Since mobile devices have feature-rich configurations and provide diverse functions, the use of mobile devices combined with the language resources of cloud environments is high promising for achieving a wide range communication that goes beyond the current language barrier. However, there are mismatches between using resources of mobile devices and services in the cloud such as the different communication protocol and different input and output methods. In this paper, we propose a language service infrastructure for mobile environments to combine these services. The proposed language service infrastructure allows users to use and mashup existing language resources on both cloud environments and their mobile devices. Furthermore, it allows users to flexibly use services in the cloud or services on mobile devices in their composite service without implementing several different composite services that have the same functionality. A case study of Mobile Shopping Translation System using both a service in the cloud (translation service) and services on mobile devices (Bluetooth low energy (BLE) service and text-to-speech service) is introduced.

In this research, we introduce and implement a method that combines human inputters and machine translators. When the languages of the participants vary widely, the cost of simultaneous translation becomes very high. However, the results of simply applying machine translation to speech text do not have the quality that is needed for real use. Thus, we propose a method that people who understand the language of the speaker cooperate with a machine translation service in support of multilingualization by the co-creation of value. We implement a system with this method and apply it to actual presentations. While the quality of direct machine translations is 1.84 (fluency) and 2.89 (adequacy), the system has corresponding values of 3.76 and 3.85.

Fragmentation and recombination is a key to create customized language environments for supporting various intercultural activities. Fragmentation provides various language resource components for the customized language environments and recombination builds each language environment according to user’s request by combining these components. To realize this fragmentation and recombination process, existing language resources (both data and programs) should be shared as language services and combined beyond mismatch of their service interfaces. To address this issue, standardization is inevitable: standardized interfaces are necessary for language services as well as data format required for language resources. Therefore, we have constructed a hierarchy of language services based on inheritance of service interfaces, which is called language service ontology. This ontology allows users to create a new customized language service that is compatible with existing ones. Moreover, we have developed a dynamic service binding technology that instantiates various executable customized services from an abstract workflow according to user’s request. By using the ontology and service binding together, users can bind the instantiated language service to another abstract workflow for a new customized one.

As the number of language resources accessible on the Internet increases, many efforts have been made for combining language resources and language processing tools to create new services. However, existing language resource coordination frameworks cannot manage issues of intellectual property associated with language resources, which make it difficult for most end-users to get supports for their intercultural collaborations because they always have to deal with the issues by themselves. In this paper, we aim at constructing a new language service management architecture on the Language Grid, which enables language resource providers to control access to their resources in accordance with their own policies. Furthermore, we apply the proposed architecture to the operating Language Grid in order to validate the effectiveness of the architecture. As a result, several service management models utilizing the monitoring and access constraints are occurring to satisfy various requirements from language resource providers. These models can handle paid-for language resources as well as free language resources. Finally, we discuss further challenging issues of combining language resources under each different policies.