1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for providing a speech processing technology authoring tool and framework, the method comprising: enabling a user to specify at least two terminals through a user interface of the authoring tool executed by the computing device; enabling the user to create a mapping between the at least two terminals through the user interface of the authoring tool; enabling the user to specify a rule based on the mapping by combining the at least two terminals into list rules; displaying the user specified at least two terminals and the rule on the user interface to provide visual feedback to the user including listing element names, element types, and referencing relationships, displayed items comprising a display form and a spoken form of the user specified at least two terminals and the rule, wherein the specified terminals are reordered independently on the display form and the spoken form side of the displayed items using subscript indicators to allow the user to see a relationship between parts of the rule on either side of the displayed items; enabling the user to specify at least one test scenario for validating the rule; performing the specified test scenario to determine a performance of the rule in a speech processing environment, wherein the specified test scenario is executed within the user interface of the authoring tool to provide immediate feedback to the user; presenting test results including a summary and detailed test results, such that the user is enabled to modify the rule through the user interface; and specifying an ordering of expected test results for validating a weighting of the rule.