Machine-Assisted Human Translation: Its Definition

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Machine-Assisted Human Translation: Its Definition

The present article discusses the definition of Machine Assisted

Human Translation by making contrast with the technical terms:

Computer Assisted Translation and Machine-Assisted Translation.

It puts forward that MAHT is concerned with computer tools which

assist the human translators in the course of a translation process.

Nowadays, globalization has turned the earth into a village; as

a result, translation has become a booming industry for frequent

and massive information exchanges among the people from

different countries. In translation industry, Machine-Assisted

Human Translation, MAHT for short, is playing a more and more

important role at present.

Before we introduce MAHT, it is needed for us to make clear

another two terminologies. Specialists and translation practitioners

are interested in mechanical aids for translation or translation

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automation is most frequently confronted with the somewhat

misleading term “Computer Assisted (or Aided) Translation” and

sometimes “Machine Assisted (or Aided) Translation”.

Over the years, there has been much confusion concerning

the definition of the terms. In view of the scientific and popular

interest in Machine Assisted Translation and Computer-Assisted

Translation, the latter has become an umbrella term and is

therefore no longer synonymous with MAHT. Considering

Computer Assisted Translation as a generic term, Machine

Translation and MAHT can be divided into two major subgroups.

Today, Machine Translation is generally understood to be the

process in which a “machine” (specifically a computer program is

the pivotal component in the translation process while humans are

in charge of developing the software (which includes, for instance,






grammatical and lexical rules), updating the programs, pre- and

post-editing texts, and sometimes interactively communicating with

the machine to solve the translation problems in the text which is

being translated. At the other end of the Computer-Assisted

Translation spectrum we find MAHT tools, also known as

“translation workbenches”, where humans are pivotal to the

process. In the latter type, human translators prepare the target-

language texts and the “machines”(computer programs) assist

translators by offering terminological support(terms are retrieved

automatically or semi-automatically from an appropriate database)

and by building and employing translation databases (Translation

Memories) to suggest identical (100% matches) and similar

segments (fuzzy matches, which are less than 100%) that have

been used in previous translations and stored in the database.






As hinted, MAHT is a budding discipline which has not been

precisely defined. First, MAHT is defined as a discipline that is

concerned with computer tools which assist human translators in

the course of a translation process. By mentioning translation

process, we does not mean mental processes that take place

during translation, but surface processes that start when a

translation assignment is accepted, which end with the delivery of

a finished product. Such translation process has two major

constituents parts: one is a creative part requiring human

evaluation leading to the production of a translation for which a

human translator remains solely responsible; the other is a

technical part which includes all such tasks as receiving and

sending documents, typing and formatting, scanning documents

for identical or similar segments to reduce the number of words





and phrases that must be left for translation by human translators,

desktop publishing and terminological consistency, and other

features which can be handled by mechanical tools. But what we

have pay attention to is that it is humans who are responsible for

the end product and its quality, whereas the strength of a MAHT

system is that it ensures the terminological, phraseological, and

segmental consistency which is crucial to e.g. scientific and

technical translation.

It is often of great significance that we make clear of the

definition of something which we would like to apply to.

Author Information:

Heyi

Marketing Manager of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai





Native translator & Proofreading

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Machine-Assisted Human Translation: Its Definition