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 ( ) 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 ( 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.