Data-driven machine translation for sign languages

This thesis explores the application of data-driven machine translation (MT) to sign languages (SLs). The provision of an SL MT system can facilitate communication between Deaf and hearing people by translating information into the native and preferred language of the individual. We begin with an introduction to SLs, focussing on Irish Sign Language - the native language of the Deaf in Ireland. We describe their linguistics and mechanics including similarities and differences with spoken languages. Given the lack of a formalised written form of these languages, an outline of annotation formats is discussed as well as the issue of data collection. We summarise previous approaches to SL MT, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. Initial experiments in the novel area of example-based MT for SLs are discussed and an overview of the problems that arise when automatically translating these manual-visual languages is given. Following this we detail our data-driven approach, examining the MT system used and modifications made for the treatment of SLs and their annotation. Through sets of automatically evaluated experiments in both language directions, we consider the merits of data-driven MT for SLs and outline the mainstream evaluation metrics used. To complete the translation into SLs, we discuss the addition and manual evaluation of a signing avatar for real SL output

Metaphor in (Arabic-into-English) translation with specific reference to metaphorical concepts and expressions in political discourse

Cognitive linguistics scholars argue that metaphor is fundamentally a conceptual process of mapping one domain of experience onto another domain. The study of metaphor in the context of Translation Studies has not, unfortunately, kept pace with the discoveries about the nature and role of metaphor in the cognitive sciences. This study aims primarily to fill part of this gap of knowledge. Specifically, the thesis is an attempt to explore some implications of the conceptual theory of metaphor for translation. Because the study of metaphor in translation is also based on views about the nature of translation, the thesis first presents a general overview of the discipline of Translation Studies, describing the major models of translation. The study (in Chapter Two) then discusses the major traditional theories of metaphor (comparison, substitution and interaction theories) and shows how the ideas of those theories were adopted in specific translation studies of metaphor. After that, the study presents a detailed account of the conceptual theory of metaphor and some hypothetical implications for the study of metaphor in translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The data and methodology are presented in Chapter Four. A novel classification of conceptual metaphor is presented which distinguishes between different source domains of conceptual metaphors: physical, human-life and intertextual. It is suggested that each source domain places different demands on translators. The major sources of the data for this study are (1) the translations done by the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service (FBIS), which is a translation service of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United Sates of America, of a number of speeches by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during the Gulf Crisis (1990-1991) and (2) official (governmental) Omani translations of National Day speeches of Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman

FluentSigners-50: A signer independent benchmark dataset for sign language processing

This paper presents a new large-scale signer independent dataset for Kazakh-Russian Sign Language (KRSL) for the purposes of Sign Language Processing. We envision it to serve as a new benchmark dataset for performance evaluations of Continuous Sign Language Recognition (CSLR) and Translation (CSLT) tasks. The proposed FluentSigners-50 dataset consists of 173 sentences performed by 50 KRSL signers resulting in 43,250 video samples. Dataset contributors recorded videos in real-life settings on a wide variety of backgrounds using various devices such as smartphones and web cameras. Therefore, distance to the camera, camera angles and aspect ratio, video quality, and frame rates varied for each dataset contributor. Additionally, the proposed dataset contains a high degree of linguistic and inter-signer variability and thus is a better training set for recognizing a real-life sign language. FluentSigners-50 baseline is established using two state-of-the-art methods, Stochastic CSLR and TSPNet. To this end, we carefully prepared three benchmark train-test splits for models’ evaluations in terms of: signer independence, age independence, and unseen sentences. FluentSigners-50 is publicly available at https://krslproject.github.io/FluentSigners-50/publishedVersio

Audience design in literary translations from Romanian into English : a corpus-based analysis of deixis and presupposition

