Bonn Talks on Research Trends in Applied Linguistics

*Large Language Models for Linguistic Analysis: Powerful Tools or Overhyped?*

Iris Ferrazzo, Bonn Centre for Digital Humanities

Large language models (LLMs) have become part of everyday life, and we increasingly rely on their seemingly exceptional performance. But are they truly this powerful when it comes to concrete applications such as linguistic analysis? This talk explores the capabilities and limitations of LLMs in the context of empirical linguistic research. Beginning with an overview of their architecture and underlying principles, the discussion will examine both the strengths of LLMs, such as their performance in language understanding and generation tasks, and their shortcomings, including bias, opacity, and hallucination. The second part of the talk investigates how LLMs perform on concrete linguistic tasks, providing a critical assessment of their performance in real-world analysis.

Friday, May 9, 2.15 - 3.45 pm, CEST

Register here: https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/sKFooDgRRqm0_PLtU-fYvg

Prof. Dr. Robert Fuchs | Head of Department and Professor of English Linguistics | Department of English, American and Celtic Studies | University of Bonn | Rabinstr. 8 53113 Bonn, Germany | https://uni-bonn.academia.edu/RFuchs | https://www.iaak.uni-bonn.de/bael/en/people/chair/prof-dr-robert-fuchs | https://sites.google.com/view/rflinguistics/

*Recent publications:* Fuchs, R. et al. (to appear). *Non-standard morphosyntactic variation in L2 English varieties world-wide: A corpus-based study https://www.academia.edu/129153158/Fuchs_etal25_Non_standard_morphosyntactic_variation_in_L2_English_varieties_world_wide*. Lingua. Fuchs, R., Wiltshire, C. & Sarmah, P. (to appear). *The role of English in the linguistic ecology of Northeast India https://www.academia.edu/125365118/The_role_of_English_in_the_linguistic_ecology_of_Northeast_India*. In P. Siemund, et al. (Eds.), /World Englishes in their Local Multilingual Ecologies/. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Fuchs, R. (to appear). *Influencing people around the globe - The linguistic expression of persuasion across varieties of English worldwide* https://www.academia.edu/107491904/Influencing_people_around_the_globe_The_linguistic_expression_of_persuasion_across_varieties_of_English_worldwide_In_Dayter_Daria_and_Sofia. In D. Dayter, & S. Rüdiger (Eds.), /Manipulation, Influence, and Deception: The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language/. Cambridge: CUP. Lange, C., & Fuchs, R. (to appear). *English in India*. In R. Hickey & K. Burridge (Eds.), /New Cambridge History of the English Language/. Cambridge: CUP.