Creating multimedia dictionaries of endangered languages using LEXUS

This paper reports on the development of a flexible web based lexicon tool, LEXUS. LEXUS is targeted at linguists involved in language documentation (of endangered languages). It allows the creation of lexica within the structure of the proposed ISO LMF standard and uses the proposed concept naming conventions from the ISO data categories, thus enabling interoperability, search and merging. LEXUS also offers the possibility to visualize language, since it provides functionalities to include audio, video and still images to the lexicon. With LEXUS it is possible to create semantic network knowledge bases, using typed relations. The LEXUS tool is free for use. Index Terms: lexicon, web based application, endangered languages, language documentation

ANNOTATED DISJUNCT FOR MACHINE TRANSLATION

Most information found in the Internet is available in English version. However, most people in the world are non-English speaker. Hence, it will be of great advantage to have reliable Machine Translation tool for those people. There are many approaches for developing Machine Translation (MT) systems, some of them are direct, rule-based/transfer, interlingua, and statistical approaches. This thesis focuses on developing an MT for less resourced languages i.e. languages that do not have available grammar formalism, parser, and corpus, such as some languages in South East Asia. The nonexistence of bilingual corpora motivates us to use direct or transfer approaches. Moreover, the unavailability of grammar formalism and parser in the target languages motivates us to develop a hybrid between direct and transfer approaches. This hybrid approach is referred as a hybrid transfer approach. This approach uses the Annotated Disjunct (ADJ) method. This method, based on Link Grammar (LG) formalism, can theoretically handle one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many word(s) translations. This method consists of transfer rules module which maps source words in a source sentence (SS) into target words in correct position in a target sentence (TS). The developed transfer rules are demonstrated on English → Indonesian translation tasks. An experimental evaluation is conducted to measure the performance of the developed system over available English-Indonesian MT systems. The developed ADJ-based MT system translated simple, compound, and complex English sentences in present, present continuous, present perfect, past, past perfect, and future tenses with better precision than other systems, with the accuracy of 71.17% in Subjective Sentence Error Rate metric

ANNOTATED DISJUNCT FOR MACHINE TRANSLATION

Most information found in the Internet is available in English version. However, most people in the world are non-English speaker. Hence, it will be of great advantage to have reliable Machine Translation tool for those people. There are many approaches for developing Machine Translation (MT) systems, some of them are direct, rule-based/transfer, interlingua, and statistical approaches. This thesis focuses on developing an MT for less resourced languages i.e. languages that do not have available grammar formalism, parser, and corpus, such as some languages in South East Asia. The nonexistence of bilingual corpora motivates us to use direct or transfer approaches. Moreover, the unavailability of grammar formalism and parser in the target languages motivates us to develop a hybrid between direct and transfer approaches. This hybrid approach is referred as a hybrid transfer approach. This approach uses the Annotated Disjunct (ADJ) method. This method, based on Link Grammar (LG) formalism, can theoretically handle one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many word(s) translations. This method consists of transfer rules module which maps source words in a source sentence (SS) into target words in correct position in a target sentence (TS). The developed transfer rules are demonstrated on English → Indonesian translation tasks. An experimental evaluation is conducted to measure the performance of the developed system over available English-Indonesian MT systems. The developed ADJ-based MT system translated simple, compound, and complex English sentences in present, present continuous, present perfect, past, past perfect, and future tenses with better precision than other systems, with the accuracy of 71.17% in Subjective Sentence Error Rate metric

Visualizing endangered indigenous languages of French Polynesia with LEXUS

This paper reports on the first results of the DOBES project ‘Towards a multimedia dictionary of the Marquesan and Tuamotuan languages of French Polynesia’. Within the framework of this project we are building a digital multimedia encyclopedic lexicon of the endangered Marquesan and Tuamotuan languages using a new tool, LEXUS. LEXUS is a web-based lexicon tool, targeted at linguists involved in language documentation. LEXUS offers the possibility to visualize language. It provides functionalities to include audio, video and still images to the lexical entries of the dictionary, as well as relational linking for the creation of a semantic network knowledge base. Further activities aim at the development of (1) an improved user interface in close cooperation with the speech community and (2) a collaborative workspace functionality which will allow the speech community to actively participate in the creation of lexica

