Adapting International Standard for Asian Language Technologies

Corpus-based approaches and statistical approaches have been the main stream of natural language processing research for the past two decades. Language resources play a key role in such approaches, but there is an insufficient amount of language resources in many Asian languages. In this situation, standardisation of language resources would be of great help in developing resources in new languages. This paper presents the latest development efforts of our project which aims at creating a common standard for Asian language resources that is compatible with an international standard. In particular, the paper focuses on i) lexical specification and data categories relevant for building multilingual lexical resources for Asian languages; ii) a core upper-layer ontology needed for ensuring multilingual interoperability and iii) the evaluation platform used to test the entire architectural framework

Nominalization in Applied Linguistics and Medicine: The Case of Textbook Introductions and Book Reviews

Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study explored variational use of nominalization in 600 textbook introductions and 200 book reviews in applied linguistics and medicine. The nominalized expressions were identified in the texts, the frequencies of the nominalization types were counted, and eventually a chi-square test was administered. Analysis of nominalization patterns across the different informational/promotional moves revealed divergent patterns in the two disciplines but insignificant differences across the genres in focus. The density of nominalizations was acknowledged in the applied linguistics introductions and book reviews. However, functional variations in the use of nominalizations were found only in the introductions. As for the proportion of nominalization to grammatical metaphor, results demonstrated a lower tendency towards nominalizing scientific information in the medicine corpus. Further research is needed to see how nominalization is exploited in other genres and other disciplines

Investigating the translation of Islamic terms into English in an Indonesian context

This thesis investigates some key translation issues arising from the translation of Islamic terms in the academic abstract of an Islamic text from Indonesian into English. Using the frameworks of translation as intercultural communication across languages and cultures as well as systemic functional linguistics, this project focuses on four topics such as translation quality, translation strategies and techniques, linguistic, and cultural considerations. A mixed-methods research design was used in the project, and 90 respondents participated. Quantitative data analysis showed that the translation quality was determined by the experiential meaning of the Islamic terms and that the quality of Islamic term translations did not differ significantly among the three translator groups. The study discovered that the translation quality of the Islamic term groups was considered as moderate. This indicates that the lexical choices of Islamic phrases more frequently reflect their proper experiential meanings, even though certain words are difficult to understand. This also suggested that, despite a few ungrammatical structural patterns, Islamic word groupings were appropriately expressed in appropriate experiential structures. Furthermore, lexical choices in transliterations, as dominated by STs, may result in a more dense and complicated text. STs and TTs' inclusion of more lengthy terms' explanations may also impair the abstract layout and thus distract the readers. In terms of structural patterns, CTs were more likely to retain the original text structure than STs and TTs. Qualitative data showed that foreignisation was the most preferred translation strategy, while pure borrowing and correspondence were the common techniques used in translating Islamic terms. The reasons why particular strategy and technique were used referred to general practice, reader orientation, text categories, and personal reasons. Thing to Deictic Thing became the most common Islamic term experiential construction used in the target text. In addition, of 80 target experiential constructions identified in this study, it was revealed that STs dominated the initial 20 suggested constructions while the new 60 versions were regulated by TTs. While most translators shifted the experiential structures appropriately, a few functional roles were discovered to have shifted improperly, which caused changes in their experiential meanings. The translated Islamic terms were culture-specific to Islamic religion but with Indonesian transliteration style. As a result, the translation rarely found their cultural equivalents where a few irrelevant cultural replacements were also infrequently identified. Being aware of the importance of culture helped Indonesian translators recognise these terms from socio-cultural information

Data Category Registry: Morpho-syntactic and Syntactic Profiles

International audienceAfter a brief presentation of the data model, we describe a work in progress to define an initial set of morpho-syntactic and syntactic data categories dedicated to NLP applications. The aim is to improve interoperability among language resources and to optimize the process leading to their integration in applications. The main point is to be sure that when a language resource makes use of a value, the other language resources and programs have the same interpretation for this given value. From a practical point of view, these values are collected from existing lists, discussed, extended, and then recorded within a freely accessible data base: the ISO Data Category Registry

Picking up the principles: An applied linguistic analysis of the legal problem genre

Legal study requires not only the learning of new content, but also the learning of a new academic discourse with its own lexico-semantic, syntactic, and discoursal features. This thesis explores the answering of legal problem questions as an important and distinct new genre that undergraduates studying law units need to achieve competence in. In order to delineate the general features of this genre, systemic functional linguistic (SFL) analyses were performed on a series of texts (a tutorial question, an assignment question, and an examination question) written by lecturers in the introductory Commerce course Principles of Commercial Law as exemplars of the answering of legal problem questions. SFL analyses were also conducted on a series of student texts (both native and non-native English speaking students\u27 answers to the examination question) which showed that considerable difficulties exist not only with the content, but also with the linguistic demands of writing in this particular genre. It follows that students may require specific training in picking up the principles . The pedagogical implications for both content and language staff teaching in this area are explored with particular reference to tertiary ESL/EFL students

Towards a blended ecological pedagogy for advanced EAL academic writing.

This ethnographic research project explored the application of selected ideas relating to grammar from M.A.K.Halliday\u27s theory of systemic functional linguistics in the context of developing the academic writing skills of upper secondary students studying English in West Jakarta in 2009. Results showed significant development in students writing and grammatical awareness