OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

dita-translation message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: OASIS DITA Translation Subcommittee Agenda -- 19 November 2007


Hello Everyone,
 
We need to approve the final copies of the Conref BP and the Acronym Proposal. I hope everyone can join the call tomorrow.
 
Please find the agenda on the Subcommittee wiki
 
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/TranslationSubcommittee
I have updated the Conref BP with comments from Robert, Michael, and Andrez. Please review carefully. 
 
Gershon has the Multilanguage BP to fix the examples and put them in context. I
 
Andrzej updated the wiki. I have put the new version of the acronym proposal into the official template. It is attached here. Please review. I'm certain their are errors since I had to cut and paste from the wiki.
 
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/TranslationSubcommittee/Acronyms#preview
 
JoAnn

Toll Numbers: USA +1-770-615-1250
Toll-Free Numbers: USA 877-421-0033
Participant Passcode: 610708

ITN: 2-421-0033

In addition, if you are calling from one of these countries, even the toll-based charges should be lower than standard long distance--use whatever works from your location:

Country Toll-free (IBM Pays) Toll (Caller Pays)
Austria +43 179576264
Belgium 0800-7-3026 +32 22006114
Denmark 80-888377 +45 38323070
Finland 0800-914-630 +358 972519061
France 0800-902366 +33 157323040 or  +33 157323041
Germany 0800-181-6323 +49 6951709081
Ireland 1800-558728 +353 16569209
Italy 800-788634 +39 0269430413
Netherlands 0800-022-8558 +31 202008077
Norway 800-18373 +47 24159528
Spain 900-95-1089 +34 912754171
Sweden 020-799414 +46 850163259
Switzerland 0800-564-331 +41 44654562
United Kingdom 0808-234-1969 +44 2070260533
USA 877-421-0033 770-615-1250

 
 

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com

 

