Software and translation

[Guest guest]

All,

 

> Nobody so far has mentioned machine translators as a bridge -- I have

> found some benefit in using software to at least look things up faster.

 

I think the key to the valuation of software tools is two fold. First, the

ability

to usefully search large volumes of Chinese literature or databases.

Second, the ability to achieve consistency in translation projects.

Practically, the two are related because without consistency in the English

translations the ability to accurately associate one English text with another

is diminished geometrically with each Chinese-defined term that is allowed

to sink into the quicksand of the English vernacular.

 

If you have decided to translate the medical terminology that exists in

Chinese traditional medical dictionaries consistently, rather than to read

you text and tell people what you think it means, the work of keeping tack of

several thousands of expressions is greatly enhanced by software tools.

 

For the professional translator, the issue is not reading the Chinese, they

can do that, it is in the preparation of a consistent text. Nigel, for example,

is fond of saying that for the translator the skill is not in the translation of

the technical terms -- that is the skill of the terminologist -- but in the text

surrounding the technical terms. If you compare freely translated pattern

descriptions, for example, to Nigel's English prose that preserves the

metaphoric associations original to the Chinese, I think you can see what he

means.

 

> > The technology is becoming sufficiently advanced that I would think

> > schools at least might invest in doing machine translation of journals

> > from the PRC.

 

To me this is an extension of the search capacity. I think the degree to

which it would be useful will vary journal to journal, but it certainly would

be capable of helping you find articles that you might read more closely.

 

As for transliterations taking the place of translations or character text, the

homophones complicate the matter, but if the learning theorists are right

and we learn by making associations between the familiar and what we wish

to learn, Pinyin is perhaps even less memorable than the characters because

there is a learning impediment implicit in the difference between the way we

want to pronounce the Pinyin based on how we pronounce the same

syllables in English and the Chinese sounds Pinyin is used to represent. In

memorizing the characters we associate a visual pattern with a meaning,

something we do all the time. In memorizing pinyin we add a sound-

translation step between the pinyin and the meaning.

 

I think the fact that more people can read both Asian and European

languages than can speak them is a kind of common sense argument against

depending too much on pinyin. I think Pinyin is a useful way to make cross

references available to people who do not read Chinese. I'm dubious that it

saves much for someone who wanted to read Chinese text.

 

 

Bob

 

bob Paradigm Publications

www.paradigm-pubs.com 44 Linden Street

Robert L. Felt Brookline MA 02445

617-738-4664

 

 

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