(Click here to see this article in
Spanish)
When I made my first dives at this
craft and this art that is translation my only tools were a pencil, an eraser,
a lined notepad and three heavy dictionaries, one bilingual, and two
monolingual, one for the source language, one for the target language. Back
then computers were extremely heavy, slow and expensive, hard and boring to use
for anything that was not video-games (which were very primitive by then,
anyway), the Internet was still more a promise than a reality.
Translators may be classified
within the category of “knowledge workers”. A knowledge worker is one who
thinks for a living, and as thinking is nothing but a very complex kind of
information processing, it is normal that the best tools for thinking are those
from information technology. Nowadays the speed of information technology
innovation is dazzling, and there is no dearth of available tools to ease the
tasks of translators. Therefore this occupation is constantly changing, along
with this innovation, to co-adapt ever more deeply with an ecology of tools
that have been collectively called CAT tools (Computer Assisted Translation).
These include programs that are needed for any task that implies information
processing, such as digital reference books (with their respective reader
software), data search interfaces, email and text processors. But within CAT we
may also find more specialized tools.
The most specialized CAT software
for translation is the inaptly called translation memory software. In fact,
many people really refer to this kind of software when they mention CAT
software. Some authors propose to call this kind of specialized software I am
referring to as “Translation Environment Tools” (TEnT for short). These TEnT
perform many functions to streamline translation; among them, the translation
memory function. Thus, we have people who denominate TEnTs by their hypernim
(“CAT”, which is a broader category in which they are included) and we have people who denominate them by
their hyponim (“translation memory”, which is only a subset of their functions).
In a translation environment
software both the source and target texts are simultaneously visible, in
separate but adjacent text fields, and the parts of the source text that the
translator may have already translated, show up in the target text field for
the translator to use them or discard them at will when composing the target
text, thus acting as an extended memory assistant. It also allows to manage
terminology, whether it is gathered by the selfsame translator, or accessed
from a collaborative project, as well as to manage projects, among other more
specialized functions, although these tasks may also be performed with the use
of other tools, as I will mention further ahead.
This kind of software has its
advantages and disadvantages, so I personally consider it best to use it only
when its positive aspects can be maximized. There are many options within the
class of TEnTs, but the one we use currently at Translatare is Trados, which is
also the most popular one, as it consists of Macros that integrate with
Microsoft Office, generating within the Word document itself the two text
fields, distinguished by pastel colors, and by their position (source text up,
target text down).
Trados also allows to use memory
fragments that are not exactly identical to the current segment, but which are
similar enough to be useful. In this case, Trados indicates how much divergence
there is between the remembered fragment (that had been translated in a
previous occasion) and the current one, indicating a percentage of similarity.
When they are exactly the same, this indication is 100%. One of its limitations
is that it only works with source texts that come in formats compatible with
Microsoft Office and with pdf texts when they have OCR (Optical Character
Recognition), allowing for the digitalization of text, which is not always the
case. Indeed, the pdf format has several other handling complications, as I
will show later. Another limiting factor for Trados is its high price, which makes
it difficult to acquire and update it.
Another specialized tool we have is
AnyCount, a counter of words in files. With AnyCount a more precise word count
can be performed within a variety of document formats, including non-OCR pdf files.
Although in Microsoft Word it is easy to count words, its options are limited
and in fact it does not have that same option in a native manner for other
popular document formats, such as Excel and Powerpoint. AnyCount can count
words for most common formats. Also, it has an option to automatically draft an
invoice from the selected documents, which is very useful when you want to
produce estimates of translation costs (per word) for any document.
It could be said that the
rudimentary and solitary labor of the translator is being both technified and
collectivized at the same time. The digital era allows us not just to better
process information, but also to share it better, in order to coordinate tasks
collaboratively. The translator 2.0 must conflate not just with the machine,
but with other translators, with real or potential clients, and with the market
and society. In this respect, the Internet is invaluable, and above all having
a web address and an email inbox which can serve as a platform for contacts, to
show one's work to the world, and to attract more and better jobs.
As is well known, natural language,
as opposed to the formal language that rules the world of mathematics and
informatics, is ambiguous. