NLP, subfields, and tasks

Information about the real world exists in the form of structured data, typically generated by automated processes, or unstructured data, which, in the case of text, is created by direct human agency in the form of the written or spoken word. The process of observing real-world situations and using either automated processes or having humans perceive and convert that information into understandable data is very similar in both structured and unstructured data. The transformation of the observed world into unstructured data involves complexities such as the language of the text, the format in which it exists, variances among different observers in interpreting the same data, and so on. Furthermore, the ambiguity caused by the syntax and semantics of the chosen language, subtlety in expression, the context in the data, and so on, make the task of mining text data very difficult.

Next, we will discuss some high-level subfields and tasks that involve NLP and text mining...