论文总字数：28435字

摘 要

近年来，翻译技术被广泛应用于翻译公司中，为公司带来最高的产量和高效益。所以，对翻译公司来说，翻译技术已经成为翻译公司必不可少的工具。

本论文将首先对翻译技术的起源，定义和国内外翻译技术的研究进行综述，然后以厦门精艺达翻译有限公司为案例进行深入研究，了解翻译公司的翻译流程、所涉及到的翻译技术及其在公司中的应用情况，并得出翻译技术不仅能够保证翻译质量，提高工作效率，还能降低译者劳动成本的结论。希望本文的研究结论能够对翻译企业，客户和翻译服务行业有所启示，推动翻译理论研究，促进翻译流程优化，推动翻译行业的发展。

关键词：翻译技术 翻译公司 应用

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study 1

1.3 Layout of the Thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 Definitions of Translation Technology 4

2.2 Domestic and International Research on Translation Technology 5

Chapter Three Translation Procedures in MTS Company 6

3.1 Background Information of MTS Company 6

3.2 Translation Procedures in MTS Company 6

Chapter Four Application of Translation Technology in MTS Company 8

4.1 The Application of CAT Tools in MTS Company 8

4.2 The Application of Glossary in MTS Company 9

4.3 The Application of Corpus in MTS Company 10

Chapter Five Conclusion 12

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

As the rapid development of computer science and other related disciplines such as computer linguistics and terminology studies, translation technology has become the standard in translation practice, which is an important part of translation studies, a new paradigm of translation pedagogy, and also the main trend of translation industry (Chan 2015). Nowadays, translation technology is widely used in translation company. For multinational companies, translation technology is an important means to solve global language problems. For multinational companies, translation technology is an important means to solve global language problems and gradually eliminate language barriers. For translators, translation technology is the core component of the personal work area. For users with less contact with translation technology, translation technology is also an important means of extracting multilingual information. The advent of translation technology has made translation globalized and dramatically changed the way we process, teach and learn translation (Zhang amp; He 2014). In short, translation technology has brought fundamental changes to our world from all aspects (Sun amp; Lin 2016). Hence, translation technology is of great importance in the application of translation companies.

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study

In today's era of globalization and informatization, translation is constantly extending to the vast field of modern language service. Translation is presenting a new look of globalization, informationization, technicalization, localization, professionalization and projectization, leading to great changes in the translation of various aspects (Kelahan 2018). Translation, in the modern sense, is supported by translation technology which has become an important component in the field of translation and cannot be ignored. Now all kinds of translation companies are springing up, only when a company is equipped with more advanced translation technology and higher quality of output can it survive in today's fierce competition in the society and then stand out in the peer. For the new era interpreters who can really "understand language, understand culture, understand technology and understand management", translation technology has become one of the most significant tools which must be learned, mastered and replied upon in the 21st century. Translation technology is just as important as the paper and pen in the past two thousand years’ civilization exchanges for translation workers. With the constant progress of science and technology, translation technology is in constant self-renewal and development in practice, but in terms of the application and practice of translation technology, as the ideal and reality always has very big disparity. While enjoying the great convenience and benefits translation technology brings to us, many problems have emerged, such as the high cost of translation technology, the high price of CAT tools, the degradation of human translation caused by machine translation and so on. This paper will mainly focus on the application of translation technology in translation companies, and study the various advantages and disadvantages brought by the translation tools in the case study of MTS company. Purpose of this paper is to provide reference and study for other people or companies that are learning to translate or engage in translation work. The aim is also to enrich the research field of translation technology and maximize the effective use of translation technology.

1.3 Layout of the Thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction of this thesis. It presents the research background, the significance and purpose of the study and the overall structure of this thesis. Chapter Two is about the literature review on translation technology. It briefly introduces the origin, definition and domestic and international research of translation technology. Chapter Three and Four mainly focus on the case study of MTS company. Chapter Three describes the translation procedures in MTS company and chapter Four describes the application of translation technology in company in detail. The last chapter, Chapter Five, makes a conclusion of this study by making a summary and pointing out the limitations of it, and giving suggestions for future study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of Translation Technology

The term translation technology is defined as a general term for various technologies (it mainly refers to information technology, but it does not exclude other disciplines) which are used or likely used in translation practice, translation studies and translation teaching. Specifically, translation technology can be software, can be corpus, can be online translation service and so on (Chan 2015).

