University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

A web-aided query translation expansion method in Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) is presented in this study. The method is applied to English/Chinese language pair, in which queries are expressed in English and the documents returned are in Chinese. Among the three main categories of CLIR methods of machine translation (MT), dictionary translation using a machine-readable dictionary (MRD), and parallel corpus, our method is based on the second one. MRD-based method is easy to implement. However, it faces the resource limitation problem, i.e., the dictionary is often incomplete leading to poor translation and hence undesirable results. By combining MRD and web-aided query translation expansion technique, good retrieval performance can be achieved. The performance gain is largely due to the successful translation extraction of relevant words of a query term from online texts. A new Chinese word discovery algorithm, which extracts words from continuous Chinese characters was designed and used for this purpose. The extracted relevant words do not only include the precise translation of a query term, but also those words that are relevant to that term in the source language. / Jin Honglan. / "October 2005." / Adviser: Kam Fai Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: B, page: 3899. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-121). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Based on the definition and assessment methods proposed in Chapter 2, an analysis of accuracy at the phonetic, spelling, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and textual levels is given, together with an examination of the impact of extra-linguistic factors, such as the time and place of translation, initiator's policy, and translators. The last section defines the texts for the present study. / Chapter 1 is a review of the literature on translation quality assessment in China and in the West. / Chapter 2 reviews the study of accuracy in scientific and technical translation, including an introduction to accuracy, research on accuracy, and definition of accuracy, which involves completeness in information transfer, consistency in terminology, grammaticality in the encoding of the target text, and methods of assessing linguistic accuracy. / Chapter 3 proposes a new theoretical framework and presents texts for the study of accuracy. Apart from complete transfer of information, consistency in terminology, and grammaticality in the encoding of the target text, accuracy should also be assessed by the function of the target text and the impact of extra-linguistic factors. / Chapter 4 is a contrastive analysis of the source and target texts on the basis of the above theoretical framework. This analysis includes features of the source and target texts, methods in translating terms in traditional Chinese medicine, methods in assessing semantic accuracy, types of Chinese medicine formulas and their methods of translation, types of errors in the target texts, and the impact of extra-linguistic factors on translation. / Chapter 5 discusses methods of assessing accuracy with the use of computer-aided tools, illustrating them with examples and offering explanations on the terms and statistics. The software used are Wordsmith 3.0 (Scott, 1998) and MonoConc Pro 2.0 (Barlow, 2000). / Chapter 6 examines computer-aided assessment of the translation of The Pharmacopoeia with a more comprehensive error analysis of the target texts. It is shown that compared with human analysis, computer analysis has a higher speed in search, a broader range of texts, a faster production of wordlists, and a faster and better calculation of errors. This is a more comprehensive assessment of translation accuracy. It concludes with an analysis of the possible impact of the extra-linguistic factors on linguistic encoding. / Chapter 7 proposes methods to improve accuracy through the construction of the bilingual term bank, and offers suggestions to improve the translation by the construction of a translation memory with the computer-aided tools provided by Trados. A comparison of the new translations with the old ones shows marked improvements in the former. / Chapter 8 concludes with the major findings in this thesis. Firstly, computer-aided assessment of accuracy in scientific and technical translation is faster and broader than human assessment. Secondly, methods for assessing accuracy with computer-aided tools are important in filling up gaps in human assessment. Lastly, computer-aided accuracy assessment has a great impact on other relevant areas. / In scientific and technical translation, accuracy is most important. However, the operative aspect of accuracy assessment still eludes us. This is a thorny issue in translation studies and practice. / The purpose of the present study is to use computer tools, such as Wordsmith 3.0 (Scott, 1998) and MonoConc Pro 2.0 (Barlow, 2000), to help to assess accuracy in the English translation of Chinese pharmacological writings, a specific area of scientific and technical translation. The texts used for this study have been selected from the bilingual versions of The Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (Beijing: Chemical Industry Press, 2000; The Pharmacopoeia hereafter). / The theoretical framework adopted in this thesis is the translation quality assessment model proposed by Reiss (1971/2000) and Vermeer (1996). The emphasis is on the definition and assessment of "accuracy" so as to provide an operative method to assess accuracy in translation, which is supplemented by a computer-aided approach to accuracy. This is done in the following ways: (1) The creation of a bilingual term bank of 1,500 entries and a translation corpus based on the source texts, target texts and 8 Chinese-English dictionaries of medicine. (2) The categorization of the formula names and linguistic items in the source texts and the definition of accuracy and its assessment methods based on research findings in scientific and technical translation. (3) The quantitative and qualitative analysis of translation errors based on the above definition and methods. (4) The comparison of new translations, produced with the aid of computer tools, with the old ones to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the new approach to accuracy assessment. / This thesis is divided into 8 chapters. / 錢多秀. / 呈交日期: 2005年12月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 198-211). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2005 nian 12 yue. / Adviser: Sin-Wai Chan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4165. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 198-211). / Qian Duoxiu.

