[ACTION-377] Provide rewrite of section 1 and 2 - Overall structure for introduction and text for "Overview"

Hi,

I used yesterday's bad weather in my area to continue work on what we discussed as "rewrite of section 1-2" (see https://www.w3.org/International/multilingualweb/lt/track/actions/377). The result of that work is twofold:


a.    I devised (based on http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-multilingualweb-lt-comments/2013Jan/0018.html) an overall structure for the "Introduction" (see below)

b.    I revised the sub-part related to "Overview" (see my earlier mails, and the revision below)

Should we base further work on the aforementioned two results? If so, I would start working 1.2 ...

Cheers,
Christian
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview

Content or software that is authored in one language (so-called original language) for one locale (e.g. the French-speaking part of Canada) is often made available in additional languages or adapted with regard to other cultural aspects. A prevailing paradigm for the corresponding approach to production in many cases encompasses three phases: internationalize, translate, and localize (see the W3C's Internationalization Q&A<http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-i18n/> for more information related to these concepts).

>From the viewpoints of feasibility, cost, and efficiency, it is important that the original material should be suitable for downstream phases such as translation. This is achieved by appropriate design and development. The corresponding phase is referred to as internationalization. For example, people authoring in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Urdu need special markup to specify directionality in mixed direction text.

During the translation phase, the meaning of a source language text is analyzed, and a target language text that is equivalent in meaning is determined. In order to promote or ensure a translation's fidelity, national or international laws may for example regulate linguistic dimensions such as mandatory terminology or standard phrases.

Although an agreed-upon definition of the localization phase is missing, this phase is usually seen as encompassing activites such as creating locale-specific content (e.g. adding a link for a country-specific reseller), or modifying functionality (e.g. to establish a fit with country-specific regulations for financial reporting). Sometimes, the insertion of special markup to support a local language or script is also subsumed under the localization phase. For example, people authoring in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Urdu need special markup to specify directionality in mixed direction text.

The technology described in this document - the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 addresses some of the challenges and opportunities related to internationalization, translation, and localization. ITS 2.0 in particular contributes to concepts in the realm of meta data for internationalization, translation, and localization related to core Web technologies. ITS does for example assist in usage scenarios in which parts of an XML-based document should not be translated. ITS 2.0 bears many commonalities with is predecessor, ITS 1.0<http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-its-20070403/> but provides additional concepts that are designed to foster enhanced automated processing - e.g. based on language technology such as entity recognition - related to multilingual Web content.

ITS proposes several mechanisms which differ amongst others in terms of the usage scenario/user types for which the mechanism is most suitable. For the purpose of illustration, here is an example how ITS can indicate that certain parts of content should not be translated.
Example 1: Use of ITS to indicate that parts of an XML-based document - maybe to be transformed into HTML by a Web Content Management System (WCMS) - should or should not be translated
The its:translate="no" attributes indicate that the path and the cmd elements should not be translated.
<help xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" its:version="2.0">
  <head>
    <title>Building the Zebulon Toolkit</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>To re-compile all the modules of the Zebulon toolkit you need to go in the <path
        its:translate="no">\Zebulon\Current Source\binary</path> directory. Then from there, run
      batch file <cmd its:translate="no">Build.bat</cmd>.</p>
  </body>
</help>
[Source file: examples/xml/EX-ways-to-use-its-0.xml]

Like ITS 1.0, ITS 2.0 both identifies concepts (such as "Translate" ), and defines implementations of these concepts (termed "ITS data categories") as a set of elements and attributes called the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) . The definitions of ITS elements and attributes are provided in the form of XML Schema [XML Schema] (non-normative) and RELAX NG [RELAX NG] (normative). Since one major step from ITS 1.0 to ITS 2.0 relates to coverage for HTML, ITS 2.0 also regulates the relationship between ITS markup and the various HTML flavours. Furthermore, ITS 2.0 suggests when and how to leverage processing based on the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), as well as the Natural Language Processing Interchange Format NIF (NLP Interchange Format)<http://nlp2rdf.org/nif-1-0> .

1.2 General motivation for going beyond ITS 1.0
1.3 Broader Usage Scenarios
1.4 High-level differences between ITS 1.0 and ITS 2.0
1.4.1 Additional data categories
1.4.2 Modified data categories
1.4.3 Additional or modified mechanisms
1.4.3.1 Query language on rules element
1.4.3.2 Modified selectors
1.4.3.3 Parameters in selectors
1.4.3.4 Traceability (toolsRef)
1.4.4 Specific HTML support
1.4.5 Mappings
1.4.5.1 NIF
1.4.5.2 XLIFF
1.4.6 Unicode normalization
1.4.7 Extended implementation hints

Received on Monday, 27 May 2013 11:48:37 UTC