[DDI-users] [DDI-SRG] ISSUE 602

[Jeremy Iverson]

Hi Wendy,

Where is the Content element where you can specify the language? I only 
see this structure, which uses xs:anyType for the Text, not Content. 
Content is used for Description, but that is not actually the question 
text, it is a description of the question text.

   QuestionItem
     QuestionText
       LiteralText
         Description
           Content
         Text
           xs:anyType
       ConditionalText

If Text become TextType as you note, this would allow the language to be 
specified at the segment level. However, if the language is only 
specified for each segment, it is impossible to know the actual language 
of the question: is it the language of the first segment, or the one 
with the most words, or something else? Those are not precise. Putting 
the language on QuestionText let's us be explicit.

If I am asking the question in English and happen to use a single German 
word, is it really necessary to document the fact that the single word 
is German? This seems like overkill, but if somebody has raised this as 
a use case I'd be curious to find out more.

I am not sure I understand the idea behind the Description, either. 
Would a Description on the QuestionItem be more appropriate, rather than 
having a Description of each segment of a question's text?

Thanks,

Jeremy

--
Jeremy Iverson
+1 608-213-1637
http://www.colectica.com/
Colectica - Statistical Data Management

On 6/2/2013 12:28 PM, Wendy Thomas wrote:
> I am sending this out as it seems to be a general interest question
> and I'd like broader feedback. There is a specific question regarding
> the resolution of this issue stated within the Note below. The brief
> answer to the issue as stated is that you can declare language in a
> QuestionItem and other DynamicText, its just that the language and
> translation tags lie within the Content tag (which is the language
> specific string in a StructuredStringType). The question is whether or
> not we need a top level "primary language" attribute to clarify when
> the content of a single language example contains foreign text. See
> details below.
>
> Please make your comments known as soon as possible. -- Wendy
>
>
>
> Summary  0000602: QuestionText no longer has xml:lang. Cannot specify
> the language of questions.
>
> Description: The QuestionText element no longer has xml:lang, so it is
> impossible to specify the language of question text, or to specify
> questions with translations.
>
> Apologies if this has already been resolved as part of some other
> issue. Or am I missing something here? This seems quite serious.
>
> Proposed Solution: Restore xml:lang on QuestionText. This would be
> consistent with the documentation for QuestionText, which states "Note
> that when using QuestionText, the full QuestionText must be repeated
> for multi-language versions of the content
>
> NOTE 1654
> In all cases of DynamicText we decided that the object itself must
> repeat to clearly provide a language alternative. All XxxxText objects
> of DynamicTextType reside in a parent complex object that is the one
> carrying the ID. The documentation states that the XxxxText object is
> repeatable for the purpose of expressing multiple languages and that
> the assumption is that the content of each repetition within the
> parent object is equivilent content in an alternate language.
>
> LiteralText is no longer a StructuredStringType but contains the
> repeatable object Content which is the language specific subelement of
> a StructuredString.
>
>
> So in a QuestionItem:
>
> < d:QuestionText><d:LiteralText><r:Content xml:lang="de">Kommen Sie
> mit?</r:Content></d:LiteralText><d:QuestionText>
> < d:QuestionText><d:LiteralText><r:Content xml:lang="en">Do you want
> to come with?</r:Content></d:LiteralText><d:QuestionText>
>
> This was done because a question could have multiple language
> segements and because the dynamic text may fall in different locations
> in various language strings. We felt it was confusing to mix multiple
> language strings into a single QuestionText under such conditions and
> could even be impossible to parse out.
>
> So at the moment it is a matter of digging further into the
> DynamicText content to determine language. The question we should
> address is the following:
>
> Do we need to provide information on the primary language of the
> DynamicText content at the parent object level?
>
> Pro: Saves digging into question and also clarifies the primary
> language for mult-language content within a questions, e.g. the
> following:
>
> < d:QuestionText><d:LiteralText><r:Content xml:lang="en">What is your
> understanding of the German word </r:Content><r:Content
> xml:lang="de">"Kölsch"?</r:Content></d:LiteralText><d:QuestionText>
>
> Con: What is the rule for language identification conflicts between
> primary language information at DynamicText level and Content level?
> For example I could be asking a question in one language for a
> questionnaire that was intended for use in another language group. In
> short resolving conflicts is not a one answer fits all situations.
>
> Note that "Content" has the full set of language and translation
> information found in any international or structred string. Also note
> that for ALL other string types that support multple languages the
> language and translation information is contained in the sub-element.
> The object that is of InternationalStringType or StructuredStringType
> is a means of binding multiple language equivilencies together.
>
> --
> Wendy L. Thomas                              Phone: +1 612.624.4389
> Data Access Core Director                 Fax:   +1 612.626.8375
> Minnesota Population Center             Email: wlt at umn.edu
> University of Minnesota
> 50 Willey Hall
> 225 19th Avenue South
> Minneapolis, MN 55455
>
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