[ESW Wiki] Update of "its0504ReqCulturalAspects" by MasakiItagaki

Dear Wiki user,

You have subscribed to a wiki page or wiki category on "ESW Wiki" for change notification.

The following page has been changed by MasakiItagaki:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/its0504ReqCulturalAspects


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Author: Masaki Itagaki
  
- = Cultural Aspects of the Content =
+ = Translation Styles =
  
  
  == Summary ==
  
- It must be possible to specify finer or coarser granularity of cultural aspects of content than a language, locale or country. Such aspects may include script usages, regions, geographical areas, dialects or content context. The declaration of such an attribute should be done at the beginning of a document. Any content within a document which varies from the primary declaration should be labeled appropriately.  
+ It must be possible to specify writing styles in a target language in order to better quality of reused translated contents. The declaration of such an attribute should be done at the beginning of a document.  
  
  == Challenge/Issue ==
  
- In order to successfully and efficiently parse document content, there should be more information than a language or a locale. Examples of issues are as followings: 
+ Depending on target languages, source content could be translated with several different styles. A few examples are as follows:
+   
+ '''Italian:''' When English (source) content from a user’s guide is translated for online help, Italian translation uses more user-friendly, softer-touch tone, while the language uses a harder tone for a book-type document.
  
-  - '''A language/locale cannot perfectly represent orthography''': e.g. '''"zh"''' does not stipulate if it's simplified or traditional Chinese. Locale for '''Azerbaijan''' does not provide guidance as to whether the language should be writeen in Latin or Cyrillic scripts. 
+ '''Japanese:''' Japanese uses a polite style (です・ます調 [Desu/masu tone]) for user’s guides and a formal style (だ・である調 [Da/dearu tone]) for academic and legal content. 
  
-  - '''Multiple cultural preferences within one locale''': e.g. In Japanese ("ja-JP"), there are two official date formats – Japanese emperor date (和暦 [Wareki]) and a '''Gregorian date format''' (西暦 [Seireki]). 
+ Writing styles and tones in a target language vary mostly depending on target audience (general users, academic experts, etc) and content’s domain (IT, legal, medical, etc). While a source language does not get affected by such aspects, target content may need to use a specific writing style. 
  
+ Information about writing styles is critical in reusability of translation. For example, certain content from a user’s guide in Italian may not be appropriate to be reused in online help content, while corresponding English content has no such issue.
-  - '''Finer language variations''': e.g. how does one indicate that a voice track is in the language spoken in German-speaking Switzerland rather than the language written there, since one is Schwyzertuutsch (Swiss German) and the other is very close to but not the same as 'High German'? 
- 
-  - '''Different writing styles and tones in one language''': e.g. Japanese uses a polite style '''(です・ます調 [Desu/masu tone])''' for user guides and a formal style '''(だ・である調 [Da/dearu tone])''' for academic and legal content. Italian uses an informal style for software help content and a formal style for user guides. Identifying these variations is very important especially for content reusability. When the content is reused both in source and target languages, context information (such as whether the content is for a user guide or a user help) must be provided in order to reuse content with an appropriate writing style.
- 
- 
- == Notes ==
- RFC 3066bis called “Tags for Identifying Languages” ([http://www.inter-locale.com/ID/draft-phillips-langtags-10.html#variant]), defines the vast details of the structure and usage of language tags extended from RFC 3066. This proposes ways to define extended language subtags, such as variant subtags, region subtags and private use subtags, which could be solutions for the issues described above. See also supplementary information for RFC 3066bis [http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/rfc3066bis-codes.html].  
  
  == Quick Guideline Thoughts ==
+ A writing style in translation should be provided as a document metadata. There are no “absolute” values for this type of attribute, and each language and user could have its own values, which should be defined in schema. For example, a user might want to specify generic style guide names to specify writing styles as following: 
  
+ <document style=”Guide A”>
+ <document style=”Guide B”>
+ <document style=”Guide C”>
+ 
+ Meanwhile, when target audience governs translation styles, the following values are possible: 
+ 
+ <document style=”For help”>
+ <document style=”For doc”>
+ <document style=”For web”>
+

Received on Wednesday, 27 July 2005 07:07:13 UTC