Abstract unavailable please refer to PD

Historical Gloss, Madisonian Liquidation, and the Originalism Debate

The U.S. Constitution is old, relatively brief, and very difficult to amend. In its original form, the Constitution was primarily a framework for a new national government, and for 230 years the national government has operated under that framework even as conditions have changed in ways beyond the Founders’ conceivable imaginations. The framework has survived in no small part because government institutions have themselves played an important role in helping to fill in and clarify the framework through their practices and interactions, informed by the realities of governance. Courts, the political branches, and academic commentators commonly give weight to such post-Founding governmental practice in discerning the Constitution’s separation of powers. That approach has been referred to as the “historical gloss” method of constitutional interpretation, based on language that Justice Frankfurter used to describe the concept in his concurrence in the Youngstown steel seizure case. Some originalist commentators, however, have advanced a potentially competing approach to crediting post-Founding practice, which they refer to as “liquidation,” an idea that they ascribe to James Madison and certain other members of the Founding generation. To date, there has not been any systematic effort to compare gloss and liquidation, even though the differences between them bear on the constitutionality of a range of governmental practices relating to both domestic and foreign affairs in the fields of constitutional law and federal courts. This Article fills that gap in the literature. We first provide an account of what must be shown in order to establish historical gloss. Our account focuses on longstanding governmental practices that have proven to be stable—that is, practices that have operated for a significant amount of time without generating continued inter-branch contestation. We then consider the extent to which the liquidation concept differs from that of gloss and whether those differences render liquidation more or less normatively attractive than gloss. We argue that a narrow account of liquidation, offered by Professor Caleb Nelson, most clearly distinguishes liquidation from gloss, but that it does so in ways that are normatively problematic. We further argue that a broader account of liquidation, recently offered by Professor William Baude, responds to those normative concerns by diminishing the distinction between liquidation and gloss, but that significant differences remain that continue to raise normative problems for liquidation. Finally, we question whether either scholar’s account of liquidation is properly attributed to Madison

Historical Gloss, Madisonian Liquidation, and the Originalism Debate

The U.S. Constitution is old, relatively brief, and very difficult to amend. In its original form, the Constitution was primarily a framework for a new national government, and for 230 years the national government has operated under that framework even as conditions have changed in ways beyond the Founders’ conceivable imaginations. The framework has survived in no small part because government institutions have themselves played an important role in helping to fill in and clarify the framework through their practices and interactions, informed by the realities of governance. Courts, the political branches, and academic commentators commonly give weight to such post-Founding governmental practice in discerning the Constitution’s separation of powers. That approach has been referred to as the “historical gloss” method of constitutional interpretation, based on language that Justice Frankfurter used to describe the concept in his concurrence in the Youngstown steel seizure case. Some originalist commentators, however, have advanced a potentially competing approach to crediting post-Founding practice, which they refer to as “liquidation,” an idea that they ascribe to James Madison and certain other members of the Founding generation. To date, there has not been any systematic effort to compare gloss and liquidation, even though the differences between them bear on the constitutionality of a range of governmental practices relating to both domestic and foreign affairs in the fields of constitutional law and federal courts. This Article fills that gap in the literature. We first provide an account of what must be shown in order to establish historical gloss. Our account focuses on longstanding governmental practices that have proven to be stable—that is, practices that have operated for a significant amount of time without generating continued inter-branch contestation. We then consider the extent to which the liquidation concept differs from that of gloss and whether those differences render liquidation more or less normatively attractive than gloss. We argue that a narrow account of liquidation, offered by Professor Caleb Nelson, most clearly distinguishes liquidation from gloss, but that it does so in ways that are normatively problematic. We further argue that a broader account of liquidation, recently offered by Professor William Baude, responds to those normative concerns by diminishing the distinction between liquidation and gloss, but that significant differences remain that continue to raise normative problems for liquidation. Finally, we question whether either scholar’s account of liquidation is properly attributed to Madison

Translation after Wittgenstein

In this thesis, I examine how a reading of the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein can be of use to the reflective practitioner of literary translation. Wittgenstein, whilst a key figure in twentieth-century philosophy, remains peripheral to the field of translation studies and I argue that his later work, because it deals with the nature of language and meaning, is potentially of great significance: the story that Wittgenstein tells can change the field. It can rid translators of pictures of translation that are detrimental to literary translation and can also offer tools that will facilitate the task of literary translation, such as: the language-game; the form of life; the surveyable representation. In Chapter 1, I discuss the relation between philosophy and translation studies, presenting the later work of Wittgenstein, in particular the 1953 Philosophical Investigations. In Chapters 2, 3 and 4, I relate Wittgenstein’s work to translation by examining respectively: the reading for translation of the source text; the writing of the target text; the theorising of the target text. In Chapter 5, I draw conclusions. In the central three chapters, I offer case studies of the translation of the poetry of Eduard Mörike and of the New Testament to illustrate my arguments. My aim is that the thesis will form the basis for a greater concern for Wittgenstein in translation studies than has previously been the case