Machine translation quality in an audiovisual context

Aljoscha Burchardt | DFKI, Berlin

Arle Lommel | DFKI, Berlin

Lindsay Bywood | University College London

Kim Harris | text&form/DFKI, Berlin

Maja Popović | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The volume of Audiovisual Translation (AVT) is increasing to meet the rising demand for data that needs to be accessible around the world. Machine Translation (MT) is one of the most innovative technologies to be deployed in the field of translation, but it is still too early to predict how it can support the creativity and productivity of professional translators in the future. Currently, MT is more widely used in (non-AV) text translation than in AVT. In this article, we discuss MT technology and demonstrate why its use in AVT scenarios is particularly challenging. We also present some potentially useful methods and tools for measuring MT quality that have been developed primarily for text translation. The ultimate objective is to bridge the gap between the tech-savvy AVT community, on the one hand, and researchers and developers in the field of high-quality MT, on the other.

Keywords: machine translation, translation quality, evaluation, audiovisual translation

Published online: 09 August 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.28.2.03bur

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Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Bolaños-García-Escribano, Alejandro & Jorge Díaz-Cintas

2020. In The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility, ► pp. 519 ff.

Burchardt, Aljoscha, Arle Lommel & Vivien Macketanz

2020. A new deal for translation quality. Universal Access in the Information Society

Man, Deliang, Aiping Mo, Meng Huat Chau, John Mitchell O’Toole & Charity Lee

2020. Translation technology adoption: evidence from a postgraduate programme for student translators in China. Perspectives 28:2 ► pp. 253 ff.

Szarkowska, Agnieszka, Jorge Díaz Cintas & Olivia Gerber-Morón

2020. Quality is in the eye of the stakeholders: what do professional subtitlers and viewers think about subtitling?. Universal Access in the Information Society

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