Towards an Automated Approach to Text Summarization

By Richard, K & Badaki, V. J Introduction Until the last quarter of the 20th century, language teaching and learning was influenced by two tendencies: comparative linguistics studies of the 19th century and theories and methods of descriptive linguistics (Crystal 1994). Now there is a new perspective that stems from recent advancement in information technology which revolutionized language pedagogy such that most areas of language studies have been profoundly affected. In phonetics for instance, a new generation of instrumentation is gaining currency in auditory, acoustic and articulatory research (Crystal1994).In graphology, image scanners enable large quantities of text to be processed quickly and image enhancing techniques magnify obscure graphic patterns in old manuscripts. In grammar, huge corpora of spoken and written language make possible studies of structures in unprecedented details and in unprecedented varieties (McEnery&Wilson, 1994). Similarly, discourse analyses are both motivating and beneficial from research in human and computer interaction(). Other areas also affected include ESL research, sociolinguistics, child language acquisition studies and corpus linguistics (Meskil&Rangelova1997, Beauvois1998). In this paper, we highlight the shortcomings of the traditional approach to summary writing which is rooted in the descriptive tradition of epistemology and illustrate a new language technology tool called TOPICALIZER as a complimentary Language Teaching Strategy to language teachers. Shortcomings of the Traditional Approach to Text Summarization
The traditional approach to summary writing in a Second Language class, after students might have read a text, involves a number of tasks. These tasks include reading the text more than once, making notes on the main points and expanding on the notes. Chambers and Brigham (1989) argue that pedagogic defects

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