Ignacio Garcia

Translating by post-editing: is it the way forward?

Translation memory tools now offer the translator to insert post-edited machine translation segments for which no match is found in the databases. The Google Translator Toolkit does this by default, advising in its Settings window: “Most users should not modify this”. Post-editing of no matches appears to work on engines trained with specific bilingual data on a source written under controlled language constraints. Would this, however, work for any type of task as Google’s advice implies? We have tested this by carrying out experiments with English–Chinese trainees, using the Toolkit to translate from the source text (the control group) and by post-editing (the experimental group). Results show that post-editing gains in productivity are marginal. With regard to quality, however, post-editing produces significantly better statistical results compared to translating manually. These gains in quality are observed independently of language direction, text difficulty or translator’s level of performance. In light of these findings, we discuss whether translators should consider post-editing as a viable alternative to conventional translation.

Power shifts in web-based translation memory

Web-based translation memory (TM) is a recent and little-studied development that is changing the way localisation projects are conducted. This article looks at the technology that allows for the sharing of TM databases over the internet to find out how it shapes the translator’s working environment. It shows that so-called pre-translation—until now the standard way for clients to manage translation tasks with freelancers—is giving way to web-interactive translation. Thus, rather than interacting with their own desktop databases as before, translators now interface with each other through server-based translation memories, so that a newly entered term or segment can be retrieved moments later by another translator working at a remote site. The study finds that, while the interests of most stakeholders in the localisation process are well served by this web-based arrangement, it can involve drawbacks for freelancers. Once an added value, technical expertise becomes less of a determining factor in employability, while translators lose autonomy through an inability to retain the linguistic assets they generate. Web-based TM is, therefore, seen to risk disempowering and de-skilling freelancers, relegating them from valued localisation partners to mere servants of the new technology.

Machines, translations and memories: language transfer in the web browser

Abstract Classic translation memory (TM) revolutionised technical translation in the 1990s. ‘Enhanced’ TM will revolutionise most types of translation this decade. The massive memory databases collected over 20 years can now be accessed from TM tools for exact and fuzzy matches. Sub-segmental information (terminology and phraseology) can also be gained from them via manual or automated concordancing. Stripped of metadata and formatting information, they have made possible the swift development of statistical machine translation (MT), which can be integrated with TM to provide matches where the memories themselves cannot. At the same time, cloud computing facilitates the adoption of web-based MT (and of web-based TM and translation management systems). Postediting, previously limited to a narrow section of the industry, becomes mainstream. The Read/Write Web demands (and allows for) a new model of translation, with dynamic, user-generated content not well suited to the conventional translation-editing-proofreading model. The web browser seems to drive those who want to make technical translation a profession into either semi-skilled workers enduring quasi sweatshop conditions, or else into the highly-skilled language engineer who helps make the decisions on which tool or process those translators will use for which task.

Translating and Revising for Localisation: What do We Know? What do We Need to Know?

Abstract Translating and revising for localisation require specific skills that are distinct from those required for translating and revising for publishing or other purposes. Their distinctiveness is due to several factors, particularly the need to work within a translation memory (TM) editor environment, rather than the usual word-processor. When using TM, translators and revisers are constrained by strict requirements regarding terminology, and leveraging and reuse from memory databases. Recent studies on translating with TM have shown that segmentation imposes a narrow, bottom-up view of the text, which restricts translators in their preferred approach. Other recent studies of revision in general have indicated, moreover, that there is a significant risk that revision may not always improve final text quality. This risk is especially likely to apply to the revision of TM-mediated translation, since revisers are placed in the top-down role of pulling together (sometimes not even sequentially ordered) the segments into a coherent whole. This article argues that the practice of translation and revision for localisation is being shaped by the needs of a new and unprecedented type of user: the TM apparatus itself. Research and discussion will enable participants to better understand their roles and responsibilities within this new scenario.

H. F. Ángel Duarte, La república del emigrante. La cultura política de los españoles en Argentina (1875–1910), Lleida, Milenium, 1998, 233pp.

Abstract Este estudio, afirma José Álvarez Junco en el Prólogo, rompe moldes académicos y abre caminos. Algo de eso hay. Duarte rebasa el marco nacional, entrelazando la historia de España con la argentina, e incluyendo fragmentos de la europea y americana cuando viene al caso. Se enfrenta a la historia de la emigración superando el enfoque demográfíco al uso en el panorama de los estudios migratorios en la Península para demostrar que hubo también desde España una emigración política al Nuevo Continente anterior a la de 1939. Pero no nos da ellibro todo lo que promete.