Membership

Gengo-Shigen-Kyokai (“GSK”), for the sake of conducting activities for the promotion and distribution of language resources in language education, speech / natural language processing technology research and development, and language fundamentals research, was formed on June 19th, 2003, and of the same year, October 10th, received a certificate of NPO status from the mayor of Tokyo.

There are two organizations for the promotion and distribution of language resources, LDC (Linguistic Data Consortium) in the U.S., and ELRA (European Language Resources Association) in Europe. They accumulate language resources developed in each region and perform a mediation business for distributing these resources to those who wish to use them. Through this, linguistic researchers and developers can acquire and use necessary language resources through a simple process, but due to their having been no such system in Japan, researchers had no choice but to individually sought for and negotiated for usage rights with language resource providers. This endeavor cost much time and effort in office processing as well. GSK was formed with the expectation to eliminate this wasted time and effort.

With the aims of fulfilling our charter for formation to the best of our abilities, including maintaining all activities, we have established a membership system to act as a supporting infrastructure in this endeavor. It seeks to foster the cooperation and support of many individuals, groups, and organizations.

We ask that you take a look at our organization goals available from the GSK menu and at the overview below. We also ask that you please consider becoming a member of GSK.

1. Language Resources of Interest

Corpora of text, speech, video and other mediums (language data collections)
Lexicons (dictionaries)
Terminology (Field-specific vocabulary collections)
Various kinds of software tools Etc.

2. Main Activities

Accumulation and distribution of language resources, and standardization of contracts for distribution
Processing and analysis of language resources
Research and investigation concerning language resources
Language resource standardization
Fostering application of intellectual property rights concerning the popularization of language resource related technologies and activities promoting their awareness, as well as language resources themselves
Creation of a system for circulating language resources for the sake of research and development in a form agreeable to both language resources providers and users, and concerning the average individual with broad interest in language, planning the propulsion of use of language resources important for the development of science, education, and industry concerned with language

3. Benefits of Membership

Participation in GSK administration through exercising voting rights at general meetings (full-fledged members only).
Use and purchase of discounted language resources.
Publication of your language resources on GSK website as free downloadable content (inspection and contract necessary).

4. Membership types / yearly costs (detailed explanation)

Regular Membership (Individual/Group): 5,000 yen
Student Membership: 2,000 yen
Supporting Membership (Individual/Group): Contributions in 10,000 yen increments

An admission fee (5,000 yen) is required for Regular Membership (Individual/Group).

5. Application Procedure

Those that wish to become a member of GSK should download the application form below (MS Word file), fill in the necessary fields, and return it to our office via e-mail, fax, or postal mail.

The application process for groups and organizations, and that of individuals and students differs so please be careful to fill out the application form.

Form for Individuals and Students
Form for Groups and Organizations

6. Main Office

Non-profit Organization Gengo-Shigen-Kyokai (“GSK”) Main Office

c/o Japan System Applications Co.,Ltd.
Suzuki Building
2-55-2 Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0014, Japan
E-Mail: info (at) gsk.or.jp

Fax: +81 3 5951 3966