The objective of Universal Digital Library (UDL) is to capture all books in digital format. A text to speech (TTS) interface for UDL portal would enable access to the digital content in voice mode, and also provide ac...The objective of Universal Digital Library (UDL) is to capture all books in digital format. A text to speech (TTS) interface for UDL portal would enable access to the digital content in voice mode, and also provide access to the digital content for illiterate and vision-impaired people. Our work focuses on design and implementation of text to speech interface for UDL portal primarily for Indian languages. This paper is aimed at identifying the issues involved in integrating text to speech system into UDL portal and describes the development process of Hindi, Telugu and Tamil voices under Festvox framework using unit selection techniques. We demonstrate the quality of the Tamil and Telugu voices and lay out the plan for integrating the TTS into the UDL portal.展开更多
Transliteration editors are essential for keying-in Indian language scripts into the computer using QWERTY keyboard. Applications of transliteration editors in the context of Universal Digital Library (UDL) include en...Transliteration editors are essential for keying-in Indian language scripts into the computer using QWERTY keyboard. Applications of transliteration editors in the context of Universal Digital Library (UDL) include entry of meta-data and diction- aries for Indian languages. In this paper we propose a simple approach for building transliteration editors for Indian languages using Unicode and by taking advantage of its rendering engine. We demonstrate the usefulness of the Unicode based approach to build transliteration editors for Indian languages, and report its advantages needing little maintenance and few entries in the mapping table, and ease of adding new features such as adding letters, to the transliteration scheme. We demonstrate the trans- literation editor for 9 Indian languages and also explain how this approach can be adapted for Arabic scripts.展开更多
Many different languages are spoken in India, each language being the mother tongue of tens of millions of people. While the languages and scripts are distinct from each other, the grammar and the alphabet are similar...Many different languages are spoken in India, each language being the mother tongue of tens of millions of people. While the languages and scripts are distinct from each other, the grammar and the alphabet are similar to a large extent. One common feature is that all the Indian languages are phonetic in nature. In this paper we describe the development of a translit- eration scheme Om which exploits this phonetic nature of the alphabet. Om uses ASCII characters to represent Indian language alphabets, and thus can be read directly in English, by a large number of users who cannot read script in other Indian languages than their mother tongue. It is also useful in computer applications where local language tools such as email and chat are not yet available. Another significant contribution presented in this paper is the development of a text editor for Indian languages that integrates the Om input for many Indian languages into a word processor such as Microsoft WinWord?. The text editor is also developed on Java? platform that can run on Unix machines as well. We propose this transliteration scheme as a possible standard for Indian language transliteration and keyboard entry.展开更多
The author proposes here for utilizing ELC （English Language Corpora） as a secondary resource for developing ELT （English Language Teaching） materials for teaching English to Indian learners. We argue for using EL...The author proposes here for utilizing ELC （English Language Corpora） as a secondary resource for developing ELT （English Language Teaching） materials for teaching English to Indian learners. We argue for using ELC as one of the most authentic representative collections of modem English language from where we extract necessary linguistic data, information, and examples to develop basic as well as additional resources of ELT, such as, text books, reference materials, syllabuses, grammar books, dictionaries, and terminology databases, etc., for Indian learners. Keeping the requirements of individual learners in mind we propose to customize materials to make these maximally useful within the broader scheme of CALT （Computer Assisted Language Teaching）. In our view, ELT resources developed from ELC are more useful for Indian learners, because ELC represents diversified varieties of usage of modem English in real situations, which Indian learners need to assimilate to be at par with others across the globe. Also ELC-based ELT resources are more interesting and beneficial to Indian learners, if instructors carefully utilize these resources keeping in mind the requirements of learners. If Indian ELT learners want to compete in global frame, then utilization of ELC-based ELT resources is the most useful solution, which we can ignore at the cost of our own peril.展开更多
Language and culture are inseparable. A language carries cultural message of a nation, which reflects the historical and cultural background of this nation, as well as people＇s thinking, social behavior and lifestyle...Language and culture are inseparable. A language carries cultural message of a nation, which reflects the historical and cultural background of this nation, as well as people＇s thinking, social behavior and lifestyle. Culture records the social development and changes while social development and changes in a variety of things and phenomena will get accumulated and reflected in the language. In the collision of Indian culture and American English, Indian culture has left a deep imprint on American English. American English absorbs a large number of Indian vocabulary, including the names of animals, plants, and many other aspects of social life along with compound words. This paper mainly focuses on the influence of Indian culture on American English, and analyses semantic variants from Indian language in American English, including sound, spelling, semantic and syntactical change. With the tolerance of other languages and many borrowed Indian words, American English makes the 17th century become its starting point of continuous development and evolution.展开更多
