On-line Resources for Translation Belinda Maia Universidade do

On-line Resources for Translation Belinda Maia Universidade do Porto bmaia@mail. telepac. pt

The Information Revolution and the Translator • Many professions have been affected by the Information Revolution • BUT few more than that of the Translator – or Language Services Provider

Before the Personal Computer • Translators handwrote or typed • Reference material – dictionaries and general reference • Job structure often allowed them to specialise ‘on the job’ • Literary texts and books often done as a part -time occupation – often for a variety of non -professional reasons

Since the Personal Computer • Word-processing the norm – and desktop publishing standards increasingly required • Reference material – paper and on-line – has ‘boomed’ • ‘In-house’ jobs rare – translators work in groups or freelance – and accept ‘anything’ • Literary texts – about 5% of translation done

Before the Internet • The context was LOCAL – Market restricted – Client and Translator – direct contact – Reference material – in local libraries, bookshops, client’s office – Social and psychological attitudes restricted

Since the Internet • The context is increasingly GLOBAL – Market is global – Client and translator contacts more diverse and rarely direct – Information retrieval is becoming increasingly sophisticated and international – Social and psychological attitudes - changing

On-line Resources • The Internet! • A wide variety of information – and access to knowledge • Specific information for language services providers – Translator´s pages – e. g. The Translator´s home companion • http: //www. lai. com/companion. html

Dictionaries and glossaries - good • Published dictionaries, thesauri etc in digital form – a wide variety • Official glossaries – properly validated • Occasional ‘gems’ • USEFUL LINKS • http: //www. yourdictionary. com/ • http: //www. word 2 word. com/dictionary. html • http: //www. wordsmith. org/ • http: //www. wordsmyth. net/ • http: //www. bartleby. com/62/

Terminology Databases • EURODICAUTOM http: //europa. eu. int/eurodicautom/login. jsp • CELEX • http: //europa. eu. int/celex/ • TERMITE http: //www. itu. int/search/wais/Termite/ • Try ‘Terminology Database’ on Google!

Official glossaries – e. g. s • GLOSSARY - Institutions, policies and enlargement of the European Union • http: //europa. eu. int/scadplus/leg/en/cig/g 4000. htm • Euro terminology • http: //europa. eu. int/comm/translation/euro/euenfra m. htm • JUDIT http: //curia. eu. int/en/txts/others/judit. htm

Dictionaries and glossaries - bad • Plenty of amateur efforts with little or no official validation • Little discrimination – even on ‘good’ dictionary sites • FOR EXAMPLE:

From: Translation (yourdictionary. com) • Our professional Instajob translation in 24 hours! Now your Dictionary can handle ANY translation job, large or small.

Machine Translation • • On-line translation at: http: //www. systransoft. com/ http: //world. altavista. com/ http: //www. freetranslation. com/ http: //translator. dictionary. com/text. html http: //www. google. com/language_tools? hl=en ETC

Machine Assisted Translation • • • TRADOS http: //www. trados. com/ STAR http: //www. star-group. net/eng/software/sprachtech. html Déjà Vu http: //www. atril. com SDLX http: //www. sdlintl. com/products/sdlx. htm IBM Translation Manager http: //www-3. ibm. com/software/ad/translat/tm/

Principal features of MAT • • Translation memories Terminology databases Aligning tools Software works in coordination with word processor

Localisation • Specific software for performing translation or LOCALISATION of software textual material • Examples of software: • Corel Catalyst • http: //www. alchemysoftware. ie/ • Passolo • http: //www. passolo. com/index. htm

Corpora • • General information http: //www. ling. lancs. ac. uk/ ICAME http: //www. hit. uib. no/english/ UCREL http: //www. comp. lancs. ac. uk/computing/research/ucrel/ Extracts from Mc. Enery and Wilson‘s book on Corpus Linguistics • http: //www. ling. lancs. ac. uk/staff/andrew/data. htm • Mike Barlow • http: //www. ruf. rice. edu/~barlow/corpus. html

Corpora on-line/CD-ROM • • • ENGLISH BNC – British National Corpus http: //sara. natcorp. ox. ac. uk/lookup. html COBUILD and Bank of English http: //titania. cobuild. collins. co. uk/ PORTUGUESE CETEMPÚBLICO http: //cgi. portugues. mct. pt/cetempublico/whatis. CETEMP. html ENGLISH/PORTUGUESE COMPARA http: //cgi. portugues. mct. pt/cetempublico/whatis. CETEMP. html

Corpora – German from http: //www. ruf. rice. edu/~barlow/corpus. html#Corpora • Mannheimer Corpora A very large, growing, online German corpus archive (778 million words in August 2000). A copyright-free portion of the archive (379 million words in August 2000) is freely searchable. Invited guests have access to the whole archive. Partially tagged. • Project Gutenberg (German texts) • German newspapers -- tagged corpus with syntactic structure annotated.

Corpora analysis tools • Concordancers, wordlists+statistics, aligners, taggers, parsers. . . • SARA - see British National Corpus • WORDSMITH • http: //www 1. oup. co. uk/elt/catalogue/Multimedia/Word. Smi th. Tools 3. 0/download. html • PARACONC • http: //www. ruf. rice. edu/~barlow/parac. html • MULTICONC • http: //www. lang. ltsn. ac. uk/cit/reviews/multiconc. htm

Text databases on-line • • Most EC legislation http: //europe. osha. eu. int/legislation/index 2. stm EUR-Lex http: //europa. eu. int/eurlex/en/news/20010601_01. html • Other official sites • Well-translated websites • . . . Badly-translated websites

Texts on-line • • • MOST NEWSPAPERS University of Virginia http: //www. lib. virginia. edu/electronic. html CETH http: //www. ceth. rutgers. edu/ Gutenberg project http: //promo. net/pg/ Oxford Text Archive http: //ota. ahds. ac. uk/

Making your own corpora • General corpora • Specialised corpora • Translation memories • Parallel/aligned corpora • Comparable corpora

Making your own databases • Microsoft Excel and Access • MULTITERM (TRADOS) • DIY databases – But make sure you find out about the latest ISO standards or consult http: //www. lisa. org/term/ for information

Conclusion The ‘language services provider’ is developing from the needs of the market and – also – from the possibilities offered by the Internet

References • USEFUL TEXTBOOK • Austermühl, Frank. 2001. Electronic. Tools for Translators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing Co. • OFFICIAL REPORTS • LETRAC: Language Engineering for Translation Curricula: http: //www. iai. uni-sb. de/LETRAC/home. html • POINTER REPORT: Proposals for an operational infrastructure for terminology in Europe http: //www. computing. surrey. ac. uk/ai/pointer/report/