1 / 20

Multilingual Aspects of Internet Governance

Multilingual Aspects of Internet Governance. Tatiana Ershova Institute of the Information Society Moscow, Russia. Linguistic Diversity 13 November 2007 2 nd Internet Governance Forum Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. WSIS Outcome Documents. Geneva Declaration states that

colby
Download Presentation

Multilingual Aspects of Internet Governance

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Multilingual Aspects of Internet Governance Tatiana Ershova Institute of the Information Society Moscow, Russia Linguistic Diversity 13 November 2007 2nd Internet Governance Forum Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  2. WSIS Outcome Documents • Geneva Declaration states that • creation of content in diverse languages and formats has a high priority in building an inclusive Information Society • promotion and preservation of diverse languages will further enrich the Information Society • Geneva Plan of Action encourages • governments • to design policies to promote the production of content suited to the linguistic and cultural context of the users • to support local content development, translation and adaptation • all stakeholders • to provide content that is relevant to the languages of individuals in the Information Society • to foster the creation of varied local and national content, including that in the language of users 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  3. Tunis Agenda and Synthesis Paper for the 2nd IGF Meeting • Tunis Agenda includes • “Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content” in its Action lines list • Synthesis Paper stresses importance of • promoting and protecting locally developed content • language communities in developing multilingual content 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  4. Problems to Consider • The number of non-English speaking Internet users has globally grown to 470 million since the 1990s (roughly two-thirds of all Internet users - CyberAtlas, 2003) • 4 broad categories of problems are being considered in the context of the multilingual Internet : • adaptations of writing systems in online environments • social interpretations of, and attitudes toward, such adaptation • language choice in multilingual contexts • gender and language dynamics in computer-mediated communication in non-English-speaking cultures [Introduction: The Multilingual Internet / by Brenda Danet & Susan C. Herring, 2003] 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  5. Adaptations of Writing Systems • Accommodating to multilingualism on the Internet requires that the writing systems of the world’s languages be representable in digital form • speakers of many languages initially had to cope with limitations of the ASCII character set when trying to communicate online • progress is due to the development of Unicode • Online communication is dependent on • whether those writing systems can enter their contributions in the language and script desired • whether recipients of messages have the technical access to receive them, and the literacy skills to read them The latter being a socio-economic problem 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  6. Adaptations of Writing Systems: Informal Cultures • Online communication entailed the development of informal written cultures with a number of specific linguistic and interactional features: • eccentric spelling (“padonki” sub-culture language in Russia) • the controversial use of the roman alphabet in online communication (Greeklish in Greece) • innovative punctuation (in Japan) • abbreviations • rebus writing • smileys • etc. 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  7. Attitudes toward New Adaptations • Three different trends • retrospective trend – new kinds of adaptations (incl. foreign-language influence) are seen as a threat to the national language and cultural heritage • prospective trend – new adaptations are regarded as a transitory phenomenon which will become negligible due to technological advances • resistive trend – points to the negative effects of globalization, and relates new adaptations to other communication and sociocultural practices 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  8. Language Choice Challenge • There is a need for lingua franca, that is why • world actively uses English and large regional languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Hindi • English, which is no one's native language is sometimes preferred in multilingual countries by specific communities (e.g. in Switzerland among medical students) • Machine translation vs lingua franca • may offer a promise of enabling smaller languages to survive • Google Translation, Columbus, ACCENT (Israel), ABBYY software (Russia), Lingvo (large hyper-text interactive dictionary), WebTranSite and others • can be used to avoid political problems (e.g. in Spain where the relationship between Catalan and Spanish is politically complex, everyone can communicate in his or her own preferred language) 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  9. Language Choice Challenge: Sophisticated Means • Automatic forming and translation of keywords in querying systems • Means of automatic speech processing • speech dialogue systems • oral vocabularies & translators • dictating machines • machines simulating a human voice • individual speech passports • systems of multilingual speech interpreters • Algorithmic analysis of the deep language structures • attempts have been made to create systems of artificial intelligence that would allow conducting deep analyses of historical roots and evolution of language structures and human cognition processes 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  10. Need for Sociolinguistic Research • More contexts must be studied before generalization becomes possible in terms of language choice • Machine translation algorithms intended to work on the Internet must take into account actual communication patterns • Answers to the following have to be found: • How, if at all, do norms of communication differ among speakers of other languages conversing online? • Does the tendency toward informality conflict with local norms regarding formality and status differences, and if so, how is this conflict resolved? 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  11. Linguistic Diversity: an Issue for Russia • Russian Federation is a multi-national state: • Over 180 ethnic groups with unique cultures and traditions live on its territory • Citizens of Russia speak more than 150 languages • The majority of these languages is possessed by less than 10 thousand people • Many of these languages are on the verge of disappearance 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  12. Linguistic Diversity: an Issue for Russia • Russia’s population is 142,4 million, but there are only 8 languages spoken by more than 1 millionpeople: • Russian (the overwhelming majority) • English (around 7 million) • Tatar (5,4 million) • German (2,9 million) • Ukrainian (1,8 million) • Bashkir (1,4) • Chechen and Chuvash (1,3 million each) 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  13. Linguistic Diversity: an Issue for Russia • 24 languages have an official status in RF: • Russian is a state language on the entire territory • 23 more languages are state languages of the ‘subjects of federation’ • Abazin, Adygei, Altai, Bashkir, Buryat, Ingush, Kabardian & Circassian, Kalmyk, Balkarian, Karachai & Balkarian, Komi, Nogai, Mari, Moksha, Ossetin, Tatar, Tuvinian, Udmurt, Khakass, Chechen, Chuvash, Erzya, Yakut 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  14. Linguistic Diversity: an Issue for Russia • Russia’s languages belong to 14 linguistic families • Indo-European, Altaic, Ural, Yukagir & Chuvan, Cartvelic, Abkhazian & Adygei, Nakh & Daghestan, Sino-Tibetan, Semitic, Eskimo-Aleutian, Chukchi-Kamchatka, Yenisei, Austro-Asian, Ainic • plus Nivkh language (isolated) 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  15. Handling the Linguistic Diversity Issue in Russia • Main activities aimed at preserving the linguistic diversity are concentrated in the ‘subjects of federation’ • regional programs are being established and implemented • work related to languages documenting is being conducted in higher education and research institutions • some official web sites of national republics are maintained both in Russian and national languages [Develoopment of Multilingualism in the Internet / E. Kuzmin, E. Plys, 2007] 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  16. Handling the Linguistic Diversity Issue in Russia • Regional activities to preserve the linguistic diversity • electronic training aids, textbooks and dictionaries are being published • online forums are being offered for the communication in different languages • media resources are presented online, radio broadcasting is provided in the languages of many nations of Russia 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  17. Linguistic Diversity Challenges for Russia • In spite of the efforts undertaken the languages spoken by the peoples of Russia are poorly presented in the Internet • The main reason for that is lack of awareness and, consequently • inadequate financing • insufficient training of specialists that would be able to create information resources for the Internet and to develop standardized fonts for local languages, vocabularies, search instruments, etc. 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  18. Commitment of the Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for All Program • Russian IFAP started a research aimed at: • revealing to the most extent possible the circle of government departments at different levels, organizations and specialists dealing with the linguistic diversity problems in the Internet, establishing contacts with them • defining the level of completeness of the representation of Russia’s nations in the Russian segment of the Internet • listing the measures undertaken in Russia in relation to the development of linguistic diversity in the Internet 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  19. Commitment of the Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for Alк l Program • Russian IFAP started a research aimed at: • exposing the activities directed to the development of e-translators and e-dictionaries for Russia’s languages • studying the situation with the creation of standardized character sets forRussia’s languages • finding out what is being done in the area of adaptation of search engines for a full value search in the Internet 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

  20. Contact Information • Phone: +7 (495) 625-17-27 • Fax: +7 (495) 625-19-28 • E-mail: tatiana.ershova@iis.ru • URL: http://www.iis.ru 2nd IGF, Rio de Janeiro, 13 November 2007

More Related