 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--Arbortext, Inc., 1988-2007, v.4002-->
<!DOCTYPE reference PUBLIC "-//IBM//DTD DITA Reference//EN"
 "../dtd/reference.dtd">
<?Pub Inc?>
<reference id="IssueNumber12038">
<title>DITA Proposed Feature # 12038</title>
<shortdesc>Add a new element based on an expansion of the extant DITA
&lt;keyword>element to assist in the resolution and handling of abbreviated-form
text such as acronyms, general abbreviations, and short forms in source
and target text within DITA documents</shortdesc>
<refbody>
<section>       <title>Longer description</title>       <p>Abbreviated
forms such as acronyms are ubiquitous in technical documentation.
Although there are similarities between abbreviated forms and glossary
terms, from the localization and presentation point of view. abbreviated
forms are a special case. Abbreviated forms need to be expanded in
the first encounter within a printed document. In electronic published
documents, abbreviated form expansions can also be made available
in the form of a hyperlink or 'tool tip' mechanism. In addition, the
abbreviated form expanded text should be available for automatic inclusion
in glossary entries for the publication.   This proposal relates to
all types of abbreviations, such as acronyms, initialisms, apocope,
clipping, elision, syncope, syllabic abbreviation, and portmanteau.
 </p>     </section>
<section><title>Statement of Requirement</title><p>Abbreviated forms
and their translations require special handling:  </p><ul>
<li>Some abbreviated forms are never translated, especially those
that are intended for a knowledgeable, technical audience, and those
that refer to standardized international concepts, such as “xml". </li>
<li> Some abbreviated forms represent a brand name for which the original
expanded form is no longer used or is secondary to the abbreviated
forms.  </li>
<li>Abbreviated forms such as xml, jpg, html, and so on are typically
used in their original form, that is, they may be quoted in lower
case, and they are not translated.  </li>
<li>Abbreviated forms that have equivalent expressions in other languages
are typically translated. United Nations (UN) and Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) have equivalents in other languages besides English.
For instance, the French translation of “UN” is “ONU”.  </li>
<li>Some abbreviated forms are translated for clarity and also referred
to in their original untranslated form. For instance, OASIS may be
translated so that readers understand its significance in their native
language but the original acronym would be retained in the translation
to facilitate electronic search.  </li>
<li>The first occurrence of an abbreviated form in the target language
may require a different formulation than the first occurrence of an
abbreviated form in the source language, depending on the target audience
and the grammatical features of the target language.</li>
</ul><p>Consider,, if the first occurrence of an abbreviated form
in English is followed by its full form in parentheses, the translated
version may require the expanded form followed by the abbreviated
form in parentheses. It might also be necessary to include the English
and a translation. </p><p>For example in a Polish book on Java web
programming the first reference to JSP may appear as follows:</p><p
><b>JSP (ang. Java Server Pages)</b></p><p>or in a publication concerning
OASIS: </p><p><b>OASIS (ang. Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Systems - organizacja dla propagowania strukturalnych
systemów infomracyjnych)</b></p><p>In the first example, the translator
assumes that the reader will not require a translation of the English
abbreviated form. In the second example the translator assumes that
the reader may not understand the English expanded form and adds the
translation.  </p></section>
<section>       <title>Technical Proposal</title><p>The proposal is
to create an  element which would be a specialized form of the &lt;keyword>
element. The abbreviated form resolution will be via the "conref"
attribute to the abbreviated form text short, expanded and first forms.
The abbreviated form element is designed to be extended via specialization
to reflect the actual form of abbreviation e.g.:</p><p>&lt;acronym
class="abbreviate-form" conref="acronyms.dita#acronyms/abs"/></p><p
>The entry in the ''acronyms.dita'' file will be as follows. <note
></note>Note that the ID only needs to be unique to the file, and
does not need to match the acronym, so translations of the following
example will continue to use id="abs":</p><p>&lt;abbreviate-form id="abs"> </p
><p>&lt;expanded> Anti-lock Braking System&lt;/expanded></p><p>&lt;short>ABS&lt;/short></p
><p>&lt;surface-form>Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)&lt;/surface-form></p
><p>&lt;/abbreviate-form></p><p>The &lt;expanded> form will be a specialization
of the &lt;keyword>element, while the &lt;short> element will be a
specialization of the &lt;data> element. This means that the expanded
term is a normal phrase, while the sort form is metadata that is hidden
when processes do not know what to do with it. Translation processes
should treat this data specialization as a subflow element for the
purposes of translation. The &lt;surface-form> element represents
how the acronym should be displayed on the first occurrence of the
acronym, or for hypertext display with the tool-tip rendition.</p
><p>&lt;abbreviate-form> ==> specialization from &lt;keyword></p><p
>&lt;expanded> ==> specialization from &lt;keyword></p><p>&lt;short>
==> specialization from &lt;data></p><p>&lt;surface-form> ==> specialization
from &lt;keyword></p><p>The first time an abbreviated form is encountered,
the processing tool should use the text in the &lt;surface-form> element.
Subsequent instances should be replaced by the contents of the &lt;short>
element. The &lt;expanded> form is designed to be used in glossaries.
These three elements therefore allow the full needs of acronym handling
to be met:</p><ul>
<li>First occurrence rendition  </li>
