Xiuhua Huang | Guangdong University of Finance | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Bo Zhou | Guangzhou Municipal Foreign Affairs Office
For several language pairs, an emerging consensus finds
that post-editing of machine translations is faster and less cognitively
effortful than from-scratch human translation, resulting in increased
translator productivity and decreased translator fatigue. These benefits
have yet to be robustly established in some language pairs that are
linguistically and culturally remote with very different writing systems. We
carry out a systematic Chinese-to-English study using keystroke logger
timing measures and eye-tracking measures of cognitive effort, taking into
account translator education levels, different source text domains, and
quality of the translation product. We observe significant post-editing
productivity gains for more highly educated participants and for more
straightforward and less technical texts. Measures of cognitive effort show
significantly reduced cognitive effort in post-editing.
Albrecht, Joshua S., Rebecca Hwa, and G. Elisabeta Marai. 2009. “Correcting
Automatic Translations through Collaborations between MT and
Monolingual Target-language
Users.” In Proceedings
of the 12th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association
for Computational
Linguistics, 60–68. Athens, Greece.
Balling, Laura W., and Michael Carl. 2014. “Production
Time across Languages and Tasks: A Large-scale Analysis Using the
CRITT Translation Process
Database.” In The
Development of Translation Competence: Theories and Methodologies
from Psycholinguistics and Cognitive
Science, ed. by John W. Schwieter, and Aline Ferreira, 239–268. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishers.
Blatz, John, Erin Fitzgerald, George Foster, Simona Gandrabur, Cyril Goutte, Alex Kulesza, Alberto Sanchis, and Nicola Ueng. 2004. “Confidence
Estimation for Machine
Translation.” Mental
Imagery 33: 9–40.
Callison-Burch, Chris, Philipp Koehn, Christof Monz, Kay Peterson, Mark A. Przybocki, and Omar F. Zaidan. 2010. “Findings
of the 2010 Joint Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation and
Metrics for Machine
Translation.” In Joint
Fifth Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation and Metrics
MATR, ed. by Chris Callison-Burch, Philipp Koehn, Christof Monz, Kay Peterson, and Omar Zaidan, 17–53. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Callison-Burch, Chris, Philipp Koehn, Christof Monz, Matt Post, Radu Soricut, and Lucia Specia. 2012. “Findings
of the 2012 Joint Workshop on Statistical Machine
Translation.” In Proceedings
of the Seventh Workshop on Statistical Machine
Translation, ed.
by Chris Callison-Burch, Philipp Koehn, Christof Monz, Matt Post, Radu Soricut, and Lucia Specia, 10–51. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Carl, Michael, Srinivas Bangalore, and Moritz Schaeffer. 2016. New
Directions in Empirical Translation Process Research: Exploring the
CRITT
TPRDB. Heidelberg: Springer.
Carl, Michael, Barbara Dragsted, Jakob Elming, Daniel Hardt, and Arnd Lykke Jakobsen. 2011. “The
Process of Post-editing: A Pilot
Study.” In Proceedings
of the 8th International NLPSC Workshop. Special Theme:
Human-machine Interaction in Translation, ed.
by Bernadette Sharp, Michael Zock, Michael Carl, and Arnt Lykke Jakobsen, 131–142. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
Da Silva, Igor Antônio Lourenço, Marcia Schmaltz, Fabio Alves, Adriana Pagano, Wong, Lidia Chao, Ana Luisa Varani Leal, Paulo Quaresma, and Ciao Garcia. 2015. “Translating
and Post-editing in the Chinese-Portuguese Language Pair: Insights
from an Exploratory Study of Key Logging and Eye
Tracking.” Translation
Spaces 4 (1): 145–169.
Daems, Joke, Sonia Vandepitte, Robert J. Hartsuiker, and Lieve Macken. 2017. “Translation
Methods and Experience: A Comparative Analysis of Human Translation
and Post-editing with Students and Professional
Translators.” Meta 62 (2): 245–270.
Doherty, Stephen. 2012. Investigating
the Effects of Controlled Language on the Reading and Comprehension
of Machine Translated Texts: A Mixed-methods
Approach. PhD
Dissertation, Dublin City University.
Feng, Quangong, and Qiliang Cui. 2016. “Research
Focuses and Trends in Post-editing of Machine
Translation.” Shanghai Journal of
Translators 6: 67–89.
Fiederer, Rebecca, and Sharon O’Brien. 2009. “Quality
and Machine Translation: A Realistic
Objective?” The Journal of
Specialised
Translation 11: 52–74.
Green, Spence, Jeffrey Heer, and Christopher D. Manning. 2013. “The
Efficacy of Human Post-editing for Language
Translation.” In Proceedings
of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, ed. by Joseph A. Konstan, Ed H. Chi, and Kristina Höök, 439–448. New York: ACM press.
