Sharon O’Brien

A Virtuous Circle: Laundering Translation Memory Data using Statistical Machine Translation

This study compares consistency in target texts produced using translation memory (TM) with that of target texts produced using statistical machine translation (SMT), where the SMT engine is trained on the same texts as are reused in the TM workflow. These comparisons focus specifically on noun and verb inconsistencies, as such inconsistencies appear to be highly prevalent in TM data. The study substitutes inconsistent TM target text nouns and verbs for consistent nouns and verbs from the SMT output to test whether this results in improvements in overall TM consistency and whether an SMT engine trained on the ‘laundered’ TM data performs better than the baseline engine. Improvements were observed in both TM consistency and SMT performance, a finding that indicates the potential of this approach for improving TM/MT integration.

Training Translators for Crisis Communication: Translators Without Borders as an Example

Translation across natural languages and communication across cultures are recognized as being important in crisis communication literature. However, analysis of the literature suggests that this criterion has not been studied in depth. Recent advances in translation technology, although helpful, do not provide an adequate solution. There is a growing need for a more serious consideration of translation and interpreting requirements for crisis communication and for the embedding of translation into crisis communication policies, frameworks, and training. This would also necessitate the training of translators for crisis communication, which challenges traditional translator and interpreter training modes. Shorter, more directed training of volunteer translators might be appropriate, and an evaluation of the potential for this is presented here in the context of training provided by Translators Without Borders using a method of self-evaluation for self-efficacy.

Resistance and accommodation: factors for the (non-) adoption of machine translation among professional translators

ABSTRACT Despite considerable advances in machine translation (MT), adoption by professional translators still meets with resistance. Research on the human factors associated with MT (non-)adoption is required to understand this state of affairs. We investigate whether two specific groups of professional translators use MT, what reasons they advance for its use/non-use and what factors might explain the reasons given. Participants advanced an equally diverse set of reasons for using MT as for not using it, and this was strongly linked to text type, language pair, quality and trust. Using an agency theory lens, we found evidence of Pickering’s dialectics of resistance and accommodation in the focus group data. We also found that one group of translators is more open to the use of MT, and suggest that the socio-technical context of deployment might explain this finding.

Allò que sabem i allò que ens agradaria saber sobre postedició.

This article presents the view of three professionals and researchers in the translation field about the post-editing task with a view to examining what it is known about this relatively new task both in the localization industry and in the academic arena, as well as highlighting what should be investigated further in order to shed light on different aspects of post-editing and the use of machine translation.

Is Web-Based Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) Software Usable for Blind Translators?

In spite of the progress made to date in the area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), recent experience reports by end users as well as research work have suggested that leading desktop-based Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) tool providers fail to consider the particular needs of screen reader users when developing their software. The study presented in this paper was conducted to assess the usability of two popular online CAT tools (Matecat and Memsource) that could serve as an alternative solution to inaccessible desktop applications. Findings indicate that Matecat is significantly more usable than Memsource, although changes would be needed in the former for blind translators to be able to perform a translation job completely autonomously and efficiently. Overall, our study suggests that accessibility awareness is still low in the translation technology industry, and that further research and development is needed in to guarantee equal opportunities for all in the translation market.

Machine Translation and Self-post-editing for Academic Writing Support: Quality Explorations

Scholars who need to publish in English and who have English as a Foreign Language might consider and already be deploying free online MT engines to aid their writing processes. This raises the obvious question of whether MT is actually a useful aid for academic writing and what impact it might have on the quality of the written product. The work described in this chapter attempts to address these two broad questions. After a brief introduction, Sect. 2 reviews literature on three topics: English as a lingua franca in academic writing and the consequences this might have for individual authors and for academic disciplines, second-language writing, and the use of MT as a second-language writing aid. In Sect. 3, the methodology is presented. As will be detailed, the experiment involved ten participants, who were asked to write an abstract in their field of expertise. One half of the text was written in English, while the other half was written in their L1 and then machine-translated into English. Section 4 describes the results: subjective feedback of the participants acquired through a post-task survey, revision activity of a professional reviser, number and types of errors identified by a grammar-checking tool. The results suggest that MT and self-post-editing did not impact negatively on the text produced. However, the participants were divided in their opinions about which task was easier and whether they would consider using MT again for academic writing support. In Sect. 5, we offer a discussion on those results and provide future research ideas.

Bringing Accessibility into the Multilingual Web Production Chain

By ultimately offering a native language web experience to end users, the localization process – understood as the adaptation of an existing website from a linguistic, cultural and technical perspective to render it multilingual, unavoidably contributes to the Web for All paradigm. However, to date, there has been little discussion about how and to what extent the localization industry is adhering to web accessibility (WA) best practices as part of their regular workflows to fully pursue that goal. This paper gives an account of the latter by reporting on the qualitative data gathered from a series of semi-structured interviews with 15 representatives of six different world-renowned language service providers (LSPs). Findings reveal that, while LSPs deal with web content and technology on a daily basis and now offer a broad spectrum of web-related services, including Digital Marketing and User Experience Design, conforming to WA requirements is not critical yet for the localization industry. We therefore explore why localization companies do not see themselves as key stakeholders in the value chain for web accessibility and we review which would be the main drivers for them to consider compliance with WA guidelines in the future.