involving nice languages.
• Using ICT - Information and Communication Technology - for language analysis in teacher training educational settings (2011-ongoing). Financed by the University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Educational science. Development of a computer-based platform for textual analysis in the teachers training programme.
• Qase - Quantitative Analysis of upper-secondary mono- and multilingual student written texts (2009-ongoing). Financed by the Institute for Swedish as a Second Language. Development of computer-based tools for quantitative analysis of student written texts with focus on language development of multilingual students in upper-secondary school.
• BIGFOT - Bedömning av grundskolans ämnestexter med hjälp av frekvensbaserat ordförrådstest. Assessment of under-graduate subject specific school book texts. 2009-2011. Financed by the Institute for Swedish as a Second Language, University of Gothenburg.
• Grus - Studies of student written texts with focus on computer-based writing (2011-ongoing). Financed by the Institute for Swedish as a Second Language. The project aims at constructing a database of student written texts to be used to assessment and research purposes. The project will focus on studying language development and challenges of analyzing student writing from the age of 6 to 18 years old.

Editor

• Research reports on Swedish as a Second Language, Department of Swedish, University of Gothenburg.
• Guest editor: Language Resources and Evaluation Journal (LREJ), Springer Verlag – Special Issue on Resources and Tools for Language Learners, 2012.

Reviewer

• Scandinavian conference of Linguistics (SCL) 2008
• Swedish Language Technology Conference (SLTC) 2008
• European Chapter of the Association of Computational Linguistics (EACL) 2009
• Swedish Language Technology Conference (SLTC) 2010
• North American Association of Computational Linguistics (NAACL) 2010
• 2nd Intl Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies (SLPAT) 2011

Awards

• Awarded scholarship for researchers by GU Holding at University of Gothenburg, 2010.

Previously working with

• Språkbanken, GU, 2005-2006. Databaskonstruktion för sökning i ordklasstaggad text.
• Språkbruk, 2002-2008. Institutet för svenska som andraspråk, GU. Skapa databas för lagring och sökning i material med web-baserat gränssnitt.
• Språkbanken, GU, 2000-2001. Utveckling av en ordklasstaggare, EPOS med SMDB (Svensk Morfologisk DataBas), för disambiguering av svenska texter.
• Ett flerspråkigt programmeringsverktyg och databas med fokus på narkotika (AVENTINUS), finansierat av Europeiska unionen, 1996-1999. Utveckling av en lemmatiserare och integrering av språkteknologiska analysverktyg i GATE-miljön.  SÖKVERKTYG
• Datorstödd grammatisk analys i svenska (DAGAS), Inst. för svenska språket, GU, 1995-1996. Utveckling av datorstödda övningar i grammatisk analys inom svenskämnet med fokus på ordklasstaggning. DAGAS
• OSA - SAOB (Svenska Akademiens Ordbok), fin. av Svenska Akademien, 1994-1999. Standardisering av lexikaliska resurser (TEI), utveckling av gränssnitt och sökrutiner för WWW, utveckling av en bibliografisk databas i web-format.  SAOB
• Språkbanken, GU, 1994-1996. Standardisering av elektroniska texter (TEI), arbete med Brill Tagger och ordklasstaggning av svenska texter.
• DISA (Datorstöd i språkundervisningen), GU, 1993. Utveckling av ett språkoberoende CALL-verktyg för lärare och studenter.   DISA
• SAOL (Svenska Akademiens Ordlista), fin. av Svenska Akademien, 1993-1994. Standardisering och databasutveckling av lexikaliska resurser. SAOL
• DELTA-projektet, Psykologiska inst., GU, 1992-1994. Utveckling av multimediala system för att stimulera språkinlärning för barn med olika typer av motoriska handikapp. DELTA
• IKITS, magisteruppsats från Datalingvistlinjen, GU, 1992. An Intelligent Tutoring System for Chinese. IKITS