On June 26, Montserrat Bermúdez, Iria da Cunha, and Maite Taboada presented their paper “Choosing clear variants for English terms from the legal-administrative domain within the EU: A glossary proposal” at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference at The University of Queensland (Australia). Specifically, they participated in the panel “Choosing the best words for clear accessible communication,” organized by Cliff Goddard and Helen Bromhead. The paper includes the results of the project “Plain language and natural language processing in legal-administrative texts in English: the European Commission as a case study (EUPlainTech)” (PID2022-143092NB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
The arText system in Nova Ciencia
Nova Ciencia has published a news item about our arText system. 🙂
Official launch of arText in Catalan
Iria da Cunha and Amor Montané presented the Catalan version of the arText system in Barcelona. The event was attended by representatives from the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government) and the Government of the Balearic Islands, co-funders of the project, as well as from the UNED Barcelona and Balearic Islands centers, the Institute for Catalan Studies, the Institute for Applied Linguistics, and Termcat, among others.
Access to the system: https://sistema-artext.com/ca/
More information on the UNED website and the Generalitat de Catalunya website.
Article in The Conversation
Don’t miss this article about plain language and artificial intelligence in The Conversation! 🙂
Article published in Logos
The following article has just been published, which includes some results of Sara Pistola’s thesis, defended in July 2024 at the UNED, and co-directed by Iria da Cunha and Susana Viñuales.
Pistola, Sara; Da Cunha, Iria (2024). «Análisis y clarificación de un corpus de fraseología administrativa: una propuesta orientada al uso del lenguaje claro en la Administración española». Logos: Revista de Lingüística, Filosofía y Literatura, 34(2). 494-522. ISSN 0719-3262
Article published in Sphera Publica
Here you have the reference of an article we have recently published, where we evaluate the arText claro system with the collaboration of the staff of the Madrid City Council, in the framework of our Proof of Concept project of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Pistola, Sara; Da Cunha, Iria (2024). «El personal público como pieza imprescindible en la evaluación de la tecnología aplicada al lenguaje claro». Sphera Publica, 24(2). 116-145. ISSN 1576-4192
Article published in Archiletras Científica
Issue 12 of the journal Archiletras Científica is a monograph entitled ‘Comunicación clara: Un campo emergente en investigación y transferencia en el mundo hispánico’. Estrella Montolío (director) and Mar Forment (coordinator) have invited us to participate with the following article:
Montané, M. Amor; Da Cunha, Iria; Pistola, Sara (2024). «Redacción asistida multilingüe en lenguaje claro mediante procesamiento del lenguaje natural: del español al catalán como caso de estudio». Archiletras Científica, 12. 79-94. ISSN 2659-8957
Thank you very much for the invitation! It has been a pleasure to participate in this volume.
ArText team participates in II Congreso Internacional COMCLARA
The arText team has participated with two communications in the II Congreso Internacional de Comunicación Clara (COMCLARA), organised by Ricardo Vizcaino-Laorga and Blas-José Subiela-Hernández, and by the Universidad Católica de Murcia, the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, the Universidad Pontífica de Salamanca and the Estudios del Discurso Académico y Profesional group, EDAP, of the Universidad de Barcelona:
- Sara Pistola and Iria da Cunha presented “El personal de la Administración como pieza fundamental en la evaluación de la tecnología aplicada al lenguaje claro”.
- Laia Vidal-Sabanés and Iria da Cunha presented “Lenguaje claro e inteligencia artificial aplicados a la terminología médica”.
You can see the full conference programme here.
New publication on language teaching-learning and ICTs
“La enseñanza-aprendizaje de la lengua y la literatura a través de las TIC’ (Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca) has just been published. The publication includes a chapter by Juan Antonio Núñez and Iria Da Cunha (arText team) on digital tools to help writing academic texts in Spanish. You can read the chapter and the full publication through this link.
ArText system exceeds 300,000 users
The arText team would like to thank you for using the system and for helping us to spread the word. We would also like to encourage all those who have not yet tried it to do so. The system is available online for free through this link.
Eleventh arText Team Seminar (2023-2024)
M. Betulia Pedraza, member of the Neolocyt group at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, in the framework of the arText team’s research seminars, presented two products derived from her doctoral thesis to improve communication between the Administration and citizens: CorpusPAP and DiPAP.
Thank you, María Betulia, for agreeing to share your knowledge of lexicography and plain language with the arText team!
The Sistema arText at the Finnish Language Institute (Kotus)
The Finnish Language Institute (Kotus) interviews Iria da Cunha about Artificial Intelligence and Plain Language in Spain. You can read the full article, written by Frida Ahonen, at this link.
“Lenguaje claro y tecnología en la Administración”, now in open access
Our book Lenguaje claro y tecnología en la Administración (Clear language and technology in the Administration), edited by Dr. Iria da Cunha and published by editorial Comares, is now available in open access. You can download it through this link.
New publication from the arText team (I)
Jadranka Gladic and Iria da Cunha have published a book chapter in the monograph Innovación docente y renovación pedagógica en Derecho (Dykinson publishing house). You can read the complete chapter here.
New addition to the arText Team
Paloma Blasco has joined the arText team to carry out her PhD in the Doctoral Program in Philology at UNED. Her thesis deals with the topic of textual genres produced in the European Commission and is part of the EUPlainTech project. The thesis supervisor is María Ángeles Escobar, member of the arText team and full professor at UNED.
Inauguration of the UAM’s TFG and TFM writing workshop
Iria da Cunha, once again this year, participated in the inauguration of the workshop “La escritura del Trabajo Final de Grado y Trabajo Final de Máster en Educación”, organized by the Centro de Escritura and the Facultad de Formación de Profesorado y Educación.
¡Thank you, Jesús Manso (dean), Marta Ferrero (research vice-dean) and Juan Antonio Núñez (coordinator of the Centro de Escritura and member of the arText team), for the invitation!
You can see the program here.
Interview with Iria da Cunha in the newspaper “ojo” (Peru)
Yesterday, an interview with Iria da Cunha by Martín Cuesta was published in the newspaper ojo (Lima, Peru). In the interview, Iria talks about clear language and arText claro, and highlights the importance of writing texts addressed to citizens in simple language so that citizens can understand the specialized message and thus exercise their rights. You can read the full interview here.
Sara Pistola presents at the Encuentro Virtual de Estudiantes de Doctorados en Lingüística
Sara Pistola, FPI predoctoral researcher at the Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas de la UNED, presented “Los géneros textuales del ámbito de la Administración en España: análisis de corpus y escritura mediante el uso de la tecnología” at the Encuentro Virtual de Estudiantes de Doctorados en Lingüística of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV). In this event Sara has shared the progress of her thesis with other PhD students.
Fourth arText team seminar (2023-2024)
In the fourth research seminar of the arText team, the researchers of the team have shared the progress of their projects. Moreover, Jadranka Gladic has made some interesting proposals of journals and conferences for the scientific dissemination of the research carried out in the arText team.
Presentation of the publication “Mujeres referentes del siglo XXI”
The 2023 edition of the INNOVADORASTIC book “Mujeres referentes del Siglo XXI” was presented today in Madrid. Iria da Cunha, one of the interviewees who appears in the publication as a leading scientist woman of the 21st century, participated in this event along with Marina Sánchez and Cynthia Gálvez. The three researchers talked about their respective work in the field of science and technology.
Participation of the arText team in the II Jornadas de Filologías Extranjeras Comunicación Intercultural, Mediación e Interacción en Línea
M. Ángeles Escobar and Sara Pistola participated in the II Jornadas de Filologías Extranjeras: Comunicación Intercultural, Mediación e Interacción en Línea, organized by the Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus lingüísticas of the Facultad de Filología at UNED. They presented the talk “La mediación a través del lenguaje claro en español y en inglés”, in which she also explained the new project EUPlainTech of the arText team.
You can see the video of the presentation in this link.
ArText team participates in the COMCLARA congress
On November 9th and 10th took place the I Congreso Internacional de Comunicación Clara -COMCLARA. Several members of the arText team participated in this congress:
- Iria da Cunha took part in the round table on Clear Communication in specialized languages, with the talk “Redacción asistida en lenguaje claro de géneros textuales de ámbitos especializados”.
- Sara Pistola and Susana Viñuales presented “Una propuesta para implementar el lenguaje claro en la enseñanza universitaria del derecho administrativo”, within the panel on Specialized languages and clear communication.
- Laia Vidal-Sabanés presented “La infografía terminológica al servicio del paciente: una propuesta que favorece la comprensión de los tratamientos del cáncer de mama”, within the panel on Design, technology and clear communication.
You can see the program of the congress in this link.
Protocol signed between UNED and semFYC
The UNED and the Sociedad Española de Medicina de Familia y Comunitaria (semFYC) have signed this morning, at the semFYC headquarters in Barcelona, a General Protocol of Action that will help to advance in the development of the sistema arText in the field of medicine.
The event was attended by:
- Dr. Remedios Martín, president of the semFYC.
- Dr. Rosa María Martín, Vicerrectora de Investigación at the UNED.
- Dr. Iria da Cunha, director of the arText team.
- Dr. Laia Vidal Sabanés, Margarita Salas postdoctoral researcher and member of the arText research team.
Both semFYC and UNED have published this news : semFYC press release / UNED press release.
Paulina Yepes is invited to the arText team seminar
Paulina Yepes (Universidad EAFIT de Medellín) has given the third arText team research seminar as an external guest. In this seminar, entitled “El lenguaje claro desde la mirada del comprensor”, she explained the work she carried out in her doctoral thesis on plain language and eye tracking.
Sara Pistola gives a seminar at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
Yesterday Sara Pistola gave the seminar “Hacia la escritura de textos jurídicos-administrativos más claros mediante el uso de la tecnología” at the Propedéutico program of the Facultad y Escuela de Derecho de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV). The seminar was organized by Carlos Figueroa, A. Paola Duarte and Jadranka Gladic.
Thank you for the invitation!
Second arText team seminar (2023-2024)
In the second session of the pre- and post-doctoral seminar of the arText team, we invited two external specialists, who talked about the work in clear communication in the field of administration that is carried out in the Generalitat de Catalunya:
- Esther Peña de las Heras, Subdirectora general d’Atenció Ciutadana de la Direcció General de Serveis Digitals i Experiència Ciutadana de la Generalitat de Catalunya, talked about the “Estrategia de implantación de la comunicación clara en la Administració de la Generalitat de Catalunya”.
- Irema Ferrez Vega, Responsable de tramitació entenedora de la Direcció General d’Administració Digital de la Generalitat de Catalunya, presented “Tramitación clara, una metodologia para mejorar los documentos administrativos”.
Thanks a lot for accepting our invitation! 🙂
New project of the arText team: EUPlainTech
The arText team will continue working on plain language and natural language processing thanks to the new Generación de Conocimiento project granted by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación e Universidades. The project is entitled “Plain language and natural language processing in legal-administrative texts in English: the European Commission as a case study (EUPlainTech)”.
Consult the resolution here.
UNED has become a member of the Red Panhispánica de Lenguaje Claro
The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) has become a member of the Red Panhispánica de Lenguaje Claro (Pan-Hispanic Plain Language Network), promoted by the Real Academia Española (RAE). On the occasion of this initiative, Iria da Cunha, director of the arText team at UNED, met with Santiago Muñoz Machado, director of this network, to discuss the projects on plain language and artificial intelligence that are being carried out by the arText team.
Inauguration of the arText team research seminar for the 2023/24 academic year
Yesterday we inaugurated the pre- and postdoctoral seminar of the arText team. This first seminar was given by Sabela Fernández-Silva, postdoctoral researcher María Zambrano at UNED. Sabela spoke to us about the “Ethical procedures for research with people at UNED”, with the aim of ensuring that the different studies comply with the rules of ethics and data protection.
We participate in PLAIN 2023
Iria da Cunha presented the sistema arText at the PLAIN 2023 International Conference, which this year took place at the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) on September 27, 28 and 29 and it was organized by the Observatorio de Lenguaje Claro of the Law School at the UBA and the Plain Language Association International (PLAIN). Specifically, Iria participated, along with other specialists, in the panel “Artificial intelligence as a tool to clarify language” and her presentation was entitled “Assisted writing in plain language using natural language processing techniques: the arText system”.
arText team at CIT2023
Yesterday, Sara Pistola and Iria da Cunha participated in the Working Group on Plain Language at the VIII International Congress on Transparency and Open Government (CIT2023), which took place in Alcalá de Henares. Sara Pistola presented the paper entitled “Los textos que la Administración dirige a la ciudadanía: el caso del Ayuntamiento de Madrid”, which is part of the arText_IMPACT project. You can read the summary of the paper here.
Publication “Lingüistas de hoy. Profesiones para el siglo XXI”
Iria da Cunha has participated in the book Lingüistas de hoy. Profesiones para el siglo XXI, coordinated by Dr. Sheila Queralt and published by Editorial Síntesis. In this publication, 36 linguists talk about their specialty and highlight the available professional opportunities. One of these disciplines is computational linguistics, which Iria da Cunha explains and exemplifies with the creation of the sistema arText. You can see the table of contents and read a sample chapter of the book here.
