subject: Translation And Networking [print this page] With the expansion of global telecommunications has come the networking of translation services. Nearly all the larger MT software vendors now offer their systems as a service to individual or company customers. Texts can be sent on-line for immediate 'rough' translation with no post-editing or for treatment in a more traditional manner with expert revision, editing and preparation for publication by the service. This form of networked MT is clearly a further development of familiar translation services, and one with considerable growth potential. It is assumed that in future there will emerge various forms of networked 'translation brokerage' services which will advise customers on the most appropriate MT service for their needs, e.g. in terms of costs, languages, speed, dictionary coverage, terminology control, overall translation quality, post-editing support, etc. Some of these 'translation brokers' may themselves be automated, and undertake searches of the Web for particular client needs. As a result, we may well see the emergence of more specialized MT systems, some of which will thrive and others which will fail in the global competitive market.
Even more significant for the future, however, is the appearance of systems for on-line and real-time translation of electronic mail messages. In 1994 the CompuServe service introduced automatic translation from and to English and French, German or Spanish for messages on one of its forums.4 It became so popular that the facility was extended to two other on-line services within the next couple of years, until now thousands of messages a day are being translated. The software used was not of course designed originally to deal with the frequently ungrammatical conversational style and the sometimes idiosyncratic vocabulary of electronic mail. Hence, much of the output is garbled and barely comprehensible; but a large number of users have found the results valuable aids for comprehension.
Only a fully automatic system could operate in real-time on this scale. The potential market for network MT systems is enormous.
A further factor will be the growth of multilingual access to information sources. Increasingly, the expectation of users is that on-line databases should be searchable in their own language, that the information should be translated and summarized into their own language. The European Union is placing considerable emphasis on the development of tools for information access for all members of the community. Translation components are obviously essential components of such tools; they will be developed not as independent stand-alone modules, but fully integrated with the access software for the specific domains of databases. The use of MT in this wider context is clearly due for rapid development in the near future.
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