#Respectively scientific director and consultant at the CEVEIL (Centre
d'expertise et de veille inforoutes et langues - Centre for Assessment and
Monitoring of Information Highways and Languages)
The CEVEIL, set up in 1995, is a non-profit-making body based in Quebec whose
main purpose is to think about the use and processing of languages on
information highways, from a French-language viewpoint, through strategic
monitoring activity and creating a network of exchanges and evaluation. The
CEVEIL also focuses on the language industry in general (voice recognition,
machine translation and optical character recognition, for example) and related
fields such as strategic management of data, knowledge management, setting norms
and standardisation. The CEVEIL is part of the CEFRIO (Centre francophone
d'information des organisations - French-language Centre for Information on
Organisations).
*Interview of August 23, 1998 (original interview in French)
= What did using the Internet affect the CEVEIL?
First, the Web is one of the reasons for CEVEIL's existence, because we focus on
things like language use and processing on the Internet.
The Web is also where we get most of our information on the topics we're
interested in. We regularly monitor sites that supply daily and weekly news. So
we definitely make more use of the Internet than we do other written sources.
We also use electronic mail a great deal to keep in touch with our contributors,
to obtain information and carry out projects. CEVEIL is a "network structure"
which might not survive without the Internet to link all the people involved in
it.
The Web is also the most important means for distributing our products to target
clients -- sending electronic news to our subscribers, creating an online
magazine, and distributing information and documents through our website.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
Multilingualism on the Internet is the logical and natural consequence of the
diversity of human beings. Because the Web was first developed and used in the
United States, it's not really surprising it started out as -- and still is --
essentially Anglophone. But this is beginning to change, because most new users
will not have English as their mother tongue and because non-English-speaking
communities already on the Web will no longer accept the dominance of English
and will want to use their own language to some extent.
We can envisage, in a few years time, a situation similar to the one in
publishing concerning use of different languages. This means only a small number
of languages will be used (compared to the several thousand that exist). So we
think the Web should try to further support minority cultures and languages,
particularly in the case of dispersed communities.
The arrival on the Internet of languages other than English, while demanding
genuine readjustment and providing undeniable enrichment, emphasizes the need
for linguistic tools to cope with the situation. These will emerge from research
and promoting awareness in areas such as machine translation, standardization,
searching for information, automatic summarizing, and so on.
= How do you see the future?
The Internet is here to stay. The arrival on it of languages other than English
is also irreversible. So we have to take that into account from an economic,
social, political and cultural point of view. Sectors such as advertising,
vocational training, knowledge management, and work in groups or within networks
will have to change. This brings us back to the need to develop really effective
technology and tools to encourage exchanges in a truly multilingual global
village.
*Interview of March 13, 2000 (original interview in French)
= What has happened since our first interview?
Since then, the CEVEIL has stopped putting out weekly news bulletins and its
monthly magazine. This is not so much because we've changed direction but rather
for want of staff and funding. We don't plan to resume those activities for the
moment.
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web?
Guy Bertrand: It's very important to respect copyright and it's up to the
authors to decide what they want to do about it. The Web is offering more and
more things for free. Authors don't have to accept that, but a growing number of
them are choosing to adapt to it and are benefitting. The business models on the
Web are changing very rapidly and will continue to. New ones will spring up with
a strong free-of-charge content, but copyright will have to be respected in
newer and more original ways by authors and providers of services and content.
Cynthia Delisle: Ideally, copyright should be respected on the Web as it is in
other media such as the radio and the written press. However, the Internet
raises new kinds of problems here because of the ease that data can be
(re)produced and (re)distributed on a huge scale and because of the tradition of
it being available for free. This tradition means people balk at paying for
products and services they'd find it quite normal to pay for in other situations
and they also perhaps have fewer qualms, in the context of the Net, about using
pirated products. I think respecting copyright is one of the biggest issues for
the future of the Net and it'll certainly be very interesting to see what
solutions will emerge to deal with it.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
Guy Bertrand: Worldwide e-commerce has grown enormously since 1998 and
businesses are increasingly keen to use the languages of their potential
customers, which is going to boost further this multilingual aspect. E-commerce
won't take over the Web, but its importance is growing as multilingualism
increases there. But the tools for multilingualism on the Web are unfortunately
always one step behind.
Cynthia Delisle: I think the trend which had already begin in 1998 has now
established itself and the future of the Internet is definitely going to be a
multilingual one. The Net is becoming more international and it's hard to see
how this can happen without it becoming linguistically and culturally more
diverse. English will probably always be the Net's most frequently-used
language, but the proportion of sites and pages available in other languages
will steadily increase until a certain equilibrium is reached. I also quite
agree with Mr Bertrand when he points out that the tools to handle this
linguistic diversity are not yet ready. Machine translation, for example, has
made woefully little headway in recent years. Yet the needs are growing all the
time, which is why we need to step up research and development in these areas.
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
Guy Bertrand: My first one with the site www.neuromedia.com.
Cynthia Delisle: Being in regular touch with my family at little cost through
e-mail while I was abroad for long periods.
= And your worst experience?
Cynthia Delisle: The problem of harrassment, such as constant unsolicited
personal e-mails several years ago, before servers installed spam filters.