the idea of creating automatic
in March 1947 Warren Weaver’s letter ► in July 1949 publicized his ideas ► In 1954 the first feasibility trial
► ► based
►
Need for Translation Technology
► Two
facts: ► Advances in information technology (IT) ► Modern communication requirements to foster translation automation
1990s vital developments ► creation of on-line machine translation services Altavista
►
The Translation Market
► new
technology available ► political, social and economic need for change
Important advances
► 1980s
Logos ► most important projects were GETA-Ariane (Grenoble), SUSY (Saarbrücken, MU (Kyoto), and Eurotra (the European Union)
►
Concordances
► word-processing
programs ► valuable for translating specialized texts
On-line Bilingual Texts
►a
source text plus its translation ► bi-text
importance of translation technology
a concise history of machine and computerassisted translation ► technology available to translators ► negative and positive aspects of machine translation ► main tools used in computer-assisted translation ► impact of these new technologies on the professional translator
quality
► Cognitive
Processes ► The first stage: comprehension ► on several levels: ► Semantic level: understanding words out of context, as in a dictionary. ► Syntactic level: understanding words in a sentence. ► Pragmatic level: understanding words in situations and context.
Analysis of Some Errors in Machine-translated Teange the meaning of the lexeme 1 Words or phrases that are apparently correct but which do not translate the meaning in context: 2. Words without meaning: Errors in usage
on detailed bilingual dictionaries ► development of transformational generative grammar models offer new possibilities
freeze
► semantic
barriers ► ALPAC (Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee) ► In 1966 this committee produced a highly critical report: slow, inefficient and twice as expensive as human translation ► stressed the need to encourage the development of tools
► The
cold war time ► Print culture vs screen culture ► enormous growth of information technology ► industry and commerce function more than ever with the globalization ► The nature and function of translation affected ► countries to cooperate in many spheres ► different aspects of modern life
► Research
continued in Canada, France and Germany and two machine translation systems came into being several years later: Systran, used by the European Union Commission ► and Taum-météo, created by the University of Montreal to translate weather forecasts from French to English.
translation
not enough human translators ► considered to be too expensive ► The economic necessity of finding a cheaper solution
►
questions
► Which
computer tools are genuinely useful to translators? ► Do the new technologies threaten the livelihood of the translator? ► Does automation imply the disappearance of translation as we know it?
Europe & the United States Japan
HUMAN TRANSLATI ON 300 million pages 150 million pages
MACHINE TRANSLATI ON 2.5 million pages 3.5 million pages
machine translation (MT)
Computer-assisted Translation
►a
complex process ► specific tools and technology ► The computer as a workstation ► enormous saving of time
tools
►
Electronic Dictionaries, Glossaries and Terminology Databases
►
1 advantages
►2
less time to type in a word ► 3 immediate access to related data through links ► 4 use several dictionaries simultaneously
Electronic dictionaries
► Machine
translation is thus both an aid and a trap for translators mistakes may go undetected.
►
Machine Translation Strategies
► the
direct strategy ► the transfer strategy ► the pivot language strategy
► facilitates
later translations
Translation Memories
► most
important applications of on-line bilingual texts
► database
most useful with texts possessing the following characteristics
►
► five
types of knowledge: ► Knowledge of the source language ► Knowledge of the target language Knowledge of equivalents between the source and target languages. ► Knowledge of socio-cultural aspects,
► without
human intervention.
computer-assisted translation (CAT).
► tools
to help the translator work accurately and quickly, ► terminology databases ► and translation memories.