Transliteration means being literate in different media. It involves understanding symbols, syntax, and semantics consistently. It is often used to evaluate literacy in digital media and is different from translation. Language projects help experts experiment with transliteration.
Transliteration is the idea of being literate across multiple media or platforms. In the past, this meant literacy in formats such as handwriting, printing, typing and cursive. Today, transliteration usually refers to literacy in different media, such as books, television, and the Internet.
To be literate in a certain type of media, the individual must be able to assimilate all the symbols, syntax and semantics for that particular media and understand them consistently. In many cases, the syntax and lexicon are the same for different types of media in a given language. Some of the symbols and syntax used, however, can be used in subtle ways across different media platforms, which is why linguists look at issues like transliteration to define how people use modern technology and modern media. For example, the technical “encoding” text used in social media platforms can cause an individual to misunderstand elements of that media before they become familiar with it.
Anyone who wants to really understand what transliteration means must contrast the word with the idea of ”transliteration”, which has a different meaning. Transliteration is simply translating characters from one language or literacy set into characters from another. This is not what transliteration means; instead, the term describes the ability to understand and express oneself through different media.
Some professionals have referred to different terms to help others understand the transliteration results. These include ‘people to people’, ‘documents to documents’ and ‘people to documents’, where understanding how speakers interact with speech and words, in paper and digital formats, can help someone understand transliteration. In general, the word is more often used to evaluate literacy in digital media, since these new technologies have changed the way we view media in general and are absorbing more than the total “readership” of the global community.
Some specific language projects further illustrate transliteration issues. For example, the University of California Santa Barbara’s Research Oriented Social Environmental Program addresses this idea through specially crafted research initiatives. Efforts like this will help experts further define and experiment with transliteration and learn more about how humans train to use new media as it becomes available.
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