Machine translation and Welsh: analysing free statistical machine translation for the professional translation of an under-researched language pair

This article reports on a key-logging study carried out to test the benefits of post-editing Machine Translation (MT) for the professional translator within a hypothetico-deductive framework, contrasting the outcomes of a number of variables which are inextricably linked to the professional translation process. Given the current trend of allowing the professional translator to connect to Google Translate services within the main Translation Memory (TM) systems via an API, a between-groups design is utilized in which cognitive, technical and temporal effort are gauged between translation and post-editing the statistical MT engine Google Translate. The language pair investigated is English and Welsh. Results show no statistical difference between post-editing and translation in terms of processing time. Using a novel measure of cognitive effort focused on pauses, the cognitive effort exerted by post-editors and translators was also found to be statistically different. Results also show however that a complex relationship exists between post-editing, translation and technical effort, in that aspects of text production processes were seen to be eased by post-editing. Finally, a bilingual review by two different translators found little difference in quality between the translated and post-edited texts, and that both sets of texts were acceptable according to accuracy and fidelity

Effaith Defnyddio Cofion Cyfieithu ar y Broses Cyfieithu: Ymdrech a Chynhyrchiant Cyfieithwyr Proffesiynol Cymraeg

Mae cyfieithu i’r Gymraeg wedi tyfu bellach yn ddiwydiant pwysig, ac mae’r berthynas rhwng cyfieithu proffesiynol a chynllunio ieithyddol ehangach wedi cael sylw academaidd yn ddiweddar ochr yn ochr â hyn (cf. Gonzalez 2005, O’Connall a Walsh 2006, Kaufmann 2010, 2012, Nunez 2013). Mae cyfieithwyr yn hwyluso ac yn cynorthwyo ymdrechion i amddiffyn hawliau iaith siaradwyr lleiafrifol ac yn cyfrannu at y gwaith ehangach o adfer yr ieithoedd hyn, trwy ddarparu cyfieithiadau o destunau amrywiol ac wrth alluogi siaradwyr ieithoedd lleiafrifol i siarad eu hiaith. O ganlyniad i bwysigrwydd cyfieithwyr i lwyddiant polisïau iaith a’u lle canolog yn y broses o amddiffyn hyfywedd y gymuned Gymraeg, mae’r dulliau y mae cyfieithwyr y Gymraeg yn cyfieithu drwyddynt hefyd yn ystyriaeth berthnasol i gynllunwyr iaith. A all technolegau cyfieithu penodol gyflymu cyfieithu, gan leihau’r ymdrech sydd ynghlwm wrth greu cyfieithiad a chan gynyddu cynhyrchiant cyfieithwyr proffesiynol? Mae hyn yn ystyriaeth berthnasol yng nghyd-destun datblygiadau polisi diweddar, gyda safonau cyntaf Mesur y Gymraeg (Cymru) 2011 wrthi’n cael eu gweithredu. Bydd yr erthygl hon yn mynd i’r afael â’r effaith y mae golygu allbwn Cofion Cyfieithu ar ffurf Cyfatebiaethau Rhannol yn ei gael ar y broses o ffurfio cyfieithiad, ar y cyd ag ystyried yr effaith ar brosesau cynhyrchu testun, gan gynnwys ystyried hefyd nifer y geiriau a gynhyrchir. Gwneir hynny o fewn fframwaith cymharol, lle y defnyddir cyfieithu heb gymorth allbwn o’r cof cyfieithu yn waelodlin

Exploring links between Arctic amplification and mid-latitude weather

Copyright © 2013 American Geophysical UnionThis study examines observed changes (1979–2011) in atmospheric planetary-wave amplitude over northern mid-latitudes, which have been proposed as a possible mechanism linking Arctic amplification and mid-latitude weather extremes. We use two distinct but equally-valid definitions of planetary-wave amplitude, termed meridional amplitude, a measure of north-south meandering, and zonal amplitude, a measure of the intensity of atmospheric ridges and troughs at 45°N. Statistically significant changes in either metric are limited to few seasons, wavelengths, and longitudinal sectors. However in summer, we identify significant increases in meridional amplitude over Europe, but significant decreases in zonal amplitude hemispherically, and also individually over Europe and Asia. Therefore, we argue that possible connections between Arctic amplification and planetary waves, and implications of these, are sensitive to how waves are conceptualized. The contrasting meridional and zonal amplitude trends have different and complex possible implications for midlatitude weather, and we encourage further work to better understand these

