Future Directions in Natural Language Processing: The Bolt Beranek and Newman Natural Language Symposium

in NLP was held at Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 29 November to 1 December 1989. The workshop was organized and hosted by Madeleine Bates and Ralph Weischedel of the BBN Speech and Natural Language Department and sponsored by BBN’s Science Development Program. Thirty-six leading researchers and government representatives gathered to discuss the direction of the field of natural language processing (NLP) over the next 5 to 10 years. The intent of the symposium was “to make the conference and resulting volume an intellectual landmark for the field of NLP.” This brief article summarizes the invited papers and strategic planning discussions of the workshop.