Environmental writing has attained a new relevance in the 21st century. In the present scenario, environmental writing becomes a social discourse. This is the result of a new, vibrant and growing environmental constit...Environmental writing has attained a new relevance in the 21st century. In the present scenario, environmental writing becomes a social discourse. This is the result of a new, vibrant and growing environmental constituency in societies such as Brazil, India, Thailand and other Third World Countries. The features of environmental writing include a visible concern for social justice, defence of livelihood and the determining part played by women. This new discourse has emerged with a new focus on redefinition of terms like human rights, common good, democracy and CPRs （common property resources）. Environmental Writing becomes a powerful discourse when it protests against the increasingly intrusive and interventionist developmental projects, implemented by the government, which in turn assert dominion over indigenous people of the land. There is also a strong emphasis on prudence among the poor as contrasted to the ecological profligacy of the rich. This paper is an attempt to examine the voices of dissent and the accountability of postmodern writers and environmental activists in India regarding environmental issues in India.展开更多
Rural masses in India view English as the language of socio-economic empowerment through education. Education could be either in English or in regional languages, but children should learn English, because it is seen ...Rural masses in India view English as the language of socio-economic empowerment through education. Education could be either in English or in regional languages, but children should learn English, because it is seen as the key to the world of opportunities in higher education and employment. The governments need to politically respond to the aspirations of the common masses keeping aside both politicised language policies and theoretical linguistic inputs that encourage one＇s mother tongue as the ideal medium of instruction. Onerous responsibility lays on men, methods, and materials over which government have the least say, but the practising teachers of English and academics who help bureaucrats in framing language policies in India are solely responsible for non-realization of dreams of the masses. There is something terribly rotten in the state of English-teaching enterprise in India. This paper proposes to examine the present state of affairs in the teaching of English to rural students and to offer constructive alternatives to the existing package of men, materials, and methods.展开更多
Curriculum is one of important factors which contribute to improving learner＇s ability and potency in education. Curriculum used in school has a purpose to make learners be active and creative persons. It is an educa...Curriculum is one of important factors which contribute to improving learner＇s ability and potency in education. Curriculum used in school has a purpose to make learners be active and creative persons. It is an education plan that emphasizes the competency of learners. Indonesia, through its Ministry of Education, implements 2013 Curriculum officially that reflects the competency of learners. This curriculum is actually similar with competence-based curriculum which concentrates on learners. In senior high school level, English becomes one of the subjects of final national examination and also this is the last level for learners before they continue their study to university. International oriented school is a school that applies English as a second language and also a school cooperates with or uses international standard curriculum. Reflecting learning and teaching English in senior high school especially in the international oriented school is very important and needs special attention. This research investigates the implementation of curriculum in the international oriented senior high school in Yogyakarta. From the research, it is known that the school officially does not implement 2013 Curriculum. However, ACT （Assessment Certificate Test） curriculum and the values of the school automatically reflect the 2013 Curriculum because the school empowering implementation of competency-based curriculum in learning process that focuses on learner-centered learning, facilitating assessments of process of learning and fostering learners＇ autonomy through the curriculum is reflected in the school essentially in the programs and activities.展开更多
文摘The objective of Universal Digital Library (UDL) is to capture all books in digital format. A text to speech (TTS) interface for UDL portal would enable access to the digital content in voice mode, and also provide access to the digital content for illiterate and vision-impaired people. Our work focuses on design and implementation of text to speech interface for UDL portal primarily for Indian languages. This paper is aimed at identifying the issues involved in integrating text to speech system into UDL portal and describes the development process of Hindi, Telugu and Tamil voices under Festvox framework using unit selection techniques. We demonstrate the quality of the Tamil and Telugu voices and lay out the plan for integrating the TTS into the UDL portal.
文摘Transliteration editors are essential for keying-in Indian language scripts into the computer using QWERTY keyboard. Applications of transliteration editors in the context of Universal Digital Library (UDL) include entry of meta-data and diction- aries for Indian languages. In this paper we propose a simple approach for building transliteration editors for Indian languages using Unicode and by taking advantage of its rendering engine. We demonstrate the usefulness of the Unicode based approach to build transliteration editors for Indian languages, and report its advantages needing little maintenance and few entries in the mapping table, and ease of adding new features such as adding letters, to the transliteration scheme. We demonstrate the trans- literation editor for 9 Indian languages and also explain how this approach can be adapted for Arabic scripts.
文摘Many different languages are spoken in India, each language being the mother tongue of tens of millions of people. While the languages and scripts are distinct from each other, the grammar and the alphabet are similar to a large extent. One common feature is that all the Indian languages are phonetic in nature. In this paper we describe the development of a translit- eration scheme Om which exploits this phonetic nature of the alphabet. Om uses ASCII characters to represent Indian language alphabets, and thus can be read directly in English, by a large number of users who cannot read script in other Indian languages than their mother tongue. It is also useful in computer applications where local language tools such as email and chat are not yet available. Another significant contribution presented in this paper is the development of a text editor for Indian languages that integrates the Om input for many Indian languages into a word processor such as Microsoft WinWord?. The text editor is also developed on Java? platform that can run on Unix machines as well. We propose this transliteration scheme as a possible standard for Indian language transliteration and keyboard entry.
