Computers - Computer-Aided-Translation: Virtues and Vices
Translation memory (TM) techniques, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the linguistic transition and cross-border accommodation of electronic content (e-content) for local markets. The idea behind TM systems is to store in a computer system the original e-content and the translation that has been produced by human translators; the stored translated version of the source file has been broken down into manageable pieces, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The preferences of using CAT systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and increase translation quality by proving that terminology and statements are used consistently within and across translations. Users in governmental and cross-border organizations report a 25–60% rise in performance. Yet, it must be stated that the use of TM systems may also have negative effects on translation quality. One of the major disadvantages of TM systems is that they usually work at sentence level. That’s why, there is a real danger that the translator will focus too much on separated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are embedded. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very easy formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. That’s why, the human translator’s notion of the grade of similarity between a part to be translated and a part retrieved from the storage base may differ considerably from the grade of similarity calculated by the CAT system. This may follow to situations wherein exact matches result in wrong translations, or one translation of a fuzzy match requires little or no adjustment but another fuzzy match with the same similarity value is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of TM systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the contras, it should be noted that TM systems generally integrate into the translation performance comparatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation work, while liberating them from routine work and keeping translation as a creative job whenever the linguistic resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more remarks, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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