1842年，香港岛被割让给英国。翌年发布的《香港宪章》（the Hong Kong Charter）和《致璞鼎查训令》（Instructions to Sir Henry Pottinger）标志着香港正式成为英属殖民地，英国对香港的殖民统治自此正式开始。毫无疑问，在英国官员为主的殖民政府和华人为主的被管治群体之间存在着巨大的语言鸿沟，这是殖民管治所面对和必须有效解決的问题。港英殖民政府内除有一批颇受重视、监管翻译工作的欧洲译者外，尚有不少华人译员。他们主要负责重要性较低的日常翻译工作，弥补欧洲译者人数不足的问题。然而长久以来，学界几乎完全沒有关注早期港英殖民政府內的华人译员群体，致使他们的工作和贡献一直沒有得到认识和认同。这可以说是香港殖民史以及香港翻译史上一个较严重的空白。 / 本文爬梳大量原始史料，分析这一群体从接受英语教育，到政府任职及进一步发展的人生轨迹以及此间的活动，揭示他们作为翻译史现象的复杂性：一方面，他们身处殖民社会，既是统治政府的执行人员，但又同时是被殖民者；另一方面，作为译者，他们处于中英两种语言及文化的交接点，面临不同语言和文化的冲突和抉择。正是这种复杂的境地，使得他们身份的不确定性和双重性充分突显出來。本文通过对于华人译员这种复杂性的分析，除让我们更好地理解这一特殊群体的面貌外，也希望能进一步展示译者研究的丰富性和可能性，期望能为长期被忽略的译者研究作贡献。 / The Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain in 1842. One year later, the Hong Kong Charter and the later Instructions to Sir Henry Pottinger were promulgated to establish the Hong Kong Island and its dependencies as a separate Crown Colony, beginning the British colonial rule over this former Chinese territory. Without doubt, there existed a huge language barrier between the British officials and the residents, who were overwhelmingly made up of the Chinese nationals. Communication had been a pressing and difficult problem faced by the Colonial Hong Kong Government. / In the Colonial Hong Kong Government, there were some European interpreters who were in senior positions to take charge of interpretation/translation supervision. They enjoyed superior status. On the other hand, some native Chinese also acted as interpreters/translators. They were subordinate to and assisted the European interpreters/translators in the government, undertaking relatively less important and sensitive interpretation/translation tasks. Little attention has been paid to the study of the native Chinese interpreters/translators in the early Colonial Hong Kong Government, resulting in a lack of understanding of their work and contributions in the translation history of colonial Hong Kong. / This dissertation studies the native Chinese interpreters as a special group in the early Colonial Hong Kong Government. By digging into first-hand historical materials, it analyzes the education background, the career paths, the achievements as well as the predicaments of this very special group of civil servants. It reveals the complexity of these interpreters as a phenomenon in the history of translation, that on the one hand, they were part of the ruling machinery of the colonial government, and on the other, they were native Chinese like the rest of the Hong Kong residents. As interpreters/translators, they were caught between two languages, two cultures, and two peoples. It is the purpose of the present dissertation to study and reveal this complexity, in the hope to provide a deeper understanding of this peculiar group of people at a peculiar stage of Hong Kong translation history. It is also hoped that it would provide some insights in the methodology of interpreters/translators studies. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 陳雅晴. / Parallel title from English abstract. / Thesis (M.Phil.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 250-258). / Abstracts also in English. / Chen Yaqing.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Translation, (interpreting option) Johannesburg, 2016 / In any specialized field,the practioners of an art or science tend to develop norms that govern their practice.Such norms are developed in certain contexts and thereafter professionals operating in different spaces try to adapt them in their practice. Given the differences in socioeconomic and cultural contexts, in different geographical spaces it may be difficult to take norms developed in a particular context in their original form and superpose their use in another context. Institutional conference interpreting norms provide one such example. Institutional norms in East African Institutions tend to influence the way interpreting is done in East African institutions and these norms seem very different from “established/ international” norms.The overall aim of this research is to study the geopolitics of interpreting by examining the differences in interpreting norms in different geopolitical spaces and to consider whether (East) Africa is a special geopolitical space in this context and if so,what the particularities are.This study particularly uses the perceptions of practising interpreters in order to establish whether the current work environment proposed in these institutions requires any improvement. The study reveals that (East)Africa is a different geopolitical space with its own particularities and hence the answer to the questions as to whether AIIC norms and standards are inclusive and whether they take into account the needs and interests of all interpreters in the world today, is negative. At least with regards to (East) Africa, AIIC still has a lot to do for its impact to be felt and also in terms of taking into account the needs and interests of all interpreters. / MT2018

Thesis (MA. (Translation Studies and Linguistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / A critical analysis of The Treatment of Technological and Scientific terms in Xitsonga Bilingual Dictionaries has revealed that the role of equivalence in translation cannot be taken for granted. In the study, various types of translation equivalence problems are examined. Different strategies and procedures for dealing with non-equivalence are also discussed. The study investigates the problems encountered; the impact of transliteration when dealing with the translation of technological and scientific terms in Xitsonga bilingual dictionaries and how lexical engineering contributes towards language change; language shift; language evolution and sometimes language death. This study also reveals that technological terms should be translated by a descriptive term.

The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which the typological differences between Vietnamese and English influence the process of translating authentic Vietnamese sentences into English through an error analysis of the Vietnamese-English translations by Vietnamese EFL students. It starts with the assumption that Vietnamese is a topic-prominent language and the basic structure of Vietnamese manifests a topic-comment relation, rather than a subject-predicate relation (Thompson, 1987; Dyvik, 1984; Hao, 1991; Rosén, 1998), and tries to find out whether the students are more likely to make more errors when the topic of the sentence is not identical with the grammatical subject. This study also investigates the most common types of errors Vietnamese students make when translating topic-comment structures from Vietnamese into English. The analysis focuses on the errors made when translating the dropped subject and empty elements of Vietnamese. This is important, given the fact that the grammatical subject is always required in English, but not in Vietnamese. The data was collected from 95 students of English translation classes in their first, second, third, and fourth years in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Using an error analysis technique often adopted in studying the deviated forms produced by second language learners (James, 1998; Richards, 1974; Corder, 1974), the study constructs an error corpus in the form of a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and classifies all the errors based on the categories they belong to (linguistic, comprehension or translational) and the kind of deviation they are (addition, omission, misordering or misselection, etc). The study establishes a taxonomy of errors, which includes three main categories: linguistic errors, comprehension errors and translation errors. The results of the study suggest a number of potential errors students are prone to making when translating the topic-comment structure of Vietnamese into English, and provides some practical guidelines for teachers, so that they can help students deal with these types of errors in Vietnamese-English translations. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Victor H. Yngve. / Cover title. "Reprint from Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol.104, no.5." / Includes bibliographical references.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English