Incollection,
Sleeping with the enemy ? Or should translators work with Google Translate ?
Conducting research in translation technologies, chapter 2, Peter Lang, Bern, (2015)
DOI: 10.3726/978-3-0353-0732-0
Abstract
Google Translate uses the enormous amount of material at its disposal to produce statistics-based machine translation. Although one can appreciate the ideal of making all information freely available online to everyone and in any language, there is no doubt that such an ambition leaves translators wondering how they will survive such technological developments. The Google Translate page invites translators to increase their productivity by using Google Translator toolkit. This toolkit provides translators with the possibility of creating new translation memories and glossaries, or of uploading and of building on existing memories and glossaries, while offering automatic segmentation and optional machine translation. Translators may also decide whether they wish to share their material with others or choose to protect it. If this all worked, it would sound like a win-win situation for (groups of) freelance translators and even for small and medium-sized translation companies, not to mention cash-strapped universities who need to teach their students how to use all the software available. However, it begs a series of questions about copyright, security and confidentiality, not to mention the questions about translation quality. This contribution aims to provide both a general explanation of how Google Translate works and a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages that translators may face when using Google Translator toolkit.
