NORMALIZING AND CLASSIFYING LOCALE-SPECIFIC INFORMATION

A method and apparatus are disclosed for transforming information from one semantic environment to another, for example, to facilitate electronic information searches. In one implementation, a SOLx system 1700 includes a Normalization/Translation NorTran Workbench 1702 and a SOLx server 1708. The NorTran Workbench 1702 is used to develop a knowledge base based on information from a source system 1712, to normalize legacy content 1710 according to various rules, and to develop a database 1706 of translated content. During run time, the SOLx server 1708 receives transmissions from the source system 1712, normalizes the transmitted content, accesses the database 1706 of translated content and otherwise translates the normalized content, and reconstructs the transmission to provide substantially real-time transformation of electronic messages. Additionally, content can be classified relative to a taxonomy defining relationships between terms or items so as to facilitate electronic searching or other processing.