Productivity and quality when editing machine translation and translation memory outputs: an empirical analysis of English to Welsh translation

Screen, Benjamin 2017. Productivity and quality when editing machine translation and translation memory outputs: an empirical analysis of English to Welsh translation. Studia Celtica Posnaniensia 2 (1) , pp. 113-136. 10.1515/scp-2017-0007

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Abstract

This article reports on a controlled study carried out to examine the possible benefits of editing Machine Translation and Translation Memory outputs when translating from English to Welsh. Using software capable of timing the translation process per segment, 8 professional translators each translated 75 sentences of differing match percentage, and post- edited a further 25 segments of Machine Translation. Basing the final analysis on 800 sentences and 17,440 words, the use of Fuzzy Matches in the 70-99% match range, Exact Matches and Statistical Machine Translation was found to significantly speed up the translation process. Significant correlations were also found between the processing time data of Exact Matches and Machine Translation post-editing, rather than between Fuzzy Matches and Machine Translation as expected. Two experienced translators were then asked to rate all translations for fidelity, grammaticality and style, whereby it was found that the use of translation technology either did not negatively affect translation quality compared to manual translation, or its use actually improved final quality in some cases. As well as confirming the findings of research in relation to translation technology, these findings also contradict supposed similarities between translation quality in terms of style and post-editing Machine Translation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Welsh
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PB Modern European Languages > PB1001 Celtic languages and literature
Publisher:	De Gruyter
ISSN:	2451-4160
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 September 2017
Date of Acceptance:	30 August 2017
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 12:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/104036

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