Guerberof, Ana. 2009. “Productivity
and Quality in the Post-Editing of Outputs from Translation Memories
and Machine
Translation.” Localisation Focus: The
International Journal of
Localisation 7 (1): 11–21.
Guerberof, Ana. 2014. “Correlations
Between Productivity and Quality When Post-Editing in a Professional
Context.” Machine
Translation 28: 165–186.
Hu, Chang, Philip Resnik, Yakov Kronrod, Vladimir Eidelman, Olivia Buzek, and Benjamin B. Bederson. 2011. “The
Value of Monolingual Crowdsourcing in A Real-world Translation
Scenario: Simulation Using Haitian Creole Emergency SMS
Messages.” In Proceedings
of the Sixth Workshop on Statistical Machine
Translation, ed.
by Chris Callison-Burch, Philipp Koehn, Christof Monz, and Omar F. Zaidan, 399–404. Stroudsburg. PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.
Hvelplund, Kristian Tangsgaard. 2011. Allocation
of Cognitive Resources in Translation: An Eye-tracking and
Key-logging Study. PhD
Dissertation, Copenhagen Business School.
Hyönä, Jukka, Jorma Tommola, and Anna-Mari Alaja. 1995. “Pupil
Dilation as a Measure of Processing Load in Simultaneous
Interpretation and Other Language
Tasks.” Quarterly Journal of
Experimental
Psychology 48 (3): 598–612.
Iqbal, Shamsi T., Piotr D. Adamczyk, Sam Zheng, and Brian P. Bailey. 2005. “Towards
an Index of Opportunity: Understanding Changes in Mental Workload
during Task
Execution.” In Proceedings
of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, ed. by Joseph A. Konstan, Ed H. Chi, and Kristina Höök, 311–320. New York: ACM Press.
Just, Marcel A., and Patricia A. Carpenter. 1980. “A
Theory of Reading: From Eye Fixations to
Comprehension.” Psychological
Review 87: 329–354.
Koby, Geoffrey S., and Isabel Lacruz. 2017. “Translator
Quality-Translation Quality: Empirical Approaches to Assessment and
Evaluation.” Linguistica
Antverpiensia New Series – Themes in Translation
Studies 16 (January). Antwerp, Belgium.
Koehn, Philipp. 2010. “Enabling
Monolingual Translators: Post-editing vs.
Options.” In Human
Language Technologies: The 2010 Annual Conference of the North
American Chapter of the Association for Computational
Linguistics, ed.
by Ronald Kaplan, Jill Burstein, Mary Harper, and Gerald Penn, 537–545. Los Angeles, California. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Koglin, Arlene. 2015. “An
Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Effort Required to Post-edit
Machine Translated Metaphors Compared to the Translation of
Metaphors.” Translation and
Interpreting 7 (1): 126–141.
Koponen, Maarit. 2016. “Is
Machine Translation Post-editing Worth the Effort? A Survey of
Research into Post-editing and
Effort.” The Journal of Specialised
Translation 25: 131–148.
Koponen, Maarit, and Leena Salmi. 2015. “On
the Correctness of Machine Translation: A Machine Translation
Post-editing Task.” The Journal of
Specialised
Translation 23: 118–136.
Krings, Hans P.2001. Repairing
Texts: Empirical Investigations of Machine Translation Post-editing
Processes (ed. Geoffrey S. Koby). Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.
Lacruz, Isabel. 2017. “Cognitive
Effort in Translation, Editing and
Post-Editing.” In The
Handbook of Translation and Cognition, ed.
by John W. Schwieter, and Aline Ferreira, 386–401. Blackwell
Handbooks in Linguistics. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
Lacruz, Isabel, Michael Denkowski, and Alon Lavie. 2014. “Cognitive
Effort and Cognitive Demand in
Post-editing.” In Proceedings
from Third Workshop on Post-Editing Technology and Practice, the
11th Conference of the Association for Machine Translation of the
Americas, ed. by Sharon O’Brien, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 73–87. Vancouver, BC.
Lacruz, Isabel, and Gregory M. Shreve. 2014. “Pauses
and Cognitive Effort in
Post-Editing.” In Post-editing
of Machine Translation: Processes and
Applications, ed.
by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 246–273. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lacruz, Isabel, Gregory M. Shreve, and Erik Angelone. 2012. “Average
Pause Ratio as an Indicator of Cognitive Effort in Post-editing: A
Case
Study.” In Proceedings
of the AMTA 2012 Workshop on Post-editing Technology and Practice
(WTTP), ed. by Sharon O’Brien, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 29–38. San Diego: Association for Machine Translation in the Americas.
Lu, Zhi, and Juan Sun. 2018. “An
Eye-tracking Study of Cognitive Processing in Human Translation and
Post-Editing.” Foreign Language
Teaching and
Research 50 (5): 760–769.
