An Open Service Framework for Next Generation Localisation

The localisation industry makes strong use of language processing pipelines at the core of its bulk localisation workflows, where software text and technical manuals are translated into the languages of target markets. Natural language technologies such as machine translation and text analytics are now maturing to a stage where they are being adopted as components in these workflows. However, they also offer the opportunity to broaden the localisation business into domains where the source content is less predictable and produced and consumed more rapidly and in higher volumes by a wider range of users. To exploit the business opportunities of such Next Generation Localisation, the localisation industry must adopt a more flexible, extensible and lower cost mechanism for the integration of language processing workflows across many, increasingly specialised players. This paper outlines an open services framework that is being developed by the Centre for Next Generation Localisation that will allow industry to react rapidly to changing business models and new opportunities by exploiting service oriented architectures for service reuse and (re)composition, extensible meta-data driven interoperability and flexible service and workflow management capabilities.