2nd Call for Papers: CC-NLG, Computational Creativity in Natural Language Generation

[Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira]

Computational Creativity in Natural Language Generation (CC-NLG)

A workshop at the International Natural Language Generation Conference (INLG 2017)

Santiago Compostela, Spain, 4th September 2017

http://www.ccnlg.org/

CC-NLG 2017 aims to bring together researchers dealing with text generation from a computational creativity (CC) perspective, and researchers in natural language generation (NLG) with an interest in creative aspects, while also discussing the crossovers in CC and NLG, as well as looking to dialogue systems and their creative possibilities, for example in social networks.

Discussions at CC-NLG will cover the distinct approaches of CC and NLG brought about by their respective focuses; research in computational creativity has tended to deal less with technical shifts, directed instead at cognition, aesthetics, and novelty; whilst NLG research has tended to focus on the technical and theoretical challenges of topics like readability. However, in recent years this distinction has become far less defined. NLG research deals actively with concepts of style, variation, poetics, and narrative, whilst creative researchers are developing robust implementations. This change can be seen in dialogue systems, where the usability of an interface relies on it handling spontaneous user input. For example, a virtual teacher should be able to process 'Why can't pigs fly?', and a shopping assistant should be able to handle 'What cool movies are out?', while a humorous Twitterbot should be able to digest today's news. These are just a few examples in the broad domain of CC + NLG.

Research contributions are solicited on work that takes creativity into a general context, showing how the facets of creative language also enrich useful language. The workshop will still focus on core issues in computational creativity, like narrative, poetics, and humour, yet look to its communicative side. This will be of interest to researchers from computational creativity itself, as well as those looking to apply creative methods within other text generation systems.

# Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

* Poetry Generation

* Story Generation

* Generation of Metaphor, Figurative and Rhetorical Language

* Generation of Verbal Humor

* Personality and Emotion in NLG

* Creative Data-to-Text Models

* Interactive Language Generation

* Character-based Generation

* Style Generation

# Paper submission:

Papers are to be submitted through the Easychair, at:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccnlg2017

They should follow the INLG submission format and length limits. We are happy to accept both long papers (8+2 pages) and short papers (4+1 pages). Check instructions at:  https://eventos.citius.usc.es/inlg2017/submissions

Accepted papers will be included as INLG Workshop Proceedings on the ACL Anthology. Dual submission with INLG 2017 is permitted, provided that authors notify us on submission, and withdraw from one venue after acceptance on the other.

# Invited talk:

The workshop will feature an invited talk by Tony Veale:

"A Feast for the Senses in 140 Characters or Less -- Making Generation More Personal, Affective and Perceptually Grounded". (more information at http://www.ccnlg.org/)

# Important dates:

* Submissions due: June 2, 2017

* Notification of acceptance: July 3, 2017

* Early registration deadline: July 15, 2017

* Camera-ready papers due: July 20, 2017

* Workshop: September 4, 2017

* INLG Conference: September 4-7, 2017

# Organising Committee:

Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira, University of Coimbra, Portugal

Ben Burtenshaw, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Mike Kestemont, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Tom De Smedt, University of Antwerp, Belgium

# Programme Committee:

Alessandro Valitutti, University College Dublin

Amílcar Cardoso, University of Coimbra

Ben Burtenshaw, University of Antwep

Carlos León, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Cyril Labbe, Université Grenoble

Ehud Reiter, University of Aberdeen

Folgert Karsdorp, Meertens Institute

François Portet, Université Grenoble Alpes

Hannu Toivonen, University of Helsinki

Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira, University of Coimbra

Matthew Purver, Queen Mary University of London

Mike Kestemont, University of Antwerp

Pablo Gervás, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Rafael Pérez y Pérez, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana at Cuajimalpa

Raquel Hervás, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Tom De Smedt, University of Antwerp

Tony Veale, University College Dublin

Sascha Griffiths, Universität Hamburg