Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Framework for Explainable NLP -- Local-Backward Explanations -- Global-Backward Explanations -- Local-Forward Explanations of Intermediate Representations -- Global-Forward Explanations of Intermediate Representations -- Local-Forward Explanations of Continuous Output -- Global-Forward Explanations of Continuous Output -- Local-Forward Explanations of Discrete Output -- Global-Forward Explanations of Discrete Output -- Evaluating Explanations -- Perspectives -- Resources -- Bibliography -- Author's Biography .

This book presents a taxonomy framework and survey of methods relevant to explaining the decisions and analyzing the inner workings of Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. The book is intended to provide a snapshot of Explainable NLP, though the field continues to rapidly grow. The book is intended to be both readable by first-year M.Sc. students and interesting to an expert audience. The book opens by motivating a focus on providing a consistent taxonomy, pointing out inconsistencies and redundancies in previous taxonomies. It goes on to present (i) a taxonomy or framework for thinking about how approaches to explainable NLP relate to one another; (ii) brief surveys of each of the classes in the taxonomy, with a focus on methods that are relevant for NLP; and (iii) a discussion of the inherent limitations of some classes of methods, as well as how to best evaluate them. Finally, the book closes by providing a list of resources for further research on explainability.