The 28th International AFRILEX Conference: Keynote Speakers
International Keynote:
Prof. Sven Tarp, School of Communication and Culture, Centre for Lexicography, Aarhus University.
Bio: Sven Tarp is a Sworn Translator and Interpreter, Professor of Spanish and Director of the Centre for Lexicography at Aarhus University (Denmark). He is also Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University (South Africa), collaborator of the International Lexicography Centre at Valladolid University (Spain) and Yun Shan Professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (China).
With a Ph.D. in Specialised Lexicography (1993) and a Senior Doctorate (Dr.ling.merc.) in Learner’s Lexicography (2006), he is one of the founders of the Function Theory of Lexicography and has published a large number of articles in journals and monographs.
He is the editor, author or co-author of 17 dictionaries and several books on lexicography such as Manual of Specialised Lexicography (Benjamins 1995), Lexicography in the Borderland Between Knowledge and Non-knowledge (Niemeyer 2008), Lexicography at a Crossroads: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Today, Lexicographical Tools Tomorrow (Peter Lang 2009), Lexicography in the 21st Century (John Benjamins 2009), and Theory and Practice of Specialised Online Dictionaries (De Gruyter 2014). His most recent book is Introducción a la Lexicografía en Español: Funciones y Aplicaciones (Routledge 2024), written together with Dr Antoni Nomdedeu Rull.
He is currently working together with the Danish company Ordbogen A/S on the development of an AI-based writing assistant for foreign learners of Spanish. In this context, he is researching the usefulness and limitations of generative AI language models as a means of increasing productivity, as well as the new and changing relationship between the human and the artificial lexicographer
Keynote title: Lexicography has a bright future: Shifting the focus from dictionaries to databases
African Keynote:
Prof. Sonja Bosch, Professor emerita, Department of African languages, UNISA
Bio: Sonja E Bosch holds the position of Emerita Professor and Professor Extraordinaria in the Department of African Languages at the University of South Africa. She has a National Research Foundation Rating.
Her extensive research interests encompass natural language processing of Nguni languages, with a focus on morphological analysis, syntax and e-lexicography. She has been involved in various notable research projects, including Scientific e-Lexicography for Africa (SeLA) in collaboration with the Universities of Hildesheim, Pretoria, Stellenbosch and Namibia, funded by DAAD (2012 to 2015), New Methods in NLP for South African Languages in collaboration with the University of Leipzig, funded by the Erasmus+ Mobility Grant (2017-2021), and the African Wordnet Project, funded by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) from 2017 onwards. Her contributions to computational morphological analysis and the expansion of the African Wordnet highlight her commitment to the technological advancement of African languages.
Beyond her academic achievements, she has held a number of professional positions, including being a Board Member of the European Language Resources Association (ELRA), Chairperson of the Human Language Technology Expert Panel (HLTEP), and currently serving as Vice-President of the African Association for Lexicography (AFRILEX). She is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and also serves on the editorial boards of the academic journals Language Matters and Literator.
Keynote title: Lexicography beyond dictionaries ─ Exploring Semantic Relations in African Wordnets.