Mesa-Lao, Bartolomé. 2014. “Gaze
Behavior on Source Texts: An Exploratory Study Comparing Translation
and
Post-editing.” In Post-editing
of Machine Translation: Processes and
Applications, ed.
by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 219–245. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishers.
Mitchell, Linda, Johann Roturier, and Sharon O’Brien. 2013. “Community-based
Post-editing of Machine-translated Content: Monolingual vs.
Bilingual.” In Proceedings
of Machine Translation Summit XIV Workshop on Post-editing
Technology and Practice, ed.
by Sharon O’Brien, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 35–43. Nice, France.
Nitzke, Jean, and Silvia Hansen-Shirra. 2021. A
short guide to
post-editing. Berlin: Language Science Press.
O’Brien, Sharon. 2006. “Eye-tracking
and Translation Memory
Matches.” Perspectives Studies in
Translatology 14 (3): 185–205.
O’Brien, Sharon. 2008. “Processing
Fuzzy Matches in Translation Memory Tools: An Eye Tracking
Analysis.” In Looking
at Eyes: Eye-tracking Studies of Reading and Translation
Processing, ed. by Susanne Göpferich, Arnt Lykke Jakobsen, and Inger M. Mees, 79–101. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur Press.
Plitt, Mirko, and François Masselot. 2010. “A
Productivity Test of Statistical Machine Translation Post-editing in
a Typical Localisation Context.” The
Prague Bulletin of Mathematical
Linguistics 93: 7–16.
Sánchez-Gijón, Pilar, Joss Moorkens, and Andy Way. 2019. “Post-editing
Neural Machine Translation Versus Translation Memory
Segments.” Machine
Translation 33: 31–59.
Sjørup, Annette Camilla. 2013. Cognitive
Effort in Metaphor Translation: An Eye-tracking and Key-logging
Study. PhD
Dissertation, Copenhagen Business School.
Snover, Matthew, Bonnie Dorr, Rich Schwartz, Linnea Micciulla, and John Makhoul. 2006. “A
Study of Translation Edit Rate with Targeted Human
Annotation.” In Proceedings
of Association for Machine Translation in the
Americas, 223–231. Cambridge, MA: Association for Machine Translation in the Americas.
Sousa, Sheila C. M., Wilker Aziz, and Lucia Specia. 2011. “Assessing
the Post-editing Effort for Automatic and Semi-automatic
Translations of DVD
Subtitles.” In Proceedings
of the Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing
Conference, ed. by Ruslan Mitkov, and Galia Angelova, 97–103. Hissar, Bulgaria: RANLP 2011 Organising Committee.
Specia, Lucia, Nicola Cancedda, and Marc Dymetman. 2010. “A
Dataset for Assessing Machine Translation Evaluation
Metrics.” In Proceedings
of the Seventh Conference on International Language Resources and
Evaluation, ed. by Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Jan Odijk, Stelios Piperidis, Mike Rosner, and Daniel Tapias. Valletta, Malta. European Language Resources Association.
Specia, Lucia, Marco Turchi, Nicola Cancedda, Nello Cristianini, and Marc Dymetman. 2009. “Estimating
the Sentence-level Quality of Machine Translation
Systems.” In Proceedings
of the 13th Annual Conference of the European Association for
Machine Translation, ed.
by Lluís Màrquez, and Harold Somers, 28–37. Barcelona: European Association for Machine Translation.
Sun, Sanjun. 2019. “Measuring
Difficulty in Translation and Post-Editing: A
Review.” In Researching
cognitive processes of translation. New Frontiers in Translation
Studies, ed. by Defeng Li, Victoria Lai Cheng Lei, and Yuanjian He, 139–168. Singapore: Springer.
Tatsumi, Midori. 2009. “Correlation
between Automatic Evaluation Metric Scores, Post-editing Speed, and
Some Other
Factors.” In Proceedings
of the MT Summit XII:
Posters, 332–339. Ottawa: Association for Machine Translation.
Vieira, Lucas Nunes. 2019. “Post-Editing
of Machine
Translation.” In The
Routledge Handbook of Translation and
Technology, ed. by Minako O’Hagan, 319–335. New York, NY: Routledge.
Wagner, Elaine. 1985. “Post-editing
SYSTRAN, a Challenge for Commission
Translators.” Terminologie et
Traduction 3: 1–7.
Wang, Xiangling, Tingting Wang, Ricardo Muñoz Martín, and Yanfang Jia. 2021. “Investigating
Usability in Postediting Neural Machine Translation: Evidence from
Translation Trainees’ Self-perception and
Performance.” Across Languages and
Cultures 22 (1): 100–123.
Zhechev, Ventsislav. 2014. “Analysing
the Post-editing of Machine Translation at
Autodesk.” In Post-editing
of Machine Translation: Processes and
Applications, ed.
by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia, 2–13. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishers.