Revision f19599ed716116951cdb1cb8a9f8e3bdfe841f6f authored by sabine seifert on 14 September 2022, 15:02:51 UTC, committed by sabine seifert on 14 September 2022, 15:02:51 UTC
proposal.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<TEI.2>
<teiHeader>
<fileDesc>
<titleStmt>
<title>TEI Internationalization proposal</title>
<author>Veronika Lux and Sebastian Rahtz</author>
</titleStmt>
<editionStmt>
<edition><date>September 2005</date></edition></editionStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<authority>The Text Encoding Initiative</authority>
<p>TEI Web</p>
</publicationStmt>
<sourceDesc>
<p>No source</p>
</sourceDesc>
</fileDesc>
<profileDesc>
</profileDesc>
<revisionDesc>
<change>
<date>August 2, 2005</date>
<respStmt>
<name>Julia Flanders</name>
</respStmt>
<item>Revised and expanded.
</item>
</change>
<change>
<date>$Date$.</date>
<respStmt>
<name>$Author$</name>
</respStmt>
<item>$Revision$</item>
</change>
</revisionDesc>
</teiHeader>
<text>
<body>
<div>
<head>Summary</head>
<p>The Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines
(<xptr url="http://www.tei-c.org/"/>)
have been widely adopted by
projects and institutions in many countries in Europe, North America,
and Asia, and are used for encoding texts in dozens of languages. The
TEI community is broadly international and multilingual, and its
geographical reach increases every year. However, the complex encoding
of texts at which the TEI excels requires a close understanding of the
522 available elements, and non-English speakers are at a considerable
disadvantage in learning and using the Guidelines. The TEI needs to be
made more accessible to the international community it seeks to
serve.</p>
<p>Ideally, the Guidelines themselves and the TEI tag set would be
translated into as many languages as there are user
communities. However, translation on this scale is well beyond the
resources not only of the TEI but also of most funding bodies. A more
realistic approach, which we propose here, is to develop an
infrastructure for translation, through which individual language
communities may easily produce versions of the essential portions of
the Guidelines into other languages. The TEI Guidelines are written in
a modular way that makes this infrastructure straightforward to
develop. With comparatively modest initial funding, we can produce the
necessary framework and sponsor the translation of five initial
high-priority languages, drawing on existing efforts already under way
in the TEI community. Funding of this proposal will enable us to
coordinate these efforts and bring them to prompt and consistent
completion.
</p>
<p>This proposal provides a rationale for the approach to
internationalization on which this work would be based, and describes
the technical infrastructure we propose to develop, to maintain the
internationalized versions of the TEI material and integrate them with
existing tools. It also provides an initial workplan of languages to
be addressed. The TEI requests a grant of £10,000, for a project to
produce the following:
<list type="ordered">
<item>a working architecture for internationalization of the TEI</item>
<item>an interface for translators to use in creating translated versions of components of the TEI Guidelines</item>
<item>translations of the TEI documentation into five languages which the TEI considers to be the highest priority</item>
<item>a framework for coordinating further translation efforts to be undertaken on a volunteer basis, or to be supported by further funding if available</item>
</list>
</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Approach to translation</head>
<p>The TEI Guidelines contain four distinct areas of information
which can be translated. Each can be treated separately:
<list type="ordered">
<item>The detailed descriptive prose of the Guidelines chapters and
TEI Lite documentation.</item>
<item>The element, attribute
names and suggested attribute values which are put into DTDs and
schemas. Thus instead of <gi>addrLine</gi>, the TEI user might
prefer to write <gi>líneaDirección</gi>, <gi>ligneAdresse</gi>,
<gi>linDireccio</gi> or <gi>AdressZeile</gi>. The TEI has an
established system for recording such translations, and preserving
the relationship to the original names so that document instances
can be put back into canonical form.
</item>
<item>The summary technical descriptions of elements or
attributes. Thus instead of <q>contains a single TEI-conformant
document, comprising a TEI header and a text, either in isolation or
as part of a teiCorpus element.</q>, the Spanish-speaking user might
find it more helpful to read <q>contiene un único documento TEI,
compuesto de una cabecera TEI (TEI header) y un cuerpo de texto
(text), aislado o como parte de un elemento corpusTei
(teiCorpus)</q></item>
<item>The examples of usage for each
element. <q>Internationalization</q> of these could take the form of
simple translation, but in practice <emph>localisation</emph> would
be considerably more useful. Localisation involves choosing
examples originating in the target language, which illustrate
the element's usage more effectively for a native speaker than a
translated example could do.
</item>
</list>
It may be useful to distinguish between what we might call
<q>traditional</q> or documentary approaches to translation, which
focus on translating the descriptive prose of the Guidelines <emph>as
a document</emph>, and <q>formal</q> approaches which focus instead on
translating the individual components (examples, element and attribute
names, technical descriptions) in a way that enables these components
to be used within the formal structures of the TEI as a technical
standard. While the first approach may be very useful, the results are
more difficult to maintain over the long term and are also more
difficult to produce, since they cannot be accomplished in discrete
chunks. The latter approach is the one we propose here, since it is
more easily maintainable (only the affected elements need to be
updated when changes are made to the Guidelines) and can be more
easily undertaken in a distributed fashion by collaborative groups.
</p>
<p>Some translation work has already been undertaken:
<list type="unordered">
<item>There have already been six <q>traditional</q> translations of
the TEI Lite (<xptr url="http://www.tei-c.org/Lite/"/>) documentation
into other languages. These have not covered translation of the
element names or technical reference documentation. They are in wide
use, however, and have created a need for more extensive translations
of the Guidelines themselves.</item>
<p>The French <emph>Groupe d'experts n° 8</emph> within CN 357
(<emph>Commission de normalisation «Modélisation, production et accès
aux documents»</emph>) of the CG 46 (<emph>Commission générale
«Information et documentation»</emph>) at AFNOR has an interest in TEI
translation. Amongst other goals, this group intends to translate the
definitions of the TEI elements and attributes into French. So far,
they have worked in a <q>traditional way</q> on some chapters of the
P4 and P5 versions. Dissemination of the resulting French version of
these chapters is very limited.</p>
<item>Some <q>formal</q> work has also been undertaken on translating
element and attribute names; Alejandro Bia and Arno Mittelbach have
prepared translation sets for Catalan, Spanish, and German. This work
is integrated into the Roma (<xptr
url="http://www.tei-c.org.uk/Roma/"/>) application, allowing users
to create tailored schemas in one of the supported languages. However,
while this work is useful, it is not by itself the most effective way
to proceed. For example, many of the element names are in an
abbreviated form of English (eg <gi>respStmt</gi>) which are not easy
to translate sensibly, and because the abbreviated names are
relatively easy to recognize for people used to reading Latin
script. Furthermore, unless the reference descriptions are also
translated, the element names by themselves do not give a clear idea
of what the element is for. Using <gi>infoResp</gi> instead of
<gi>respStmt</gi> is not as helpful as translating the description
<q>supplies a statement of responsibility for someone responsible for
the intellectual content of a text, edition, recording, or series,
where the specialized elements for authors, editors, etc. do not
suffice or do not apply.</q>
</item>
</list>
</p>
<p>Study of the work described aboves suggests that translating the
reference descriptions, followed by translation of element names, is
likely to be the most effective way to promote the TEI and support its
use in non-English-speaking communities. Translation or localisation
of examples would be an important further step for some communities.
</p>
<p>The TEI Guidelines are constructed in a way that lends
itself to this approach. The documentation is built by assembling
units stored in a database (which constitutes the source of the TEI
Guidelines). Translation can thus be done at the level of these
units. This allows for several advantages. The most important of these
is the optimization of the translation and its ongoing
maintenance. Individual information units (element names,
documentation segments, etc.) are stored togther with their
translations. When a unit is updated, its translations can be updated
as well. New units and new translations can be added as needed. The
approach also allows for more advanced localisation of the
documentation: users can get documentation with crucial technical
parts (eg. definitions) in any available language, or in multiple
languages. <ptr target="example-en"/> shows an example of the current display of
reference documentation. The labels in the left-hand column can
appear in translated form, as will the description text. <ptr
target="example-ja"/> shows a full-scale translation into Japanese,
while <ptr target="example-es"/> shows the same thing in Spanish.
<figure url="example-en.png" id="example-en" scale="0.5">
<head>Example of reference documentation</head>
</figure>
<figure url="example-ja.png" id="example-ja" scale="0.5">
<head>Example of reference documentation in Japanese</head>
</figure>
<figure url="example-es.png" id="example-es" scale="0.5">
<head>Example of reference documentation in Spanish</head>
</figure>
</p>
<p>It should be noted that the examples pose special problems for
translation, as they require cultural as well as linguistic
localisation. Translating the examples themselves is difficult not
only from a practical viewpoint, but also because the significance of
the example as an illustration of a particular encoding issue may not
translate well. A quotation from Dickens or Beowulf would need to be
adapted for a Chinese readership, for example, in order to make the
point it illustrates clear. Thus
<eg><![CDATA[<lg>
<l>Sire Thopas was a doghty swayn;</l>
<l>White was his face as payndemayn,</l>
<l>His lippes rede as rose;</l>
<l>His rode is lyk scarlet in grayn,</l>
<l>And I yow telle in good certayn,</l>
<l>He hadde a semely nose.</l>
</lg>]]></eg>
is probably not a very familiar example of verse for users in
China. In the Chinese version of the TEI Guidelines, a suitable
Chinese poem would be more helpful. In some cases it may be
sufficient to translate the element names and leave the quotation
itself in the original language. Best of all would be to find
substitute examples in the target language, but that is
labor-intensive and raises issues concerning whether the same
principle is being illustrated in each case. Translating examples is
beyond the scope of the current proposal, but it may be possible to
offer translated element names as an intermediary step.
</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Organization and Language Coverage</head>
<p>Because the TEI Guidelines document a complex and well-established
set of methods, we feel that any translation effort needs to work
closely with the community of TEI practitioners in the target
language. We do not believe that it is sensible to simply pay a
professional translator to convert the words, even if we had
sufficient funds; the descriptive texts are often short and need
genuine experience in text encoding to translate well. Each
translation set will also need to be validated by other TEI users in
the relevant language community. In addition, with so many languages
potentially needing attention, it is important to make any available
funds go as far as possible, by using them to mobilize and coordinate
existing volunteer efforts. Within the TEI community there are a large
number of groups with translation expertise who are willing to
collaborate with the TEI in this effort. These include the following:
<table>
<row><cell>Chinese</cell>
<cell>Marcus Bingenheimer</cell>
<cell>Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>French</cell>
<cell>Veronika Lux</cell>
<cell>University of Nancy</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell>Dutch</cell>
<cell>Bert Van Elsacker</cell>
<cell></cell>
</row>
<row><cell>German</cell>
<cell>Werner Wegstein</cell>
<cell>Wuerzburg University</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Hindi</cell>
<cell>Paul Richards </cell>
<cell>UGS (The PLM Company)</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Italian</cell>
<cell>Fabio Ciotti</cell>
<cell>University of Roma</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell>Japanese</cell>
<cell>Ohya Kazushi </cell>
<cell>Tsurumi University, Yokohama</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Polish</cell>
<cell>Radoslaw Moszczynski</cell>
<cell>Warsaw University</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Romanian</cell>
<cell>Dan Matei</cell>
<cell>CIMEC - Institutul de Memorie Culturala, Bucharest</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell>Serbian</cell>
<cell>Cvetana Krstev</cell>
<cell>Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Slovenian</cell>
<cell>Tomaž Erjavec,Matija Ogrin </cell>
<cell>Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana; Scientific Research Centre of
the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Spanish</cell>
<cell>Manuel Sánchez</cell>
<cell>Miguel de Cervantes Digital Library</cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Swedish</cell>
<cell>Monica Zetterman</cell>
<cell></cell>
</row>
<row><cell>Tibetan</cell>
<cell>Linda Patrik, Tensin Namdak</cell>
<cell>www.nitartha.org</cell>
</row>
</table>
</p>
<p>We therefore propose to invite collaborating institutions to work
with us on each language.
For the initial set of languages, a small budget will be allocated to
each in roughly equal proportions, to be expended in whatever way will
have the most impact in the local context. The funding may be used to
pay graduate students, to pay a supervisor to organize volunteer
translators and check their work, to pay a single translator, or to
support travel and participation costs in group meetings. In
all cases, the funding serves not as full payment for a translation,
but as support which makes it possible for local efforts to be
completed successfully, and supervised so that they are
consistent. The collaborators will supervise the creation of the
translations. The initial translation will then undergo a check by a
second collaborator. The final results will undergo a check by the TEI
editors before final acceptance. All of the work will be done through
a web interface to a central data repository (see below), so that
translators can see the intermediate results of their work, and so
that the TEI editors and Council can monitor progress and check
results as they emerge.</p>
<p>Our initial choice of languages is based on the TEI Council's
assessment of the most urgent areas of need, and on the level of
available collaborative support. From among the initial proposals we
received, we have chosen as the first five for support under this
grant the following languages and collaborators:
<list type="gloss">
<label>French:</label><item> University of Nancy</item>
<label>Spanish:</label><item> Cervantes Digital Library</item>
<label>German:</label><item> University of Würzburg</item>
<label>Chinese:</label><item> Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei</item>
<label>Japanese:</label><item> Tsurumi University</item>
</list>
We will also provide limited funding for the infrastructure work. </p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Translation infrastructure</head>
<p>In some ways, the translation infrastructure funded by this grant
is the most important long-term result of the project, since it will
provide a framework for further translation efforts which can be
conducted on a volunteer basis, and also for future grants to support
translation into specific languages. The infrastructure will provide
for workflow management and support for the work of translation. Its
development includes three components:
<list type="ordered">
<item>Develop a user-friendly environment through which translators
can get access to the individual text units for translation, and
upload translated text units. This environment will take the form of a
web interface to the underlying data repository in which the TEI
documentation is stored. The interface will include features to allow
for review of translated material, and viewing of the translations in
their context, so that translators can see the ongoing results of
their work. This will also enable language communities to begin
testing and commenting on the translations as soon as they are begun,
rather than awaiting a compilation process once everything is
complete.</item>
<item>Make the necessary technical developments to Roma (the tool
which compiles the TEI source data to produce specific schemas and
documentation) so that it permits more advanced and flexible
localizations of the TEI documentation. For example, the user may be
permitted to generate any of the following combinations (where
<q>names</q> means tag and attribute names and attribute values, and
<q>descriptions</q> means the contents of the <gi>gloss</gi> and
<gi>desc</gi> elements in the TEI source):
<list type="gloss">
<label>canonical:</label><item> English names, descriptions in English</item>
<label>local descriptions:</label><item> English names, descriptions in chosen
language) </item>
<label>local names:</label><item> names designed to make sense to a speaker of the chosen language, descriptions in English</item>
<label>fully localized:</label><item> both names and descriptions in chosen
language</item>
</list>
</item>
<item>Enhance the delivery infrastructure for TEI (XSLT stylesheets to
make HTML and PDF output) so that string constants are available in
the chosen language as well as the text. String constants are
recurring phrases with specific technical meanings which can easily be
translated and then substituted as necessary without regard for the
context where they appear. Thus the reference document for an
attribute might read <q>Obligatoriu dacă se potriveşte</q> for
Romanians instead of <q>Mandatory when applicable</q>.</item>
</list>
</p>
<p>The infrastructure work will be undertaken by the Research
Technologies Service at Oxford University Computing Services.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Work Plan and Deliverables</head>
<p>The groundwork for this project has already been begun, with
translation experiments as described and a call for participants. If
funding is awarded, we could complete the work described on the
following schedule:
<list type="gloss">
<label>January 2006:</label><item> Begin work on web interface for translation workflow. Collaborators convene translation teams.</item>
<label>February 2006:</label><item> Web interface for workflow is ready for use. Translation teams begin translation process.</item>
<label>August 2006: </label><item> Materials are substantially complete, and review process has begun.</item>
<label>September 2006:</label><item> Revisions to TEI delivery
infrastructure and to Roma.</item>
<label>October 2006:</label><item>All materials have been reviewed locally and are ready for final review by TEI Council and editors. Demonstration of system at TEI members meeting.</item>
<label>December 2006:</label><item> Project is completed.</item>
</list>
</p>
<p>The deliverables for the project are:
<list type="ordered">
<item>A web-based interface for submitting translations.</item>
<item>For a minimum of five languages, a translation of each element
and attribute name, and their associated description text, maintained
as part of the core TEI P5 source.</item>
<item>Support in the Roma schema-generation tool for producing
schemas and reference documentation in localized form.</item>
</list>
</p>
<p>The budget for the project is:
<list>
<item>Translation of TEI documentation into French, Spanish, German, Chinese,
and Japanese: £8500 </item>
<item>Development of translation environment and web interface; adaptation of Roma tool; and enhancements to TEI stylesheets: £1500</item>
<item>Total project cost: £10,000 </item>
</list>
</p>
</div>
</body>
</text>
</TEI.2>
Computing file changes ...
