Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T23:45:08.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Searching Legal Information in Multiple Asian Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2012

Philip Chung ,
Andrew Mowbray  and
Graham Greenleaf
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article Philip Chung, Andrew Mowbray, and Graham Greenleaf, the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed; the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII's open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

Keywords

free legal informationinformation retrievalsearch enginesAsian languages
Type
Legal Literature: Unlocking Access
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 173 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chandra, B, Mukherjee, M and Mukherjee, A. (2008) India Since Independence, Penguin, 2008Google Scholar
Fung, A, Pun, K, Chung, P and Mowbray, A. (2011) ‘Searching in Chinese: The Experience of HKLII’, paper presented at Law via the Internet Conference, Hong Kong, June 2011, available at <http://www.hklii.hk/conference/paper/1C3.pdf>>Google Scholar
Foo, S and Li, H. (2004) ‘Chinese word segmentation and its effect on information retrieval’, Information Processing and Management 40(1), 161–190CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gao, J, Nie, J and Zhou, M. (2006) ‘Statistical query translation models for cross-language information retrieval’, ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing 5(4) 323–359CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, T. (2000) Unicode: A Primer, M&T Books, 2000Google Scholar
Greenleaf, G. (2011) ‘Free access to legal information, LIIs, and the Free Access to Law Movement’, Chapter in Danner, R and Winterton, J (eds.) IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management. Aldershot, Burlington VT, 2011, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1960867Google Scholar
Greenleaf, G, Chung, P and Mowbray, A. (2007) ‘Challenges in improving access to Asian laws: the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII)’ (2007). Australian Journal of Asian Law, 9(1).Google Scholar
Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A and Chung, P. (2011) ‘AustLII: Thinking locally, acting globally’ (2011) Australian Law Librarian, pgs 101–11, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1960878Google Scholar
Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A and Chung, P. (2010) ‘AustLII in 2010 – A snapshot at age 15’ AustLII, December 2010, available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/publications/2010/1.pdfCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenleaf, G, Vivekanandan, VC, Chung, P, Singh, R and Mowbray, A. (2011) ‘Challenges for free access in a multi-jurisdictional developing country: building the Legal Information Institute of India’ SCRIPTed 8(3), 2011, University of Edinburgh School of Law; also available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1975760.Google Scholar
Halpern, J and Kerman, J. (1999) ‘The pitfalls and complexities of Chinese to Chinese translation’ in Proceedings of Machine Translation Summit VII, 13–17 September 1999, Singapore. http://www.mt-archive.info/MTS-1999-Halpern.pdfGoogle Scholar
Haruechaiyasak, C, Kongyoung, S and Dailey, M. (2008) ‘A comparative study on Thai word segmentation approaches’, The fifth International Conference on Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology, 125–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, S-J. (2012) ‘Development of the online legal information system and the e-Legislation system in Korea’, p. 158–62 in Shee (Ed), 2012Google Scholar
Hwang, R-H and Shee, H-L. (2012) ‘Making legal information smart, friendly and inspiring’, p. 163–201, in Shee, H-L (Ed), 2012Google Scholar
Kishida, K, Chen, K, Lee, S, Chen, H, Kando, N, Kuriyama, K, Myaeng, SH and Eguchi, K. (2004) ‘Cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) task at the NTCIR workshop 3’, SIGIR Forum 38(1) (Jul. 2004), 17–20. DOI: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/986278.986281CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Y, Jin, R and Chai, J. (2006) ‘A statistical framework for query translation disambiguation’, ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing, 5(4), 360–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lunde, K. (2009) CJKV Information Processing, 2nd ed, Oreilly & AssociatesGoogle Scholar
Matsuura, Y. (2012) ‘The principle of “mutual exploitation” and collaborative approach to comparative study of laws in East Asia’, p. 58–71, in Shee, H-L, 2012Google Scholar
Nilekani, N. (2008) Imagining India: Ideas for a New Century, Allen Lane (Penguin Press), 2008, p. 77Google Scholar
Nguyen, TV, Tran, HK, Nguyen, TTT and Nguyen, H. (2006) ‘Word Segmentation for Vietnamese Text Categorization: An online corpus approach’ in Proceedings of 4th IEEE International Conference on Computer Science – Research, Innovation and Vision of the Future 2006 (RIVF'06), p. 172–178Google Scholar
Peng, F, Huang, X, Schuurmans, D and Cercone, N. (2002) ‘Investigating the relationship between word segmentation performance and retrieval performance in Chinese IR’ In Proceedings of the 19th international Conference on Computational Linguistics – Volume 1 (Taipei, Taiwan, August 24 – September 01, 2002). International Conference On Computational Linguistics. Association for Computational Linguistics, Morristown, NJ, 1–7. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3115/1072228.1072376CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulin, D, Mowbray, A and Lemyre, P-P. (2007) ‘Free Access to Law and Open Source Software’ Handbook of Research on Open Source Software St. Amant & Still (Eds) Information Science Reference, Hershey – New York 2007, available at: http://www.informationjuridique.org/docs/publications/freeaccess2007.pdfCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pun, K. (2003) ‘Processing Legal Documents in the Chinese-Speaking World: the Experience of HKLII’ Proc. Law via Internet Conference, 2003Google Scholar
Pun, K. (2004) ‘Cross-Referencing for Bilingual Electronic Legal Documents in HKLII’, Proc. Law via Internet Conference, 2003Google Scholar
Pun, KH, Chong, CF and Chan, Vivien. (2003) ‘Processing Legal Documents in the Chinese-Speaking World’, [2003] CompLRes 4, Proc. Law via Internet Conference. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/CompLRes/2003/4.htmlGoogle Scholar
Sekine, Y. (2012) ‘The Development of a Translation Memory Database System for Law Translation’, Invitation to Translation Studies 7, 79–88.Google Scholar
Shee, H-L. (Ed). (2012) Proc. International Conference on Legal Information and East Asian Law: Theories, Practices and Prototypes, National Chung Cheng University Department of Law, Taiwan, June 2012Google Scholar
Toyama, K and Sekine, Y. (2012) ‘Development of translation memory database system for law translation’, p. 153–157, in Shee, H-L (Ed), 2012Google Scholar
Zhou, D, Truran, M, Brailsford, T and Ashman, H. (2008) ‘A Hybrid Technique for English-Chinese Cross Language Information Retrieval’, ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP) 7(2) (June 2008), 1–35. DOI: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1362782.1362784CrossRefGoogle Scholar