machine translation (MT)

Definition/explanation

The translation of text with the aid of computers and without human intervention.

Related terms

synonym: automatic translation

antonyms: fully human translation, hand-made translation

Use in context

"at least for certain tasks and language combinations — and against the received wisdom of translation professionals and translator trainers — translating by proofreading machine translation may be advantageous" (Garcia 2010: 7)

Examples

Systran, Altvista Babelfish, Moses, Google Translate, Microsoft Translator.

Corresponding terms in other languages

CA: traducció automàtica
DA: maskinoversættelse
DE: REPLACE_WITH_CONTENT
EL: REPLACE_WITH_CONTENT
ES: traducción automática
FA: ترجمه ماشینی
FR: traduction automatique
FI: REPLACE_WITH_CONTENT
IT: REPLACE_WITH_CONTENT
PT: tradução automática
PL: tłumaczenie automatyczne, tłumaczenie maszynowe
ZH: 機器翻譯

Note

1. Transfer-based MT, which uses linguistic algorithms, has given way to statistical MT, which uses mathematical probabilities.
2. The siglum MT also stands for "mediated translation".

Reference

For a compendium of research on machine translation, see the Machine Translation Archive
Garcia, Ignacio. 2010. "Is machine translation ready yet?" Target 22(1): 7-21.

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