Google and beyond : web-as-corpus methodologies for translators

Aquest article fa un repàs als plantejaments actuals sobre l'ús del web com a corpus lingüístic i emfatitza els avantatges (així com els inevitables riscos) que aquests poden introduir en el treball del traductor. Per tal d'il·lustrar aquest punt, es mostra un exemple de les diferents maneres en què un corpus derivat del web es pot aplicar profitosament a una tasca de traducció especialitzada..Este artículo estudia los planteamientos actuales sobre el uso de la web como corpus lingüístico y enfatiza las ventajas (así como los inevitables riesgos) que éstos pueden introducir en el trabajo del traductor. Para ilustrar este punto, se ofrece un ejemplo de las diferentes formas en que un corpus derivado de la web se puede aplicar provechosamente a una tarea de traducción especializada.This paper presents an overview of current approaches to the use of the web as a linguistic corpus and highlights the advantages (as well as inevitable pitfalls) these may bring to translators' work. To illustrate the point, an example is made of different ways in which web-derived corpora can be profitably applied to a specialised translation task

Comparing collocations in translated and learner language

This paper compares use of collocations by Italian learners writing in and translating into English, conceptualising the two tasks as different modes of constrained language production and adopting Halverson’s (2017) Revised Gravitational Pull hypothesis as a theoretical model. A particular focus is placed on identifying a method for comparing datasets containing translations and essays, assembled opportunistically and varying in size and structure. The study shows that lexical association scores for dependency-defined word pairs are significantly higher in translations than essays. A qualitative analysis of a subset of collocations shared and unique to either mode shows that the former set features more collocations with direct cross-linguistic links (connectivity), and that the source/first language seems to affect both modes similarly. We tentatively conclude that second/target language salience effects are more visible in translation than second language use, while connectivity and source language salience affect both modes of bilingual processing similarly, regardless of the mediation variable

Do translator trainees trust machine translation? An experiment on post-editing and revision

Despite the importance of trust in any work environment, this concept has rarely been investigated for MT. The present contribution aims at filling this gap by presenting a post-editing experiment carried out with translator trainees. An institutional academic text was translated from Italian into English. All participants worked on the same target text. Half of them were told that the text was a human translation needing revision, while the other half was told that it was an MT output to be postedited. Temporal and technical effort were measured based on words per second and HTER. Results were complemented with a manual analysis of a subset of the observations

MAGMATic: A Multi-domain Academic Gold Standard with Manual Annotation of Terminology for Machine Translation Evaluation

This paper presents MAGMATic (Multidomain Academic Gold Standard with Manual Annotation of Terminology), a novel Italian–English benchmark which allows MT evaluation focused on terminology translation. The data set comprises 2,056 parallel sentences extracted from institutional academic texts, namely course unit and degree program descriptions. This text type is particularly interesting since it contains terminology from multiple domains, e.g. education and different academic disciplines described in the texts. All terms in the English target side of the data set were manually identified and annotated with a domain label, for a total of 7,517 annotated terms. Due to their peculiar features, institutional academic texts represent an interesting test bed for MT. As a further contribution of this paper, we investigate the feasibility of exploiting MT for the translation of this type of documents. To this aim, we evaluate two stateof-the-art Neural MT systems on MAGMATic, focusing on their ability to translate domain-specific terminology

Using European Parliament data in translation and interpreting research: An introduction

For the most part, research on spoken and intermodal mediated discourse at the European Parliament plenaries has been scattered and no single volume has attempted to capture the complexity of language mediation in the two modes in this very specific context. In this volume we focus on quantitative and qualitative spoken and intermodal mediated discourse looking either solely at interpreting at the EP plenaries, or at both interpreting and translation, but never at written translation alone. This ties in with the specific spoken/intermodal nature of the plenaries at the EP, where speeches are first delivered and interpreted, and are only later transcribed and (until a few years ago) translated

