Future Prospects

The objectives presented here for the EAGLES SLWG represent one step in the enormous task of documenting current resources and methods employed within the entire field of spoken language science and technology developments. It is of course inconceivable that such a task can be thoroughly and comprehensively accomplished within such a limited period of time and within the very modest resources devoted to this project. Initial feedback from the spoken language community however has confirmed the value of this activity. Discussions are now under way to define the nature and extent of further work in this important area, and especially to provide an effective mechanism for regular updating of the handbook material. The main areas of activity for the near future are considered to be:

1. Survey of existing practice. Industrial participation has so far been considerable, but the coverage of opinion within the field needs to be extended on a broader basis than has so far been possible: first, a further in-depth survey should be made of the requirements of industrial developers and users; second, a survey of resources and needs in Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States formerly in the Soviet Union is required. Equally important is coverage of results of Fourth Framework Programme projects.

2. Extension of language base. Existing documentation covers the main languages of the European Union, and definition of standard representation techniques for transcription and signal annotation of other languages is urgently required. Of increasing interest in this respect are the languages of Eastern Europe.

3. Revision and completion of existing documentation. The presently available documentation is still incomplete and requires fuller consultation on some of the more recently produced material. Several areas, including corpus collection and lexical database techniques and tools as well as the evaluation methodology for complex systems, require updating and additions in the light of recent developments. More precise user targeting is required, with an explicit distinction in information granularity between management/planning and laboratory/project user levels.

4. Publication and dissemination. The available documentation requires new dissemination and publication concepts in line with recent developments in the use of new media and broad-band networks. Efficient development and production techniques for different modes of publication and dissemination of complex documents in conventional and hypertext form are required. Legal aspects of accessibility of resources and documentation need to be addressed.

5. Co-ordination with other bodies. The relation between European standardisation and evaluation work and European associations such as ELRA, as well as with national spoken language archives and validation centres, requires further study and negotiation. Equally important is continued interaction with related international endeavours, primarily via the COCOSDA initiative. Finally, language projects initiated in the Fourth Framework Programme are expected to provide a continued source of fruitful interactions with future EAGLES activities.

6. Co-ordination with written language standardisation and evaluation groups. Some of the results of core work in spoken language which is of secondary value to written language work, such as pronunciation transcriptions for lexica and dialogue corpora, is available as a service to written language groups. However, in addition to the separate consolidation of work in the two complementary areas, joint consultation will be required in the foreseeable future on complex systems such as automatic dictation systems or speech to speech translation systems.