As part of a drive to provide international standards for language resource management, this part of ISO 24620 on controlled natural language (CNL) sets out the principles of CNL and its utilization together with the relevant supporting technology. However this part of ISO 24620 also aims to introduce a general view of CNL with its objectives and characteristics and provide a scheme for classifying a range of CNLs. This part of ISO 24620 additionally specifies certain normalizing principles of CNLs that control the use of natural languages in particular domains and are also oriented towards areas of practical application. These areas include public administrative communications, search optimization, and the management of automatic question-answering systems, but the current version of this part of ISO 24620 does not address any issue involving these applications directly.