clarification point on percentages - Controlled Language

[Jeff ALLEN <jeff -at- ELDA -dot- FR>]

Dear tech writing colleagues,

Please let me clarify my question below that was posted to TECHWR-L
yesterday. Someone contacted me about this question and I think it would
help to include a few extra details, especially since I am new to this list.

I am not asking for people to collect bibliographic information for me or
to do work for me.  
I have a very complete personal library of information on Controlled
Languages, having been a specialist in the field for the past 5 years.  I
was  the trainer of Caterpillar Technical English technical  writing for 2
years (1995 & 96) and then spent the last 2 years on translation and
linguistic research at the Center for Machine Translation of Carnegie Mellon 
University.  I literally have tons of reference materials at home on the
subject, with lists of bibliographies.  I also have several electronic
files that contain URLs from my ongoing Internet searches. I have posted
this information on other lists (e.g. LANTRA-L) where 
I have explained Controlled Language, Machine Translation and Translation
Memory systems in detail.  These messages can be obtained from the LANTRA-L
archives. (please contact me off-line for more information on how to obtain
info from those archives).

I could write a program to class all bibliographic entries by language, and
if I also annotated the entries with information on public vs. internal, I
could filter on this information as well.  Yet, this is not what I am
looking for.  I want to know the general percentage of what the writers,
the researchers, the developers, the managers, and other types of users of
controlled language read and hear in their daily work and at conferences.
This may in
fact be different from what is "theoretically" accessible through a
library.   It is also very difficult to obtain any specific information on
internal documentation (I know because I've written a lot of it) on the
topic, but by asking a question for general percentages, company people
have in fact already written to me with their statistics. Also, these
percentages are very important with respect to those specialists who do not
work in English-speaking countries.

I could also do a little statistical analysis of the bibliographic
references, if that would be interesting to others, but that will take some
extra time to compile.

Many thanks in advance who would be willing to participate in
my survey.

Best,  

Jeff Allen
Technical Manager - European Language Resources Association
<jeff -at- elda -dot- fr>

--------  posted on April 14, 1999 to TECHWR-L-----

This is a short survey.

I would like to know in which languages different 
articles, papers, theses, dissertations, have been
written/presented "on the topic of" Controlled
Languages / Sublanguages.

Please provide the following general information in replies:

1. language name(s) in which the information "on the topic"
of Controlled Languages / Sublanguages has been conveyed;
(Note: I am not asking for information on the amount of
documentation written "in" any specific controlled
language(s) but rather about the topic in general).

2. the _approximate_ percentage of documents/presentations
on Controlled Languages/Sublanguages that you have read/
heard in this/(each of these) language(s);

3. please differentiate between documents/presentations that
are publicly accessible (published, available on the Internet)
and those that are not (e.g., internal company documents,
company meetings).  No details are necessary, just
approximate percentages.

For example:

Publicly available:
Language X: 50%
Language Y: 20%
Language Z: 30%


Not publicly available:
Language X: 75%
Language Y: 25%

If you wish to indicate the _approximate number_
of reports/papers/presentation per  public and
non-public categories, it would be greatly
appreciated but is not necessary.

Many thanks in advance.

Please send replies to me directly at:  jeff -at- elda -dot- fr

I will post a summary at a later date.


Jeff Allen
<jeff -at- elda -dot- fr>




=================================================
Jeff ALLEN - Directeur Technique
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)  &
European Language resources Distribution Agency (ELDA) 
(Agence Européenne de Distribution des Ressources Linguistiques)
55, rue Brillat-Savarin
75013   Paris   FRANCE
Tel: (+33) 1.43.13.33.33 - Fax: (+33) 1.43.13.33.30
mailto:jeff -at- elda -dot- fr
http://www.icp.grenet.fr/ELRA/home.html

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