GALA Blog

GALA 2010 in Prague, (10 – 12 May), included a plenary discussion on machine translation.  The moderator, Don DePalma, asked four industry leaders to participate with two arguing the ‘pro’ side and two presenting the ‘con’ side.  This recount by Gordon Husbands (who presented a ‘con’ perspective) provides an excellent overview of the discussion.

The GALA conference plenary session on May 11 started with an MT bang and ended with a donkey wallop!  Entitled “The Risks and Rewards of Machine Translation” the subject matter was always going to delight and irritate to equal measure – strong emotions were stirred.  Dion Wiggins of AsiaOnline, taking full advantage of his significant stage presence,  launched into an energetic justification of MT as the natural pinnacle of the Darwinian evolution of translation.

Dion suggested, as you might expect, that the MT spinning jenny, rather than putting the skilled weavers of translation out of a job, would create a whole new, expanding industry surrounding the core commodity of MT.

Fear not brave toilers of words you will emerge butterfly like from the cocoon of MT into a bright new world of opportunity!

My thanks to Jiri Stejskal who, on behalf of the ATC, crossed swords with Bob Donaldson to present the other side of the debate.  However,  I was concerned that far too much respect was being given to the latest manifestation of silicon intelligence.  It was time to strike back for Luddites everywhere.

What more resounding clarion call to the people can there be than that of  “Beware comrades of the capitalist, recidivist bearing gifts.” No less an oracle than SDL’s blog reported my performance such “His address to the audience as ‘Comrades!’ encouraged us all to sit up and listen“.

Like all great hypothesis mine was simple and was simply put as you can see from the following images.

1. In case you are in any doubt machine translation means translated by a machine for humans to read. In most cases machine means a software application with a huge database and lots and lots of rules.

2. However, once it has been translated it has to be processed by skilled humans before your average human can both read and make sense of it. These processing humans, typically translators, carry out what is called post-editing. Where post-editing is a euphemism for clearing up the mess left by slightly incompetent machines. Not fun, repetitive and boring – a donkey job in other words

3. The result is that content for translation must first be valued before selecting the best or most affordable route for translation. Two forces thus emerge: on one side the corporate hunger for cost efficiency eagerly diverting the maximum content down the cheapest route while on the other the natural aversion of knowledge workers for boring, repetitive tasks creating a new segmentation of translation resource.

Fact or Fiction? Despite my protagnistic approach for the benefit of the early morning crowd in Prague I am not anti-MT.  It is clear that after 50 years in the making technology has now evolved to a stage where MT starts to offer serious benefits for high volume, low-value content translation.

As Dion Wiggins of Asiaonline will tell you – caveat emptor – it comes at a cost, a high investment.  If anything Google can take much of the recognition for increasing awareness and respectability of MT.  But it does also make the case for both the transcreator and faithful translator for high value content, which also continues to expand exponentially across the net.

One final thought regarding web content:  “Just because we have the means to post it and translate it does not mean we should or that if we do anyone will ever read it.”

But then that’s another story…

Gordon Husbands
Wordbank

This entry was originally posted at Gordon Husbands’ Global Transcreation blog at http://transcreationblog.net/ 

For more information about GALA conferences, visit www.gala-global.org/conference.

Last week, the Executive Office of the President and National Economic Council issued its “Strategy for American Innovation.” Among the recommendations was a call for “automatic, highly accurate and real-time translation between the major languages of the world — greatly lowering the barriers to international commerce and collaboration.” In other words, machine translation (MT) has captured somebody’s attention in the President’s inner circle.

Having an American President cite an advanced language technology as one of the enablers to improve “our quality of life and establish the foundation for the industries and jobs of the future” is not that common an occurrence. So, even though Common Sense Advisory found this recommendation as the very last bullet in a dense thicket of dozens of other initiatives in a 22-page policy paper, it reinforces our contention that the current administration understands the importance of language both abroad and at home, to both improve the ability of American businesses to engage with foreign buyers and of the U.S. government to better understand the thinking of its partners on the world stage. In January, we wrote that the Obama administration was poised to improve language access on the domestic front (see “Title VI Enforcement to Grow under Obama,” a free download with registration at http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com). Now, the administration is turning its attention to the role of language in the country’s ability to compete globally.

The “Obama Innovation Strategy” relies on both the President’s budget and over US$100 billion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds targeted for improving the building blocks of American innovation (fundamental research, education, infrastructure, and advanced IT); promoting competitive markets that spur productive businesses; and catalyzing breakthroughs for national priorities (clean energy, advanced vehicle, health care technology, and 21st-century innovations, which is where machine translation shows up).

Is MT ready for this new role in America’s political debate? Interviewees for our recent research into the business case for machine translation showed profound interest and enthusiasm for both the technology and its ability to increase the amount of translated information that they can provide to their customers or constituencies, with faster turnaround time and lower costs. In our report, we flagged several areas where suppliers are actively working to improve the technology, including advances in natural language processing and information sciences. More funding for the linguists and scientists working on the technology can only accelerate these advances — and the continuing improvement of MT will bode well for lower barriers to global commerce and collaboration.

Visit the Global Watchtower for additional industry posts.

Common Sense Advisory is surveying buyers and users of translation, localization, and internationalization software about their experiences with the products and the support they’ve received. Let your voice be heard. Take the survey!

Whenever we plan to buy something, we often look to Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, Underwriters Laboratories, Good Housekeeping, or their national equivalents to get a sense of quality, performance, and customer satisfaction from previous buyers. None of these companies have asked purchasers of translation, localization, and internationalization software how satisfied they were with what they bought, so Common Sense Advisory is stepping into the breach to ask. Voice your opinion and take our survey on customer satisfaction with language software.

Over the last few months, globalization software vendors have released a wave of new products and updates, many in just the last few weeks. Some of these new versions debuted quietly, sliding in to replace earlier versions without anyone noticing. Others called attention to themselves, heating up the message boards as translators shared their concerns about changes in license policy, interfaces, and pricing. Still others escaped notice altogether, testament to their esoteric or tiny communities of users.

It’s time for you to tell us what you think about the language software that you use in your company, at your agency, or in your freelance practice. Take our customer satisfaction survey, in which we ask about your strategic translation and localization vendor, the products you use, and whether you’re satisfied with the product itself and the service and support you’ve received. We’ll post a summary of results in an upcoming Global Watchtower entry and here in the GALA blog.