New publication in Íkala journal
A new issue of Íkala journal has just been published, in which Sara Pistola and Iria da Cunha identify the most frequent and difficult administrative texts to write for the staff of the Ayuntamiento de Madrid (Madrid City Council) and Facultad de Derecho (Law School) at UNED. The article can be read here.
The reference of the article is:
Pistola, Sara y Da Cunha, Iria. (2023). Escritura de géneros textuales administrativos en el contexto académico y profesional español. Íkala, Revista De Lenguaje Y Cultura, 28(3), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.348531.
New member of the arText team
Josep Villullas has joined the arText team (Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas at UNED) to work as a computer scientist and technologist in the arText_IMPACT “Prueba de Concepto” project (2022-2024), directed by Dr. Iria da Cunha and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
The sistema arText in the eScience data repository of Consorcio Madroño
A new space on the sistema arText has been launched in the eScience data repository of the Consorcio Madroño. In this space you can find results of the TIC-eADMIN and arText_IMPACT projects which, at the same time, are part of the results of Sara Pistola’s doctoral thesis in progress, supervised by Dr. Iria da Cunha and Dr. Susana Viñuales.
The bibliographic references of the publications currently available are:
- Sara Pistola Grille; Iria Da Cunha Fanego; Susana Viñuales Ferreiro, 2023, “Fichas con información lingüística sobre 5 géneros textuales del ámbito de la Administración”, https://doi.org/10.21950/ZHXH9G, e-cienciaDatos, V1
- Sara Pistola Grille; Iria Da Cunha Fanego; Susana Viñuales Ferreiro, 2023, “Materiales para la evaluación de arText por parte de estudiantes universitarios de derecho”, https://doi.org/10.21950/V45AMM, e-cienciaDatos, V1
- Sara Pistola Grille; Iria Da Cunha Fanego; Susana Viñuales Ferreiro, 2023, “Adaptación a lenguaje claro de fraseología administrativa”, https://doi.org/10.21950/ZF2KRC, e-cienciaDatos, V1
Iria da Cunha talks about arText claro at UNAM
On August 17, Iria da Cunha gave a conference on arText claro at the Instituto de Ingeniería at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) as part of the internal seminars of the Grupo de Ingeniería Lingüística. The conference, entitled “The arText claro system: from research to transfer and dissemination”, can be viewed at this link.
Iria da Cunha, a woman of reference in the ICT field
Iria da Cunha appears in the 2023 edition of the INNOVADORASTIC Mujeres referentes del Siglo XXI (Women of the 21st Century) publication as the creator of the sistema arText. This program aims to make visible stories of women of the 21st century who stand out for their work in the field of science and technology. You can find the interview with Iria on pages 88-95 of the publication, which can be downloaded through this link.
Review of our book “Lenguaje claro y tecnología en la Administración”
A review of our book “Lenguaje claro y tecnología en la Administración” (Iria da Cunha, Ed. 2022, Editorial Comares) has been published in issue 178 of the Punto y Coma bulletin of the European Union. The author of the review is Leire Segura (European Commission) and it is available here (p. 15-22).
ArText team research seminar by Jenny Azarian
Yesterday, Jenny Azarian, member of the arText team and student of the PhD program in Philology at UNED, gave a seminar entitled “Evaluation of the impact of the use of arText claro on the comprehension and perception of clarity of texts by vulnerable groups” as part of the pre- and post-doctoral seminars of the arText team. In this forum, Jenny Azarian contextualized her research, which is part of the arText_IMPACT project, and presented the objectives, methodology and ongoing work she is carrying out.
M. Ángeles Escobar participate in the 5th Eduling Biannual Meeting
M. Ángeles Escobar, lecturer of the Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas at UNED and member of the arText team, participated in the 5th Eduling Biannual Meeting: “Grammar teaching and Learning: challenges and opportunities”, which was held last week at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. The work presented was entitled “A Case Study of Connectors in ESP though a RST grammar as implemented in arText” and you can read the abstract here.
Laia Vidal-Sabanés presents at the arText team’s research seminar
Laia Vidal-Sabanés, postdoctoral researcher Margarita Salas UPF-UNED of the arText team, gave yesterday the seminar “Towards the incorporation of medical plain language in arText claro”, in the framework of the pre- and postdoctoral research seminars of the arText team. Laia Vidal-Sabanés presented the objectives, the methodology and the first advances of her postdoctoral project, which aims to incorporate the medical field in arText claro.