<li>Subsequent short form rendition </li>
<li>Glossary entry </li>
</ul>     </section>
<section><title>Translation Issues</title><p>The following cases must
be contemplated when working with documents that require internationalization:
 </p><p><ul>
<li>If there is no short form for the target language, then the &lt;short>
element will be empty to signify that no short form exists for this
language. The &lt;surface-form> must always contain the text that
will be displayed for the first occurrence.</li>
</ul></p><p>&lt;abbreviate-form id="wmd"> </p><p>&lt;expanded>Weapons
of Mass Destruction&lt;/expanded></p><p>&lt;short>WMD&lt;/short></p
><p>&lt;surface-form>Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)&lt;/surface-form>
 </p><p>in Spanish becomes: </p><p>&lt;abbreviate-form id="wmd" xml:lang="es"> </p
><p>&lt;expanded>armas de destrucción masiva&lt;/expanded></p><p>&lt;short>&lt;/short>p</p
><p>&lt;surface-form>armas de destrucción masiva&lt;/surface-form>
 </p><p><ul>
<li>In some languages, like Spanish, abbreviated-form expansion should
be written in lower case. This can lead to a grammar error if the
first appearance of an abbreviated form happens at the start of a
sentence. The same problem can arise with the indefinite article in
English 'a' depending on whether the text to be inserted begins with
a vowel. It is up to the composition/display software to handle this.
For example, the acronym for AIDS should be translated as: </li>
</ul></p><p>&lt;abbreviate-form id="aids" xml:lang="es"> </p><p>&lt;expanded>síndrome
de inmuno-deficiencia adquirida&lt;/expanded></p><p>&lt;short>SIDA&lt;/short>p</p
><p>&lt;surface-form>síndrome de inmuno-deficiencia adquirida (SIDA&lt;/surface-form>
 </p><p>Normally the &lt;surface-form> version of the abbreviated
in the above example could not be used at the start of a sentence
as it begins with a lower case letter. It is up to the composition
software for the given language to cope with these requirements.</p
><p><ul>
<li>Abbreviated forms can cause problems primarily for inflected languages
because abbreviated form expansion needs to be presented in the nominative
case, without any inflection. This can be achieved by placing the
expansion of the abbreviated form in parentheses immediately following
the acronym in the &lt;expanded> element. For example, the Polish
acronym for the European Union may be:</li>
</ul></p><p>&lt;abbreviate-form id="eu" xml:lang="pl"> </p><p>&lt;expanded>Unia
Europejska&lt;/expanded></p><p>&lt;short>UE&lt;/short>p</p><p>&lt;surface-form>UE
(Unia Europejska)&lt;/surface-form>  </p><p>Using the above construct
enables automated handling of the abbreviated form in Polish without
causing any problems with grammatical inflection. For example if we
were stating that something occurred within the EU, the inflected
form in Polish caused by the use of the locative case would have to
be. For the actual abbreviated form itself this is not a problem as
abbreviated forms are not inflected. For example the phrase 'In the
European Union (EU) there are many institutions...': </p><p>W Unii
Europejskiej (UE) jest wiele instytucji...</p><p>Whereas allowing
the translator to control how the text is displayed in the &lt;surface-form>,
and therefore the first occurrence for the abbreviated form allows
us to use the following acceptable construct:</p><p>W UE (Unia Europejska)
jest wiele instytucji...</p><p></p></section>
<section><title>Rendition</title><p>Authors will enter the &lt;abbreviated-form>
element for every occurrence of a given acronym.</p><p>At compose
time, when putting together the publication, the publishing tool will
print the &lt;surface-form> the first time. The ABS acronym used in
previous examples would be rendered as:</p><p>The Anti-lock Brake
System (ABS) system will prevent the car from skidding in adverse
weather conditions.</p><p>Subsequent instances will then be rendered
as: </p><p>The ABS system will provide the driver with feedback via
the brake pedal.</p></section>
<section>       <title>Technical Requirements</title><p>A new &lt;abbreviated-form>
needs to be created which is a specialization of the &lt;keyword>
element. In addition, the following specializations of the element
must be created, which provide a more detailed reflection of the actual
abbreviated form in use:</p><draft-comment>I don't think the following
are correct. Someone please fix.</draft-comment><ul>
<li>expansion, e.g. &lt;acronym class="abbreviated-form "conref="acronyms.dita#acronyms/tla"/>
 </li>
<li>abbreviation, e.g. &lt;abbreviation class="abbreviated-form" conref="acronyms.dita#acronyms/abbrev"/></li>
<li>short, e.g. &lt;shortform class="abbreviated-form" conref="acronyms.dita#acronyms/short"/><?Pub
Caret?></li>
<li>surface form, e.g. &lt;</li>
</ul>     </section>
<section>       <title>New or Changed Specification Language</title
>       <p>{Provide either new language for the DITA architecture
or DITA language reference         specifications or provide editing
instructions for amending existing language.}</p>     </section>
<section>       <title>Costs</title>       <p>We do not believe that
the addition of the &lt;abbreviate-form> elements as a specialization
of &lt;keyword>, and the subsequent specialization of &lt;expanded>,
&lt;short>, and &lt;surface-form> elements significant work.</p> 
   </section>
<section>       <title>Benefits</title>       <p>Abbreviated forms
will be handled in a uniform and consistent manner. The handling of
the abbreviated form will be under the control of the composition
software. The first occurrence of the abbreviated form can show the
&lt;surface-form>. The text for both the source and target languages
will be consistent as it will be resolved via the "conref" attribute
from a single source. The resolution of the abbreviated form can be
completely under the control of the composition software so that glossary,
tooltip, and first forms can be provided as required to meet the end-user
requirements.</p>     </section>
</refbody>
</reference>
<?Pub *0000012107 0?>


[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]