An Assessment of the Use of Online Arabic Language Tools in Knowledge Management among University Students

The globalization, the emerged technologies and the contemporary lifestyle rely on communication. Languages are the tools of communication and the English language becomes the common media between all the different routes of communication. None English natives are using the existing language tools like translation and transliteration to facilitate communication and to receive knowledge and transfer knowledge. University students are not an exception of the general population. More specifically, most of the Lebanese students who are native Arabic and studying in Lebanese universities are having all their courses taught in English language. This paper explores the literature on the role of language in knowledge management. An emphasis is placed on the use of language tools and their role. A survey about the use of web language tools used among university students is conducted. The survey results show a high rate of use of web linguistic tools like expression translation and transliteration. Most students retrieve help while writing their reports or their homeworks. Web tools are more popular then embedded tools in software suites. A common bilingual ontology with intra-relations and inter-relations for all language tools is proposed. Two fuzzy indices are described to deal with measures between imprecise relations. The index of comparability is used to determine the set of terms which are related or similar to a given term, and the index of compatibility which quantifies the degree of similarity between different comparable terms. As a conclusion, the need to update and publish specialized ontologies, and integrate them in the commonly used language tools, is highlighted.