On the evening of April 11, 2025, SFS hosted Lecture 275 of the Foreign Languages and Culture Forum, which is also the 28th lecture of the Corpus Linguistics Masterclass Series.
Professor Paul Rayson, Director of UCREL at Lancaster University, was invited to deliver a lecture titled Recent Advances in Techniques, Tools and Applications of Multilingual Semantic Analysis. Tony McEnery, Distinguished Professor at Lancaster University and Chair Professor at XJTU, attended the event.
The forum followed its format of dialogue, lecture, and Q&A session. During the dialogue, Professors McEnery and Rayson exchanged insights on the current opportunities and challenges facing the fields of natural language processing and artificial intelligence. They underscored the importance of collaborative research and offered practical advice for early-career researchers on selecting research topics based on research motivation and long-term career development.
In his lecture, Professor Rayson highlighted the latest developments in semantic analysis technologies through examples of USAS and Wmatrix—semantic annotation tools developed by his team. He emphasized their adaptability in multilingual settings and showcased the applications in sectors such as healthcare, cybersecurity, and child protection. The event concluded with a Q&A session, where Professor Rayson responded to audience questions regarding the usage and future potential of semantic analysis tools.
The forum provided a platform for participants to gain deeper insights into the latest advancements in semantic annotation, as well as the development and application of related tools.
