Keeping up with translation

technologies:
a call for experimental pedagogies

Anthony Pym
Where I speak from
 Tarragona Masters in Translation Technologies, from
2000
 Research on online vs. face-to-face Masters training
(2002-05)
 CTTT Training seminars for translation teachers,
from 2003 (now under the European Society for
Translation Studies, EST)
 Practicum and Research courses at Monterey, from
2007
History of MT
History of TM
 Development in 1980s, replacing work on MT.
 First commercial use from 1990 (under the name of CAT tools).
 Mid 1990s: second generation, includes linguistic analysis.
 2002: TMX, developed by LISA.
 2007: Moses do-it-yourself MT.
 2009: Google Translator Toolkit, and other integrations of
statistical MT.
 2010: Wordfast Anywhere and other web-based platforms.
 2012: In-house MT systems
Things to learn
 Translation memories
 Integrating machine translation
 Postediting
 Pre-editing (controlled language)
 Integrating speech recognition
 Integrating terminology management
 Project management
But…
 They will all be different in five years’ time.
So…
 Teach people to experiment.
 Teach teams to experiment.
A teaching space
The MT time trial
Please translate the following text for publication in Wikipedia.

Group A should translate just using Internet reference sources.

Group B should feed the text through Google Translate

(http://www.google.com/translate_t#) then post-edit the output.

Since we are interested in how long these processes take, work at what
you consider your normal pace. You will be stopped after 15 minutes.
The MT time trial
Time-on-task analysis
 Start BB Flashback or QuickTime. Select RECORD.
 Translate the text into your favorite language-other-than-English, doing
websearches and revising as necessary. Aim to complete the
translation in about 20 minutes (we will allow you 25).
 Play back your screen recording. Keep a track of how many minutes
you spend on the following tasks: a) pre-draft reading and
comprehending, b) in-draft documentation (web searches,
dictionaries), c) translating, d) post-draft revising (not including the
correction of typos as you type). Give the total number of minutes for
each of these four activities.
 Upload your translation, give the percentages, and answer the
questions in the assignment.
Time-on-task analysis

 What is your translator style (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)? Do

you plan first, then do the task, or do you do the task, then
make changes?
 Do you think your style will be different when you translate in
Word?
 Did any aspect of your translating surprise you?
Time-on-task analysis

 Somewhere between architect and bricklayer. I plan first then

make little changes. I think this is because the TM already gave
out pretty good result, so all I need to do was to figure out how
reorganize the structure.
 Yes. I think I usually do the task first then make more changes
in later stage.
 Yes, I didn’t think I actually spend quite some time to do the
planning!
Time-on-task analysis

 I am a watercolorist – I spend a lot of time translating and

researching but minimal time planning and revising.
 It will take longer to translate [in word], just because I’ll be
typing from scratch, but I think my translation/research/editing
percentages will probably remain the same.
 I am a boomerang translator, and I had no idea until now. To
translate faster, I should use my first translation and edit it
later, if necessary. I would translate, delete my translation, and
then immediately retype exactly the same thing. Very
inefficient!
Time-on-task analysis

 I am an oil painter. I do minimal reading just to get an overall

understanding of the text and start drafting right away.
 I think the way the text was segmented in units of sentences
prompted me to want to start translating sentence by sentence,
whereas in Word, I would spend more time pre-reading the text
in larger translation units.
 I was surprised that I actually spent a higher percentage of time
that I thought on post-draft editing. I was also surprised by my
time-consuming way of correcting typos---retyping everything.
Also, when under time pressure, it took more time to find the
correct Chinese character from the pinyin input box.
Directionality
 In pairs: one translates into A; the other into B.
 Play back your performance and keep a track of time spent on
pre-drafting, drafting, documentation and post-drafting revision.
 Revise your partner's translation. Indicate the translation
mistakes with Track Changes.
 Discuss your findings with the authors of the translations.
 Upload your translation and all the analytical numbers on it.
 Then do the same thing, but in reverse directionality.
Directionality
 How does your time-on-task distribution differ according to
directionality?
 Did you change translator styles (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)?
 Could a TM be useful to you when translating into B?
Directionality
 How does your time-on-task distribution differ according to
directionality?
 Did you change translator styles (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)?
 Could a TM be useful to you when translating into B?
Directionality
 I spent more time on analyzing and revising the text when I am
translating to my B language (English).
 Percentage-wise, I am watercolorist in both cases. But more
time was spent on pre-drafting when I am translating into
Chinese.
 Could a TM be useful when translating into B? Very much. I’m
not very familiar with the journalist writing style, so TM did help
me overcome that barrier. (I think journalist text in general will
have good results in TM since the data base is big.)
Directionality
 I spent more time on pre-draft reading and less time on in-draft
documentation and post-draft revising when going into my B
language.
 TM would be more useful if it’s more populated. I used memoQ
for both of the translations, but my memoQ TM didn’t help
much either in translating into A or B because the memory was
almost empty. But I found MT very useful when going into B.
The suggestions from MT supplemented the lack of word
choices when going into B, especially when translating
terminology, and names of people and organizations.
 Other classes on…
 Time pressure
 Revision (self vs. other)
 Pre-editing vs. post-editing
 Spoken vs. written translation
 Translation technologies with different text types
 And so on.
 Summary
 In times of change, there is no authoritative “best
practice.”
 We must all learn to experiment.