Globalisation is a fairly broad term that describes the phenomena of the ‘local’ turning into the ‘global’, or the coming together of different aspects of the world into a single and identifiable state. While this may not be directly from the dictionary, globalisation is one of those words that has taken on a life of its own in recent times and has developed meaning beyond that of its own definition. While the term globalisation may have at first been strictly applied to
The English language as a Global Force
The English language is the second most widely spoken tongue in the world today. Of the 6912 living languages listed on the Ethnologue language database, only Mandarin is spoken by more people. It is the English language however that seems to be having a bigger impact on the world as a whole and has become the global de-facto standard used in business, cultural and political exchange. The integration, or coming together of the world’s cultures and economies is commonly known as globalisati
Technology of Inter-cultural Communication
Computer environments can offer new tools for the inter-cultural communication between nations. Use of the Internet especially can act as a powerful way for cultures to interact in novel and surprising ways. The different languages that are spoken and written by different nations will of course present problems for inter-cultural communication, but even with these difficulties much dialogue is still occurring because of email, instant messenger and chatting communication tools. These technolo
The Global Digital Divide and the Internet
As computers become more pervasive in the western world, it can be easy to forget that not every country has equal access to key digital resources and infrastructure. Broadband speed Internet is almost considered a necessity in many developed countries today, and yet many people in parts of the developing world do not have any ability to go online at all. This difference in ability of accessing digital and information technology is commonly referred to as the digital divide. This gap between peo
Global Economic Integration
The term globalisation can refer to many things, however it is the increasing economic globalisation between countries that is causing much controversy around the world. The emergence of a global marketplace is a fairly recent phenomena that is having huge effects on both developed and developing nations. There are many people and organisations that are all for this economic integration and also those who stand defiantly against it. Technology is playing a big part in this global dialogue by
Global Telecommunication Infrastructure
Telecommunication is the transfer or transmission of a signal over a distance. This transfer generally exists for the purpose of communication, and in recent times this communication has been made easier and faster due to a powerful global infrastructure. We have always had to communicate with others over a long distance, and it has always involved technology of some sort. Whether by using flags, smoke signals or drums we have always managed to get the message across; but now instead of just
Programming Languages and the English Language
Throughout the history of computing there has been an overwhelming trend to use the English language as the basis in the design of computer programming languages. There is a simple reason for this as almost half of all programming languages were designed in English speaking countries, with well over a quarter of all languages coming from the United States. This trend is not just with programming languages either as computer BIOS (basic input output system) is almost always in English as well.
Spoken Language Translation Software
Spoken language translation, or translation of speech to speech is still mainly in the research phase even though some examples of it have been made available. Translation of speech to speech is a highly problematic area of computing that combines the development of a few different and difficult areas. In order for a successful application to be developed it would need to contain speech to text recognition, translation and speech to text synthesis as well. Each of these areas can be difficul
The Internet in the World
The Internet is a worldwide network of computers that communicate using a particular protocol. This is known as the Internet protocol and refers to the way that information is grouped together into packets and how these packets are addressed. The Internet is so big and all encompassing that it does require this fairly abstract and vague definition. In 2008 the Internet is accessed by almost 22% of the world population, however this number is highly skewed towards particular countries and part
Internationalisation
With the English language being so powerful and prevalent online it can sometimes be easy to forget that a lot of the world do not speak English. Internationalisation (sometimes shortened to I18N or I – eighteen letters -N) is a term used in computing to refer to the adaption of computer software into different languages and for different geographical regions. Rather than having to redevelop a software application for every different language and region that it enters into, the process of