STTR Phase I: NUMBERS: Bringing Statistical Machine Translation into the Real World

这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目涉及研发，旨在评估应用统计机器翻译（MT）技术来提高人类翻译人员生产力的可行性。目前，人工翻译人员使用翻译记忆工具，即提供访问以前翻译过的句子数据库的软件包。不幸的是，这些工具在翻译以前未见过的句子方面没有提供显著的帮助，也没有随着时间的推移而改进（除了提供对越来越大的以前翻译材料数据库的访问）。由于自动翻译系统产生的翻译质量不高，不适合他们感兴趣的类型和领域，因此人工翻译人员拒绝使用自动翻译系统。在这个项目中，将建立一个原型混合翻译系统和计算机界面，允许人类通过利用翻译记忆库和自动的、基于统计的机器翻译系统来翻译文本，并将测量使用混合工具所能提高的文本翻译生产力。像这里提出的这种混合翻译工具有可能显著降低与人工翻译相关的成本，并提高翻译效率。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project concerns R&D aimed at assessing the feasibility of applying statistical Machine Translation (MT) techniques to the problem of improving the productivity of human translators. Currently, human translators use translation memory tools, i.e., software packages that provide access to databases of previously translated sentences. Unfortunately, these tools do not provide significant help in translating previously unseen sentences and do not improve over time (with the exception of providing access to increasingly larger databases of previously translated material). Because automatic translation systems produce low quality translations that are not tailored to their genre and domain of interest, human translators refuse to use automatic translation systems. In this program, a prototype hybrid translation system and computer interface that will permit humans to translate text by exploiting both a translation memory and an automatic, statistical-based MT system will be built and the increase in text translation productivity that is enabled by the use of the hybrid tool will be measured.A hybrid translation tool such as that proposed here has the potential to reduce significantly the costs associated with human translation, and increase translation productivity.