Yuqing Zhang


Computational Linguistics Group
Faculty of Arts
University of Groningen

yuqing.zhang@rug.nl
Google Scholar

Greetings

I'm a PhD student at the University of Groningen. I am a member of the Computational Linguistics Group, supervised by Arianna Bisazza, Tessa Verhoef and Gertjan van Noord.

My main research focuses on multi-agent emergent communication. Specifically, I want to develop methods to simulate the emergence and cultural evolution of linguistic structure through neural network agent-based computational modeling, and explore more realistic settings of language learning and communication in simulation frameworks, so as to investigate how internal and external pressures shape the emergence of language universals, with the ultimate goal of endowing neural language learners with human-like word order preferences.

I was born in Shanxi, China. I obtained my master degree in Language Intelligence and Technology at Beijing Language and Culture University and my bachelor degree in English (Linguistics) at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Current Research Interest
  • Language universals (e.g., word order preferences)
  • Emergent communication & reinforcement learning
  • Neural network-based simulation of language evolution

Updates

  • [02/08/23]: I gave a presentation "NeLLCom: A New Framework for Studying the Emergence of Language Universals with Neural Agents" at ESSLLI 2023 workshop Internal and external pressures shaping language on behalf of our evolang-nlp group.
  • [16/06/23]: I gave a poster presentation about preliminary results "Do neural networks display a dependency length minimization (DLM) principle like humans?" at TABU Dag 2023.
  • [01/11/22]: I joined the Computational Linguistics Group to start my PhD journey.
  • ...
Plain Academic