Affiliation: University of Glamorgan, Wales, School of Computing

E-Mail: adeere@glam.ac.uk

A number of jurisdictions have enacted legislation that requires minority language provision on designated websites. If done consistently such requirements can provide a valuable medium for a minority language, and can achieve in cyberspace a level of minority language use difficult to achieve off-line. This paper will look at the scope and extent of minority language website provision in a number of jurisdictions, with a focus on Canada and the UK.

The initial requirement for minority language inclusion is usually contained in 'official language' type legislation requiring the use of the minority language in designated public services. However, the details of what information is targeted and how and when this information is displayed are often left to policy directives of governmental bodies or to the designated organisations themselves. Several states have had minority languages provision requirements for public services prior to the creation of the web. However, implementation of these requirements on designated websites and the results obtained are varied. Some differences are a result of the differing status of the languages in the respective states, but many differences are simply attributable to inconsistent application of language use policies and website guidelines and to design and technical choices made by the target organisations. This paper will highlight the positive and negative aspects of those policies and design criteria and analyse their impact on the goal of providing and promoting minority language use.

Website design decisions such as the use of bilingual welcome screens, consistent placement of language negotiation options, and internal design structure of the site have an important impact on the usability of such sites by minority language speakers and have important roles to play if the policy objectives are to be met. The paper will argue for a creation of a set of consistent guidelines based on best practices noted to date.

Keywords: WWW, Internet, Web, Websites, Guidelines, Heuristics, Bilingual, Canada, French, United Kingdom, Wales, Welsh