Improving Products and Processes in Translation Technology Use (IMPETUS)

最近的年度数据显示，语言服务是一个价值460亿美元的行业，增长预期很高。技术对于应对这一领域的需求至关重要。在许多情况下，翻译员现在编辑机器翻译并与之互动(即类似于谷歌翻译的系统)，而不是从头开始翻译文本。以这种方式使用机器翻译的生产率优势是众所周知的，但这一过程存在争议，而且远非顺利。众所周知，语言专业人士对机器翻译的态度是消极的。在媒体上，翻译者被认为“忧郁”(The Economist 2017)，并“担心”机器翻译对他们的工作和工作的影响(El Pais 2017)。培训翻译人员使用技术的方法往往是无效的，而且关于机器翻译如何影响翻译人员的语言决策的知识仍然有限，这给机器翻译在专业工作流程中的有效使用带来了障碍。该项目是一项共同努力，旨在解决这些问题，并改进与翻译人员与技术互动相关的产品和流程。我们将审查不同工作方法的有效性，并评估可以在翻译工作场所部署的新培训方法。在自动化对人类劳动影响的激烈辩论中，我们的最终目标是使翻译人员能够以更有效和更有价值的方式采用机器翻译，以提高他们的工作满意度、提高专业水平和促进多语言经济。这项计划将分三个阶段进行。在第一阶段，我们将调查神经机器翻译的使用，这是机器翻译技术中的一种新范式，并评估译者可以采取的不同策略来改进他们的工作。第二阶段将更深入地探讨翻译行为与译文质量之间的联系。我们将在迄今为止最大规模的研究中审查这些跨语言的联系，以建立翻译人员所做的工作与他们所产生的文本质量之间的联系。在研究方法和业务做法的创新整合中，该项目的第三阶段将审查如何在工作场所积极和负责任地使用跟踪翻译人员活动的工具(例如编辑和翻译速度)。我们将在四个月的时间里监督翻译人员的活动，以阐明数据伦理和生产率观念等问题，以及将项目初始阶段的方法纳入商业环境的实际影响。在整个项目中，我们将使用包括客观和主观技术在内的独特方法组合。这部作品在几个方面都很新颖。首先，它将提供关于在商业环境中使用活动跟踪以及迄今被行业标准和准则忽视的关键编辑程序的最佳做法文件。其次，该项目拥有一支由不同研究人员和行业合作伙伴组成的团队，是翻译人员、学者、技术开发人员、翻译企业和专业团体之间罕见的合作。我们的工作植根于我们的专业合作伙伴报告和直接讨论的问题。最后，我们将不再采取以往主要侧重于开发新工具的举措，而是对专门知识和能力建设进行亟需的投资。到目前为止，翻译人员对这一职业的担忧并不一定与对技术的自上而下的投资一致，这些投资往往无视技术用户，这可能会对技术开发人员和翻译人员的专业地位造成负面影响。我们希望通过集中关注技术进步的人的方面来改变这一点，并为新的工作方式和不同专业实践的有效性提供经验证据。

Recent annual figures show that language services are a US$46-billion industry with high growth forecasts. Technology is crucial for coping with demand in this sector. In many contexts, translators now edit and interact with machine translation (i.e. systems akin to Google Translate) instead of translating texts from scratch. The productivity benefits of using machine translation in this way are well known, but the process is controversial and far from smooth. Attitudes to machine translation among language professionals are famously negative. In the press, translators are said to 'have the blues' (The Economist 2017) and to be 'concerned' (El Pais 2017) about the impact of machine translation on their jobs and work. Methods for training translators to use technology are often ineffective, and knowledge of how machine translation affects translators' linguistic decisions is still limited, which poses obstacles to a beneficial use of machine translation in professional workflows. This project is a joint effort to address these issues and improve products and processes linked to translators' interaction with technology. We will examine the efficacy of different working methods and assess new training approaches that can be deployed in the translation workplace. In a context of heated debates on the impact of automation on human labour, our aim is ultimately to empower translators to adopt machine translation in more effective and rewarding ways that can improve their job satisfaction, raise professional standards and boost the multilingual economy.The project will have three phases. In the first phase, we will investigate the use of neural machine translation, a new paradigm in machine translation technology, and assess different strategies that translators can adopt to improve their work. The second phase will delve deeper into links between translating behaviour and the quality of translated texts. We will examine these links across languages in the largest-scale study to date to establish a connection between what translators do and the quality of the texts they produce. In an innovative integration of research methods and business practices, the third phase of the project will examine how tools that track translators' activity (e.g. edits and translating speed) can be used positively and responsibly in the workplace. We will monitor translators' activity for four months to shed new light on issues such as data ethics and perceptions of productivity as well as on the practical implications of incorporating methods from the project's initial phases into commercial contexts.Throughout the project, we will use a unique combination of methodologies including objective and subjective techniques. The work is novel in several ways. First, it will provide best-practice documentation on the use of activity tracking in commercial settings and on key editing procedures so far ignored by industry standards and guidelines. Second, with a diverse team of researchers and industry partners, the project constitutes a rare collaboration between translators, academics, technology developers, translation businesses and professional bodies. Our work is rooted in problems reported by and discussed directly with our professional partners. Finally, we will veer away from previous initiatives focused predominantly on the development of new tools to represent a much-needed investment in know-how and capacity building. To date, translators' concerns about the profession have not necessarily aligned with top-down investments in technology that often disregard the technology users, with potentially negative consequences for the technology developers and for translators' professional standing. We hope to change this by concentrating on the human aspects of technological progress and providing empirical evidence on new ways of working and the efficacy of different professional practices.