文摘The author proposes here for utilizing ELC （English Language Corpora） as a secondary resource for developing ELT （English Language Teaching） materials for teaching English to Indian learners. We argue for using ELC as one of the most authentic representative collections of modem English language from where we extract necessary linguistic data, information, and examples to develop basic as well as additional resources of ELT, such as, text books, reference materials, syllabuses, grammar books, dictionaries, and terminology databases, etc., for Indian learners. Keeping the requirements of individual learners in mind we propose to customize materials to make these maximally useful within the broader scheme of CALT （Computer Assisted Language Teaching）. In our view, ELT resources developed from ELC are more useful for Indian learners, because ELC represents diversified varieties of usage of modem English in real situations, which Indian learners need to assimilate to be at par with others across the globe. Also ELC-based ELT resources are more interesting and beneficial to Indian learners, if instructors carefully utilize these resources keeping in mind the requirements of learners. If Indian ELT learners want to compete in global frame, then utilization of ELC-based ELT resources is the most useful solution, which we can ignore at the cost of our own peril.
文摘Language and culture are inseparable. A language carries cultural message of a nation, which reflects the historical and cultural background of this nation, as well as people＇s thinking, social behavior and lifestyle. Culture records the social development and changes while social development and changes in a variety of things and phenomena will get accumulated and reflected in the language. In the collision of Indian culture and American English, Indian culture has left a deep imprint on American English. American English absorbs a large number of Indian vocabulary, including the names of animals, plants, and many other aspects of social life along with compound words. This paper mainly focuses on the influence of Indian culture on American English, and analyses semantic variants from Indian language in American English, including sound, spelling, semantic and syntactical change. With the tolerance of other languages and many borrowed Indian words, American English makes the 17th century become its starting point of continuous development and evolution.
文摘Environmental writing has attained a new relevance in the 21st century. In the present scenario, environmental writing becomes a social discourse. This is the result of a new, vibrant and growing environmental constituency in societies such as Brazil, India, Thailand and other Third World Countries. The features of environmental writing include a visible concern for social justice, defence of livelihood and the determining part played by women. This new discourse has emerged with a new focus on redefinition of terms like human rights, common good, democracy and CPRs （common property resources）. Environmental Writing becomes a powerful discourse when it protests against the increasingly intrusive and interventionist developmental projects, implemented by the government, which in turn assert dominion over indigenous people of the land. There is also a strong emphasis on prudence among the poor as contrasted to the ecological profligacy of the rich. This paper is an attempt to examine the voices of dissent and the accountability of postmodern writers and environmental activists in India regarding environmental issues in India.
文摘Rural masses in India view English as the language of socio-economic empowerment through education. Education could be either in English or in regional languages, but children should learn English, because it is seen as the key to the world of opportunities in higher education and employment. The governments need to politically respond to the aspirations of the common masses keeping aside both politicised language policies and theoretical linguistic inputs that encourage one＇s mother tongue as the ideal medium of instruction. Onerous responsibility lays on men, methods, and materials over which government have the least say, but the practising teachers of English and academics who help bureaucrats in framing language policies in India are solely responsible for non-realization of dreams of the masses. There is something terribly rotten in the state of English-teaching enterprise in India. This paper proposes to examine the present state of affairs in the teaching of English to rural students and to offer constructive alternatives to the existing package of men, materials, and methods.
文摘Curriculum is one of important factors which contribute to improving learner＇s ability and potency in education. Curriculum used in school has a purpose to make learners be active and creative persons. It is an education plan that emphasizes the competency of learners. Indonesia, through its Ministry of Education, implements 2013 Curriculum officially that reflects the competency of learners. This curriculum is actually similar with competence-based curriculum which concentrates on learners. In senior high school level, English becomes one of the subjects of final national examination and also this is the last level for learners before they continue their study to university. International oriented school is a school that applies English as a second language and also a school cooperates with or uses international standard curriculum. Reflecting learning and teaching English in senior high school especially in the international oriented school is very important and needs special attention. This research investigates the implementation of curriculum in the international oriented senior high school in Yogyakarta. From the research, it is known that the school officially does not implement 2013 Curriculum. However, ACT （Assessment Certificate Test） curriculum and the values of the school automatically reflect the 2013 Curriculum because the school empowering implementation of competency-based curriculum in learning process that focuses on learner-centered learning, facilitating assessments of process of learning and fostering learners＇ autonomy through the curriculum is reflected in the school essentially in the programs and activities.