Susana Viñuales participates in the Ciclo “Lenguaje Claro en Español”
Susana Viñuales, member of the arText team, has participated in the Ciclo “Lenguaje Claro en Español”, organized by the IFPyGP and the Secretaría Legal y Técnica del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. This cycle of seminars consists of 11 meetings in which specialists in the plain language field present a topic related to this subject. Susana participated in the third meeting, entitled “Plain Language and Artificial Intelligence. The arText experience“, which was attended by more than 180 people.
Iria da Cunha and the sistema arText are in the news in “El País”
Elena Sevillano’s article published in the newspaper El País highlights the resurgence of Humanities degrees, which are increasingly allied with other disciplines such as, for example, Computer Science. As an example of this synergy, in the article, the author dedicates a space to talk about Iria da Cunha and her work as a computational linguist, as well as the arText project that she coordinates, pioneer in our country.
You can read the full article at this link.
Use of arText system to write sentences
Dr. José Osvaldo Ledesma, Justice of the Peace of Berón de Astrada, has been using artificial intelligence (AI), specifically the sistema arText, for a year to ensure clear writing in the drafting of his sentences. This news has been highlighted in several media: Diario Época, Misiones Online, News ES Euro, Radio Dos, Errepar + and Economis.
Participation of the arText team at the INNDOC2023 Conference
Several members of the arText team participated in the 3rd International Conference on Innovation in Teaching and Research in the Social and Legal Sciences (INNDOC2023), which took place on July 8 and 9 in virtual format.
On the one hand, Sara Pistola and Susana Viñueales have presented the communication “Use of an assisted editor for writing administrative texts: a proposal for the preparation of the Final Degree Project (TFG)”. In this work, Sara and Susana have presented a TFG proposal that incorporates a writing administrative texts task using the sistema arText. You can read the abstract and watch the presentation in this link.
On the other hand, Jadranka Gladic and Iria da Cunha presented the communication “A characterization of the Law Degree in Spanish and Chilean universities”. In this study, Jadranka and Iria make a contrastive analysis on the number of Final Degree Projects in the field of Law that exist in the two countries mentioned and the sub-themes they deal with. You can read the summary of the paper and retrieve the presentation in this link.
Sara Pistola participates in the III Jornadas de Corrección de Textos en Español
Sara Pistola, member of the arText team and student of the PhD program in Philology at UNED, presented the sistema arText at the III Jornadas de Corrección de Textos en Español (IIIJCTE), organized by the Universidad del Salvador and held virtually on June 1st and 2nd. Sara’s presentation was entitled “The arText system as a tool for writing texts in specialized fields and in clear language” and you can watch it in the following video:
Jadranka Gladic gives the 4th arText seminar
Yesterday, Jadranka Gladic, lecturer at the Pontífica Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, student of the PhD program in Philology at UNED since 2021 and member of the arText team, gave, as part of the pre- and post-doctoral seminars of the arText team, the seminar entitled “The Final Degree Project in Administrative Law: a comparative analysis between Spain and Chile”. Jadranka Gladic presented the objectives, methodology and first results of her doctoral thesis, supervised by Dr. Iria da Cunha.
Update of the urtext dissemination brochure
We have updated the dissemination brochure to promote sistema arText. You can find it in a bilingual version (Spanish-English).
arText claro at Clear Writing for Europe 2023
Iria da Cunha, director of the arText team, presented arText claro at the Clear Writing for Europe 2023 conference. In this edition, the conference was about “Supporting European democracy and transparency through clear language”, with the aim of discussing how public administrations and the European Union can communicate in a clearer way when writing texts addressed to citizens. Iria participated in the Workshop “Drafting and editing tools and resources” together with Stéphanie Guillaume, with the presentation “arText claro: A writing Assistant to draft Spanish administrative texts in plain language”. The conference was attended by more than 1200 people.
A collaboration agreement signed by the UNED and the Academia Joven de España
The UNED and the Academia Joven de España (AJE) have signed a collaboration agreement with the aim of promoting scientific dissemination. Specifically, research work, studies, publications and dissemination of results on topics of common interest will be carried out. The rector of the university, Ricardo Mairal; the president of the Academia Joven de España, Javier García Martínez; the vice-rector for Research, Knowledge Transfer and Scientific Dissemination of the UNED,Rosa María Martín Aranda, and the UNED professors and members of the AJE, Iria da Cunha Fanego, director of the arText team, and Borja Franco Llopis, will participate in the events to be held on the occasion of the agreement.