LINGUIST List 7.897

Fri Jun 14 1996

FYI: MtStr - Multilingual string library; New Language Use list

Editor for this issue: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar <aristartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. "Jean Ve'ronis", Free Soft: MtStr - Multilingual string library
2. Susan Ervin-Tripp, new list: lang-use

.

 *** ANNOUNCING FREE SOFTWARE ALPHA RELEASE ***

 MtStr - Multilingual string library


MtStr is a C library for UN*X developed in the context of the MULTEXT
project, which extends the usual functions provided in the C character and
string ctype and string libraries, in order to accomodate multi-lingual text
processing. MtStr is designed especially for texts encoded using SGML. It
offers the following capabilities:

 * it extends functions such as isupper, strcmp, strtok, etc., to handle
 several different character sets as well as SGML entities;
 * it offers additional functions for translation between different
 character sets and/or SGML entities;
 * it extends functions such as isupper, islower, etc., to handle
 characters with diacritics;
 * it provides means to handle different lexicographic orderings;
 * it provides functions for conversion between character classes (e.g.,
 between the accented and unaccented versions of a given character,
 etc.);
 * it handles both fixed-width character sets (in which all characters
 have the same byte size) and variable-width character sets (in which
 characters may have different byte sizes);

MtStr internally maps all characters to Unicode/ISO 10646. The functions are
table-driven and can therefore be easily customized to handle modification
or additional character sets, as needed.

Source code and documentation can be freely downloaded for non-commencial,
non-military use (see our user agreement) from:

 <http://www.lpl.univ-aix.fr/projects/multext/MtStr/>;

Note that MtStr is an alpha version with bugs and limitations. It is
being distributed "as is" in order to solicit feedback. We invite the
user community to send comments and advice, provide additional tables,
etc.

Jean Ve'ronis
Multext project Coordinator_______________veronisuniv-aix.fr

>Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 18:22 -0400
>From: ANITAVM.TEMPLE.EDU
>Subject: new list
>ANNOUNCING A NEW E-MAIL LIST: LANG-USEVM.TEMPLE.EDU
>
>The idea for this e-mail list arose in discussions at the
>American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference in March
>1996. Elinor Ochs was Program Chair of this year's conference,
>and its theme, "Discourse Communities," attracted people from
>different disciplines who share interests in how language is
>acquired and used. As we met and talked during the conference, we
>realized that we wanted to maintain contact with one another.
>
>Two months after the AAAL Conference, I attended the
>International Communication Association convention. I spoke with
>people active in the Language and Social Interaction Division; a
>surprising number of them have roots in linguistics, education,
>psychology, anthropology, or sociology. They were keen to
>participate in a list on language use, especially one that
>appeals to, and hence might draw together, scholars across
>disciplines.
>
>I am encouraged by the creation of interdisciplinary units within
>universities. At UC Santa Barbara, an interdisciplinary program
>on Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) draws
>its faculty from the Education, Linguistics, and Sociology
>departments. The program brings together three distinct but
>related approaches: the ethnographic study of naturally occurring
>interaction, interactional functional linguistics, and the study
>of sequentially organized activities carried out through the
>medium of language. At UCLA, a similar interdisciplinary program
>has been instituted. At Temple University, the linguistics
>program (already an interdisciplinary program) has been moved
>into the Communication Sciences department. I believe the
>creation of these programs shows that 1) studying language use is
>becoming more legitimate in the academy, and 2) scholars studying
>language-related phenomena are becoming more aware that their
>community is not bound by discipline or department.
>
>As I see it, some of the purposes of this list are: to discuss
>issues related to research on language acquisition and use; to
>announce relevant conferences, meetings, books, etc.; to exchange
>references and course materials related to our interests; and to
>discuss the politics of strengthening academic units, journals,
>job opportunities, etc. that represent our interests in language
>use.
>
>Instructions for subscribing to LANG-USE:
>1. Address mail to listservvm.temple.edu.
>2. On the first line in the message area, write:
> sub lang-use my_name (write your own name where I put "my_name")
>3. Send the message.
>4. The listserve will ask you to confirm your subscription. Just follow
>its instructions.
>
>If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at
>anitavm.temple.edu.
>
> Anita Pomerantz
> Communication Sciences (265-62)
> Temple University
> Philadelphia, PA 19122
> 215-204-1883
>