Translation, Machine (MT)

MT have been associated with information science although computational linguistics and Artificial Intelligence research have been dominating in this field. The idea of MT goes back to 1946 when it was suggested by Warren Weaver (1894–1978).

Wilks (1994) argues that the IBM statistical approach to machine translation has done rather better after a few years than many skeptics believed it could. However, it is neither as novel as its proponents suggest nor is it making claims as clear and simple as they would have us believe. The performance of the purely statistical system (and the paper discusses what that phrase could mean) has not equaled the performance of SYSTRAN. More importantly, the system is now being shifted to a hybrid that incorporates much of the linguistic information that it was initially claimed by IBM would not be needed for MT. Hence, one might infer that its own proponents do not believe 'pure' statistics sufficient for MT of a usable quality. In addition to real limits on the statistical method, there are also strong economic limits imposed by their methodology of data gathering. However, the paper concludes that the IBM group have done the field a great service in pushing these methods far further than before, and by reminding everyone of the virtues of empiricism in the field and the need for large scale gathering of data.
 

Literature:

Bar-Hillel, Y. (1951). The state of machine translation in 1951. American Documentation, 2, 229-237.

Bar-Hillel, Y. (1960). The present status of automatic translation of languages. Advances in Computers, 1, 91-163.
 

Bar-Hillel, Y. (1964). Language and Information. London: Addison-Wesley.

Buckland, M. (1999). Vocabulary as a Central Concept in Library and Information Science. IN: Digital Libraries. Interdisciplinary Concepts, Challenges and Opportunities. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Con­ceptions of the Library and Information Science. Dubrownik, Croatia May 23-26, 1999. Ed. by T. Aparac, T. Saracevic, P. Ingwersen, and P. Vakkari. Zagreb, Lokve.

Eco, U. (1997). The Search for the Perfect Language. London: Fontana Press. (Translated by James Fentress. 1st. English Ed., 1995. Original Italian Edition 1993). 

Eco, U. (1998). Internettets undersættelser. Politiken, 2.august, 1998. Kulturliv s. 9.

Hjørland, B. (1998). Information retrieval, text composition, and semantics. Knowledge Organization, 25(1/2), 16-31. http://www.db.dk/bh/publikationer/Filer/ir_semant_2.pdf

Hutchins, W. J. (1975). Languages of indexing and classification. A linguistic study of structures and functions. London: Peter Peregrinus.

Hutchins, J. W. (1995). Machine Translation: A brief History. IN: E. F. K. Koerner & R. E. Asher (Eds.) Concise History of the Language Sciences. From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists (pp. 431-445). Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.

Liddy, E. D. (1998). Enhanced Text Retrieval Using Natural Language Processing. ASIS Bulletin, April/­May. Also available on http://www.asis.org/bulletin/apr.98/liddy.html

Piotrovsky, R. G. (1984). The Semiotical Interpretation of Machine Translation. International Forum on Information and Documentation, 9(4), 22-26.

Senez, D. (1995). Developments in Systran. Aslib Proceedings, 47(3), 99-107.

Spang-Hanssen, H. (1976). Roles and links compared with grammatical relations in natural language. Lyngby, Denmark: DTL.

Spark Jones, K. & Kay, M. (1973). Lingvistics and Information Science. New York & London: Academic Press. (F.I.D. Publ. no. 492)

Tucker, A. B. & Nirenburg, S. (1984). Machine translation: A contemporary view. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 19, 129-160.

Warner, A. J. (1991). Quantitative and qualitative assessments of the impact of linguistic theory on information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(1), 64-71.

Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia. (2006a). History of Machine translation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_machine_translation

Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia. (2006b). Machine translation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_translation

Wilks, Y. (1994). Developments in MT [Machine Translation] Research in the United-States. ASLIB Proceedings, 46(4), 111-116.

Yngve, V. H. (1964). Implications of mechanical translation research. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Socie­ty, 108, 275-281.

Zubov, A. V. (1984). Machine translation viewed as generation of text with a pre-defined contents. International Forum on Information and Documentation, 9(2), 36-38.

See also: Linguistic aspects of LIS; Translation
 

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 24-09-2006

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