In terms of the classification of translation technology, from Professor Wang Tao’s article (Wang amp; Lu 2008), the translation technology can be divided into four categories based on the summary of the results of many researchers at home and abroad: computer-assisted translation tools, machine translation tools, general tools and electronic resources. Computer-assisted translation tools can be further divided into 7 categories in line with the user and use of machine translation system: translation memory system, terminology management system, alignment tools, software localization support tools, web localization support tools, subtitling support tools and translator workstation. Machine translation tools consist of MT system/home use, MT system/for Web, MT system/professional use, MT system/enterprise, MT system/spoken language, MT system/on line and MT portal. According to the different usage of technology, machine translation system can also be divided into rule-based machine translation system, corpus-based machine translation system, multi-engine machine translation system and spoken machine translation system. Electronic resources can be subdivided into the following seven subclasses: electronic dictionary, electronic encyclopedias, monolingual corpus, parallel corpus, comparable corpus, translational corpus and web as corpus. The general tool is the software that is used daily, often, or occasionally by the translator, although not specifically designed for the translator. The number of such tools too large to tell, such as Microsoft Word, CATCount, Aspell, Microsoft Word track changes, Exam-Diff, Internet Explorer, Photoshop, Acrobat Professional, FrameMaker and so on.

2.2 Domestic and International Research on Translation Technology

1947 to 1964 is the beginning period of machine translation. In 1946, ENIAC, the world's first practical electronic computer, was put into use at the university of Pennsylvania. 1964 to 1975 is the frustrated period of machine translation, when the machine translation was fatally struck by ALPAC. 1975 to 1989 is the recovery period. In the 1970s, Canada and the EU countries made a breakthrough in the field of machine translation (Li 2014). By the 1980s, with the rapid development of computer science, machine translation had recovered worldwide. 1990 to today is the new period. With the dawn of the Internet era, people’s need to machine translation increases sharply. The constant innovation of translation technology and tools has greatly alleviated the pressure of translation market (Fu 2016).

Chinese scholars began to study machine translation in 1956 and first presented their achievements in machine translation joined this unique field in 1959. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the second important stage of the development of Chinese translation technology. Since the 1990s, Chinese translation technology has developed rapidly (Hong 2018). In 1999, Yaxin CAT 1.0 (Xu, Guo amp; Guo 2007), China's first computer-assisted translation system which is the collection of translation memory, human-computer interaction and analysis, was release. Now, the latest version, Yaxin CAT 4.0 is very popular among Chinese users of computer aided translation. So far, the past 50 years have witnessed the development of translation technology as well as the great progress of China (Chan. 2015).

Chapter Three Translation Procedures in MTS Company

3.1 Background Information of MTS Company

Master Translation Services (MTS) is a specialized service provider of technical translation, interpretation, software localization, website localization, multilingual DTP (Desktop Publishing) and multimedia localization. The company provides high quality and cost-effective translation services and solutions into Chinese and other major Asian languages.

For more than a decade, MTS has been committed to setting the highest standards for quality and client service in the translation industry, and has grown from a small employee-owned document translation firm into a major translation and localization service provider in Asia.

MTS follows the most stringent quality control process and employs state-of-art translation and localization tools such as Trados, Déjà vu, and Transit. MTS is one of the first companies in China to employ translation memory tools and develop translation project management system.

As a corporate member of American Translators Association (ATA Member No.231467) and a council member of China Translators Association (TAC), MTS has taken an active part in the drafting of China National Standards for Translation Service. Headquartered in Xiamen, China, MTS has five branches and production centers in mainland China, Taiwan and Silicon Valley, USA. With company’s USA daytime and Europe daytime project management and service teams, MTS is able to provide 24/7 services for clients from any part of the world.

