Gordon, Colin S.
Onward! Essays, October 2024, doi: 10.1145/3689492.3689806
Abstract
Bibtex
@inproceedings{onward24,
author = {Gordon, Colin S.},
title = {The Linguistics of Programming},
abbr = {Onward!},
booktitle = {Onward! Essays},
year = {2024},
address = {Pasadena, California, USA},
month = {October},
bibtex_show = {true},
youtube = {https://youtu.be/cMR6UD60KuQ},
doi = {10.1145/3689492.3689806},
acm = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689492.3689806},
abstract = { Research in programming languages and software engineering are
broadly concerned with the study of aspects of computer programs:
their syntactic structure, the relationship between form and
meaning (semantics), empirical properties of how they are
constructed and deployed, and more. We could equally well apply
this description to the range of ways in which linguistics
studies the form, meaning, and use of natural language. We argue
that despite some notable examples of PL and SE research drawing
on ideas from natural language processing, there are still a
wealth of concepts, techniques, and conceptual framings
originating in linguistics which would be of use to PL and SE
research. Moreover we show that beyond mere parallels, there are
cases where linguistics research has complementary methodologies,
may help explain or predict study outcomes, or offer new
perspectives on established research areas in PL and SE. Broadly,
we argue that researchers across PL and SE are investigating
close cousins of problems actively studied for years by linguists
, and familiarity with linguistics research seems likely to bear
fruit for many PL and SE researchers. },
}