Encoding standards for large text resources: The Text Encoding Initiative

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEl) is an international project established in 1988 to develop guidelines for the preparation and interchange of electronic texts for research, and to satisfy a broad range of uses by the language industries more generally. The need for standardized encoding practices has become inxreasingly critical as the need to use and, most importantly, reuse vast amounts of electronic text has dramatically increased for both research and industry, in particular for natural language processing. In January 1994, the TEl isstled its Guidelines for the Fmcoding and hiterehange of Machine-Readable Texts, which provide standardized encoding conventions for a large range of text types and features relevant for a broad range of applications.