Mediated discourse at the European Parliament: Empirical investigations

The purpose of this book is to showcase a diverse set of directions in empirical research on mediated discourse, reflecting on the state-of-the-art and the increasing intersection between Corpus-based Interpreting Studies (CBIS) and Corpus-based Translation Studies (CBTS). Undeniably, data from the European Parliament (EP) offer a great opportunity for such research. Not only does the institution provide a sizeable sample of oral debates held at the EP together with their simultaneous interpretations into all languages of the European Union. It also makes available written verbatim reports of the original speeches, which used to be translated. From a methodological perspective, EP materials thus guarantee a great degree of homogeneity, which is particularly valuable in corpus studies, where data comparability is frequently a challenge. In this volume, progress is visible in both CBIS and CBTS. In interpreting, it manifests itself notably in the availability of comprehensive transcription, annotation and alignment systems. In translation, datasets are becoming substantially richer in metadata, which allow for increasingly refined multi-factorial analysis. At the crossroads between the two fields, intermodal investigations bring to the fore what these mediation modes have in common and how they differ. The volume is thus aimed in particular at Interpreting and Translation scholars looking for new descriptive insights and methodological approaches in the investigation of mediated discourse, but it may be also of interest for (corpus) linguists analysing parliamentary discourse in general

Evaluation in a cross-linguistic perspective: Investigating semantic prosody across English and German near-synonyms

The present study follows in the path of previous research on semantic prosody, shifting its focus to the domain of near-synonymy analysed from a cross-linguistic perspective. The targeted items are English and German near-synonymous schemata expressing a sense of persuasion. The aim is to assess whether there are notable differences and/or overlaps in their evaluative behaviour and pragmatic function. Results highlight an “evaluative gap” existing between the English and German patterns, reflected in subtle differences in meaning nuances not always picked up by dictionary definitions. These results are discussed in the light of their relevance for translation and contrastive studies, as well as their practical implications for corpus-assisted lexicography

Language data and project specialist: A new modular profile for graduates in language-related disciplines. UPSKILLS Intellectual output 1.6

The UPSKILLS needs analysis explored the current academic offer in language- and linguistics-related fields (modern languages and cultures, translation, general linguistics, etc.) and the requirements the job market has for graduates in these areas. The analysis highlighted the need for a new skill set and a new mind frame to meet the demands as well as the professional challenges of the industry. Taking into consideration the results of the individual components of the needs analysis, this final report outlines a new professional profile, that of the language data and project specialist, and includes a detailed description of the knowledge, skills and competences that present-day and future graduates in languages and linguistics should obtain to improve their employability in the digital business sector

Competences, skills and tasks in today's jobs for linguists: Evidence from a corpus of job advertisements. UPSKILLS Intellectual output 1.3

The corpus-based analysis of job advertisements is part of the UPSKILLS needs analysis. Its objective is twofold. First, it aims to provide an overview of the knowledge, skills and competences mentioned in job posts targeting graduates in language-related degrees or professionals with expertise in this area, as well as of the typical tasks and responsibilities associated with these positions. Second, it aims to provide an initial list of companies at the crossroads between the language sector and the digital sector, which can be involved as stakeholders for the dissemination of UPSKILLS results

Graduate skills and employability: Focus interviews with selected job market stakeholders. UPSKILLS Intellectual output 1.5

open9siThe final stage of the UPSKILLS needs analysis involved focus interviews with job market stakeholders. This report presents the method used to conduct and analyse the interviews we carried out with twelve job market stakeholders, the main findings of this UPSKILLS task, a discussion of how these findings relate to the results obtained in the previous steps of the needs analysis, and the aims of the UPSKILLS partnership more generally.openAssimakopoulos, Stavros; Vella, Michela; van der Plas, Lonneke; Milicevic Petrovic, Maja; Samardžić, Tanja; van der Lek, Iulianna; Bernardini, Silvia; Ferraresi, Adriano; Pallottino, MargheritaAssimakopoulos, Stavros; Vella, Michela; van der Plas, Lonneke; Milicevic Petrovic, Maja; Samardžić, Tanja; van der Lek, Iulianna; Bernardini, Silvia; Ferraresi, Adriano; Pallottino, Margherit