RE: identifying language changes

At 09:54 18/07/2008, Léonie Watson wrote:
>Christophe Strobbe wrote:
>"Screen readers that support the languages used 
>in a document (and that support language 
>switching within a document) can switch to a 
>speech synthesizer appropriate for a span of 
>text when the language is correctly marked up. 
>However, this switch causes a slight pause, and users find this annoying."
>
>         Do you know if any research has been 
> done into this, or whether it's purely anecdotal?

I don't know of reseach that covers this. 
(Research based on content in English might be 
biased because English texts contain fewer 
language changes than some of the other languages 
that I'm familiar with - at least that's my impression.)


>Although the pause is discernable, I don't find 
>it particularly intrusive at the speeds I tend to listen to Jaws.

Do you listen to text in English with occassional 
switches to another language, or to text where 
almost every sentence contains a language switch? 
That could make a significant difference.

A subscriber to the German mailing list that I 
mentioned puts it like this (in response to this 
question why we have this language markup):

"Becuase WCAG requires it. (...) You only need to 
see where this originated (the anglo-american 
language area) and who particpated in it 
(theorists) to get an idea why [WCAG requires 
identification of language changes]. In the USA, 
a ten-page tract may contain only one word that 
needs to be marked up like this. In Germany, the situation is different..."

(My own experience with Dutch is similar; the 
IT-related texts that I write are full of English technical terms and names.)

Best regards,

Christophe



>         There's probably a compromise, quite 
> likely along the lines of WCAG 2.0. I must 
> admit though that there's little worse than 
> listening to the English synthesiser trying to 
> pronounce foreign language words.
>
>Regards,
>Léonie.
>
>
>
>
>--
>Nomensa - humanising technology
>
>Léonie Watson            |  Head of Accessibility
>t. +44 (0)117 929 7333    |
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org 
>[mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Christophe Strobbe
>Sent: 17 July 2008 17:55
>To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>Subject: Re: identifying language changes
>
>
>
>At 17:29 17/07/2008, Armand Turpel wrote:
> >Hi,
> >Interesting! It is difficult to handle the lang attribute for some one
> >like me who live in a multicultural environment, where a mix of
> >languages is omnipresent. I even set the lang attribute for single
> >words. (...)
>
>I have always been very strict with regard to 
>marking up language changes, but I have also 
>seen websites by persons or organizations who 
>promote accessibility where languages changes are not marked up.
>
>
> >No idea how screen readers handle this.
>
>Screen readers that support the languages used 
>in a document (and that support language 
>switching within a document) can switch to a 
>speech synthesizer appropriate for a span of 
>text when the language is correctly marked up. 
>However, this switch causes a slight pause, and users find this annoying.
>
>
> >But my question is; should text writers, who are attentive to web
> >standards, care on how accessible technologies (jaws version
> >5,6,7,9,...) handle texts?
>
>As far as I know, users of text-to-speech 
>software and braille conversion software have 
>always been presented as the main beneficiaries 
>of correct language markup, so yes, authors 
>should care about how these types of software handle language changes.
>
>
> >Is it not the job of such technologies to make it readable for its
> >users in a proper way?
>
>My understanding is that this is what they try to do.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Christophe
>
>
> >Regards,
> >Armand
>
>--
>Christophe Strobbe
>K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - 
>SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
>B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
>BELGIUM
>tel: +32 16 32 85 51
>http://www.docarch.be/
>---
>Please don't invite me to LinkedIn, Facebook, 
>Quechup or other "social networks". You may have 
>agreed to their "privacy policy", but I haven't.
>
>
>Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

-- 
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
---
Please don't invite me to LinkedIn, Facebook, 
Quechup or other "social networks". You may have 
agreed to their "privacy policy", but I haven't.


Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

Received on Friday, 18 July 2008 09:17:44 UTC