This is a good question.

To see a sample of current research projects in natural language processing (NLP), see 

https://www.researchgate.net/topic/Natural-Language-Processing

and

https://www.researchgate.net/topic/Statistical-Natural-Language-Processing

More to the point, here is a sample collection of NLP papers of interest, starting with a review of NLP:

REVIEW ON NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235788362_REVIEW_ON_NATURAL_LANGUAGE_PROCESSING

See, also:

White paper on natural language processing

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234826005_White_paper_on_natural_language_processing

Big Data Driven Natural Language Processing Research and Applications

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280527334_Big_Data_Driven_Natural_Language_Processing_Research_and_Applications

Article White paper on natural language processing

Article REVIEW ON NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Chapter Big Data Driven Natural Language Processing Research and Applications

 Prof. Peters,

Thank you very much for a speedy reply!

Rosanne

Sorry I can't be of any help in this regard. 

Dear Rachel Rossane Eidleman,

Generally speaking, NLP models are engineering systems whose main goal is to effectively process natural language corpora in order to fathom out the way human speech is produced and understood. As you have very rightly observed, on-line chats comprise one of the typical instances of human speech, which need to be analyzed and simulated through machine level processing. For further details, I refer you to the following links, which can hopefully satisfy the targeted question.

Best regards,

R. biria

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=364212115

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3642239854

https://www.researchgate.net/.../228532457_Im_chattin-_u_wanna_NLP_it_Analyzing_

Thank you very much Prof. Biria, for your reply and recommendation!

Much appreciated,

Rosanne Eidelman