Title: A Theory of Semantic Communication Show Chinese title

Title: 语义通信理论

Abstract: Semantic communication is an emerging research area that has gained a wide range of attention recently. Despite this growing interest, there remains a notable absence of a comprehensive and widely-accepted framework for characterizing semantic communication. This paper introduces a new conceptualization of semantic communication and formulates two fundamental problems, which we term language exploitation and language design. Our contention is that the challenge of language design can be effectively situated within the broader framework of joint source-channel coding theory, underpinned by a comprehensive end-to-end distortion metric. To tackle the language exploitation problem, we put forth three approaches: semantic encoding, semantic decoding, and a synergistic combination of both in the form of combined semantic encoding and decoding. Furthermore, we establish the semantic distortion-cost region as a critical framework for assessing the language exploitation problem. For each of the three proposed approaches, the achievable distortion-cost region is characterized. Overall, this paper aims to shed light on the intricate dynamics of semantic communication, paving the way for a deeper understanding of this evolving field. Show Chinese abstract

Abstract: 语义通信是一个新兴的研究领域，近年来引起了广泛关注。 尽管对此领域的兴趣日益增长，但仍然缺乏一个全面且广泛接受的框架来描述语义通信。 本文引入了语义通信的新概念，并提出了两个基本问题，我们称之为语言利用和语言设计。 我们认为，语言设计的挑战可以在联合信源信道编码理论的更广泛框架内得到有效定位，这一框架由一个全面的端到端失真度量所支持。 为了解决语言利用问题，我们提出了三种方法：语义编码、语义解码，以及两者结合的协同组合形式，即联合语义编码和解码。 此外，我们建立了语义失真-成本区域作为评估语言利用问题的关键框架。 对于每种提出的方法，都对其可实现的失真-成本区域进行了描述。 总体而言，本文旨在揭示语义通信的复杂动态，为深入理解这一不断发展的领域铺平道路。