3.2 Translation Procedures in MTS Company

First, it is the domestic or international customer managers’ task to take the project order. After fully understanding the special requirements from customers, customer managers need to negotiate with customers the time of delivery, quotation, etc. Then, customer managers will assign projects to each production department and provide information such as project quotation and customer’s special requirements. Projects are assigned to the department of social sciences, the department of electrical and mechanical engineering, and the department of life sciences according to the area involved in the projects. After that, the project managers of each department will draw up plans in accordance with type and difficulty to find suitable translators, and then assign tasks to professional translators, and check the progress at any time. If there is a special or complicated project, it is necessary to be prepared by the corpus department before submitting to the translator, so as to facilitate the work of the later translators and reduce the burden. In general, the project is first translated by translator A, then proofread by the translator B to check the error and modify the translation. Finally, it is up to translator A whether to accept the modification or not and make the final version, which will be sent to project manager. After the project manager reviews the file integrity and customer’s special requirements, the final version will be handed over to the customer manager and the delivered to the customer on time.

The whole project is closely followed by the project manager, and all processes are strictly monitored by quality. In order to ensure the quality of the project, even the urgent task must complete the whole process. However, in very special cases, if the time is very urgent, and it is impossible to guarantee the quality of the process of the TEP (translation, editing, proofreading) process, the situation is necessary to be explained to the customer in advance, and the documents need to be submitted to the high-level senior translator for translation.

Chapter Four Application of Translation Technology in MTS Company

With more and more frequent international interactions and the increasingly high level of information technology in today’s society, the translation company has changed greatly. Meanwhile, computers and Internet are playing important roles in people’s life and work, as well as in translation company. In modern days, the traditional translation mode that an isolated translator working manually does not exist in translation company any more. Instead, a new translation mode appears (Zhou 2015)., in which a team cooperate with each other with the aid of translation technology, Translation technology is widely applied in almost every translation company. The following is how some of the most important technologies used in MTS company.

4.1 The Application of CAT Tools in MTS Company

Computer-assisted translation or CAT is a form of language translation in which a human translator uses computer hardware to support and facilitate the translation process. Computer-assisted translation is sometimes called machine-assisted or machine-aided translation (not to be confused with the machine translation) (Zhu amp; Chen 2013).

Unlike previous machine translation software, CAT does not rely on the automatic translation of computer, but completes the whole translation process with the participation of people. Compared with human translation, not only is translation quality much better, but also can the translation efficiency improve more than double. CAT makes heavy manual translation process automatic, and greatly improves translation efficiency and translation quality. Computer-assisted translation is a broad and inexact term covering a range of tools, from very simple to more complex (Zhang, Wang amp; Wu 2013).

CAT technology possesses automatic memory and search mechanism, which can automatically store the content of user translation. When a user translates a sentence, the system automatically searches for a sentence that the user has already translated. If the current translation of the sentence has been translated, it will automatically give the previous translation results. For similar sentences, translation references and suggestions are also given. CAT is a self-learning software. It will learn new words, grammar and sentence patterns with the user's use, saving users more time. In the case study of MTS, the commonly used CAT tools include Trados, Wordfast, Déjà vu, Across, Transit, etc (Vandeghinste, Coppers, Van den Bergh, Bulté, Rigouts Terryn, Lefever, ... amp; Steurs 2018).

The core of CAT technology is the translation memory technology. When the translation is constantly working, the CAT is busy setting up a language database in the background, which is the so-called translation memory (Screen 2016). Whenever the same or similar phrase appears, the system automatically provides the nearest translation for users in the memory library. Users can use, discard or edit duplicated text according to their needs. Translation memory is of great use in MTS: 1) to save and reuse the translated text 2) to avoid repeated translation, guarantee the quality of translation and improve efficiency (Xu, Guo 2012) 3) to reduce translation costs 4) to ensure the consistency of translation, especially the consistency of the term translation 5) the results are stored in the form of translation memory, which is an important knowledge asset 6) to get the maximum application and reuse.

4.2 The Application of Glossary in MTS Company

Glossary, also known as an automated dictionary, is a new stage in the development of the term research and lexicography. It makes full use of computer functions, a large amount of storage of various terms, and meanwhile can also add and update the terms at any time, effectively strengthen the management of the term, maximum limit to adapt to new requirements which rapid development of science and technology put forward to (Wang 2017).

The input of the term requires a clear concept and an accurate name, and the output of the term should conform to the requirements of normalization, which facilitates the process of standardization and normalization of terms. Glossary is also a kind of the most modern terminology transmission means, which can accurately and timely provide the terminology information to all the users.