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

Endangered poetics: Assessing ethnolinguistic vitality in the Francophone Pacific

The documentation and assessment of the current state of language in socially and culturally contextual use remains one of the continuing challenges of the development of effective conservation strategies (Gippert, Himmelmann and Mosel 2006). Thoroughly sophisticated and capacious documentation of grammatical structure and lexical domains may nevertheless be inadequate to documenting and evaluating necessary dimensions of language in sociocultural practice for conservation or revitalization purposes. In conversation with recent works that seek to bridge some of the gaps between documentation and revitalization efforts elsewhere in French Polynesia (Cablitz, Ringersma, Kemps-Snijders 2007; Zinn, Cablitz, Ringersma, Kemps-Snijders, and Wittenburg 2008; Cablitz and Chong 2009a, 2009b), we investigate a series of poetic traditions in French Polynesia’s Gambier Islands. Specifically we examine and critically reevaluate the current status of Mangarevan, an understudied Eastern Polynesian language, in the Mangarevan community in both home islands and in diaspora in the Society Islands. We suggest, on one hand, that documenting four distinct poetic genres in Mangarevan offers an interesting tool for assessing the state of this language and characterizing aspects of language change and shift over the last decades and century. We document the erosion and eventual loss over the 20th century of two genres, significant endangerment for another genre, and the perhaps surprising resilience of a forth genre. On the other hand, we suggest that adequately documenting and engaging with poetic genres can be (re)evaluated for use as an significant tool for developing effective strategies to scaffold linguistic endurance and revitalization efforts (Lewis and Simmons 2010; Dwyer 2011). Indeed, our work with speakers of this language over the last decade, across several generations, including one of the authors’ insights as an indigenous speaker, suggests that meaningful scaffolds for future maintenance and revitalization efforts may be identified in the community’s experience of the loss and endurance of the various traditional poetry genres. Situated at the intersection of concerns with historically and socioculturally sensitive language documentation and revitalization efforts, we argue that identifying some of the poetic dimensions of language shift and loss in Mangarevan affords a more nuanced metric for assessing the current state of the language, and critical features of the community’s experience of language change including anxieties about the past and present and hopes for the future. REFERENCES: Cablitz, G., and F. Chong. 2009a. The Documentation of Endangered Linguistic, Lexical and Cultural Knowledge of the Marquesan and Tuamotuan Languages of French Polynesia. 11ème Inter-congrès des Sciences du Pacifique Joint aux 2nd Assises de la recherche française dans le Pacifique, 2-6 mars, TAHITI, Polynésie Française. Cablitz, G., and F. Chong. 2009b. Empowerment and Capacity Building in Endangered Speech Communities : an Example from French Polynesia. 11ème Inter-congrès des Sciences du Pacifique Joint aux 2nd Assises de la recherche française dans le Pacifique, 2-6 mars, TAHITI, Polynésie Française. Cablitz, G., J. Ringersma, and M. Kemps-Snijders, M., 2007. Visualizing endangered indigenous languages of French Polynesia with LEXUS. In Proc. of the 11th Int’l Conf. on Information Visualization. IEEE Computer Society. Dwyer, Arienne M. 2011. Tools and techniques for endangered-language assessment and revitalization. In Vitality and Viability of Minority Languages. October 23-24, 2009. New York: Trace Foundation Lecture Series Proceedings. Preprint. Online: http://www.trace.org/events/events_lecture_proceedings.html. Gippert, J., N.P. Himmelmann, and U. Mosel (eds.), 2006. Essentials of language documentation. Mouton de Gruyter. Berlin. Lewis, M.P. and G. Simons. 2010. Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman’s GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique/Romanian Review of Linguistics, v. 2. Zinn, C., G. Cablitz, J. Ringersma, M. Kemps-Snijders and P. Wittenburg. 2008. Constructing Knowledge Spaces from Linguistic Resources. Paper presented at CIL 18, Workshop 12 on Linguistic Studies of Ontology: From Lexical Semantics to Formal Ontologies and Back, July 21-26, 2008, Seoul, Republic of Korea