Audit of Moving Image Education & Media Access Centres in Scotland

No abstract available

Creativity: from discourse to doctrine

This is a short report on work in progress. It centres on the idea of ‘creativity’, which is of presently of key importance for current UK government thinking about the ‘creative economy’. ‘Creativity’, I shall argue, has established itself as a hegemonic term in an increasingly elaborated framework of policy ideas. Although my focus is on the UK, we are addressing a body of thought that is now increasingly international in scope. The ideas in question are influential and set the terms for thought and action across a number of policy fields. Not for nothing has David Puttnam, a key ‘New’ Labour figure, said that ‘the importance of the creative industries was quickly enshrined as an article of faith’. An analysis of New Labour discourse reveals an underlying credo – itself a fit subject for the critique of ideology. A concerted effort is under way to shape a wide range of working practices by invoking creativity and innovation. These attributes are supposed to make our societies and economies grow in a fiercely competitive world. At present, official thinking circulates in a dominant culture of largely uncritical acceptance. Alongside the elaboration of the doctrine of creativity by the government policy apparatus is a specialist discourse of academic analysis. If it is now fashionable to see the creative economy as pivotal to the wider economy, this view is certainly not limited to policy makers. As creativity has moved centre stage, it has also become extraordinarily banal. The mark of its present hegemony is that it is also increasingly ubiquitous. ‘British creativity’, for instance, ensures market success for Thornton’s, the chocolate manufacturers, so their advertising tells us. Not on its own, to be sure: cocoa and sugar are added ingredients. In a district nearby to mine in Glasgow, there is a ‘creative hairdresser’. We who stay without must ponder what wondrous transformations occur under the stylists’ hands. My inbox is regularly assaulted by spam offering courses to explore my creativity (and temptingly, to develop my ludic qualities) in New York City and various European locations. So far I have managed to resist. Such examples could easily be multiplied

Introduction : screen Londons

Our aim, in editing the ‘London Issue’ of this journal, is to contribute to a conversation between scholars of British cinema and television, London historians and scholars of the cinematic city. In 2007, introducing the themed issue on ‘Space and Place in British Cinema and Television’, Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley observed that it would have been possible to fill the whole journal with essays about the representation of London. This issue does just that, responding to the increased interest in cinematic and, to a lesser extent, televisual, Londons, while also demonstrating the continuing fertility of the paradigms of ‘space and place’ for scholars of the moving image1. It includes a wide range of approaches to the topic of London on screen, with varying attention to British institutions of the moving image – such as Channel Four or the British Board of Film Classification – as well as to concepts such as genre, narration and memory. As a whole, the issue, through its juxtapositions of method and approach, shows something of the complexity of encounters between the terms ‘London’, ‘cinema’ and ‘television’ within British film and television studies

Growing up and growing old with television: peripheral viewers and the centrality of care

This essay draws on feminist work on the ethics of care to both (re)establish an alliance between the very young and the very old and to begin to challenge the normative models of subjectivity and spectatorship that circulate within film and television studies. Through textual experiences of time and space and the operations of care, we emphasize the reciprocity and interdependence between generations. This recognition, we argue, offers a new mode of engagement with the challenges of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing old’ on and with television. In our alignment of older and younger audiences we challenge the normative chain of associations where ageing is represented as growth, and growth is associated with development. For the child, this model appears unproblematic even inevitable: ageing = growth = development. In contrast, ageing for older individuals is associated not with growth and development but with decline. A positive alignment between childhood and old age may offer an understanding of this motion (between the status, capacity and experience of child and older adult) as continuous, as an oscillation that is often made evident in the interdependence between child and adult. This, we believe, is mirrored in certain textual and experiential characteristics of television, and we explore it through close textual analysis of children’s programmes Katie Morag, Old Jack’s Boat and Mr Alzheimer’s and Me. These are programmes that not only offer representations of caring intergenerational relationships (of grandchild and grandparent) but express, in their seaside locations, an ebb and flow that is mapped onto experiences of both television and of intergenerational care