Glossary usage is very extensive, it has various kinds of retrieval query function, as well as screen display, print or query directly through the on-line system, and can use telephone or letters and other indirect query. What’s more, glossary can be used to query both all records and a certain part or a certain aspect. Its editorial function is also unmatched. By taking advantage of glossary, it is possible to compile a variety of dictionaries and words in alphabetical order or by topic as required. Sometimes, it can replace manual translation work in a certain range.

For translators, the glossary is mainly used to assist translation. Loading the glossary in the CAT tool can control the quality of translation and ensure the unity of terminology. In addition, the translator should learn to look up the existing glossary and determine the accuracy of the erm by means of Internet search technique and expert examination. So translators should pay attention to the accumulation of terminology resources, and find the sites that can find the terms and make best use of them.

For translation services, the application of the glossary effectively guarantees the consistency of the terms, reduces translation costs, improves translation efficiency, and reduces localization time. For customers, the term quality and consistency are effectively controlled. For the company, it saves human resources and time cost, and can help share knowledge resources (Kang, Wei amp; Qu 2015).

4.3 The Application of Corpus in MTS Company

Corpus refers to a large collection of well-sampled and processed electronic texts, on which language studies, theoretical or applied, can be conducted with the aid of computer tools. The contents stored in the corpus are real language materials that appear in actual use. Corpus, the basic resource of corpus linguistics as well as the main resource of empirical language research, is used in lexicography, language teaching, traditional language research, study of statistics or instances in natural language processing and so on (Chang amp; Yu 2009).

The corpus has three features: 1) what is stored in the corpus is the language material that has actually appeared in the actual use of the language. Therefore, the example library should not be counted as corpus. 2) the corpus is the basic resource which carries the knowledge of language, but it is not equal to the knowledge of language. 3) the actual corpus needs to be processed (analyzed and processed) to become a useful resource.

The corpus can be divided into general corpus and specialized corpus according to the application. According to the effectiveness, it can be divided into the diachronic corpus and synchronic corpus. According to the register of language, the corpus can be divided into written corpus and spoken corpus. According to the classification of language, corpus can be divided into bilingual /parallel corpus and multilingual corpus. According to whether the corpus is in mother tongue, corpus is divided into the corpus of the mother tongue and the foreign language learner corpus. According to whether it is marked, corpus is divided into the row corpus and annotated/tagged corpus.

The application of corpus in MTS company deepens the understanding of the meaning before translation, helps to determine the specific translation process in the process of translation, and can also check and verify after the translation. Through the case study of MTS company, it cannot be denied that corpus makes great contributions not only to translation itself but also to the whole translation management in company. Besides, the use of corpus put the translation quality under control and guarantee the consistency of the whole process, winning the company a good reputation.

Chapter Five Conclusion

To conclude, although the translation process in MTS company is complete and detailed, translation technology makes the translation procedure the icing on the cake. The application of translation technology not only speed up the translation greatly but also ensure the consistency of translation, which benefit the company with less time consumption, lower cost but higher quality and optimized translation procedures.

First of all, as the core component of the translation technology, CAT tools play an indispensable role in translation company. The application of CAT tools has greatly reduced the mental and physical labor of the translator and improved the working efficiency. It has also shortened the completion time of the company's projects, avoided unnecessary time consumption, reduced the operating cost of the company, and make the company's translation process easy to manage.

Secondly, the application of glossary and corpus in company assists to control the quality of translation and ensure the unity of terminology. As a result, the term consistency is effectively kept. Also, the company can save more human resources and time cost so that to get the maximum benefit. However, what’s more meaningful is that the building of glossary and corpus can help share knowledge resources with the world, which is a priceless treasure.

Last but not least, other translation technology such as machine translation, general tools and electric resources which haven’t been explained in detail in this paper are also strength members of translation technology and play big parts through the whole translation process.

In further study, the drawbacks of applying technology in translation are expected to be researched, such as the complicated and time-consuming training of how to master the operation of translation technology, the high cost of purchasing translation technology, the decline of human translation and translators’ reliance on technology due to advanced translation technology and so on (Yang 2017).

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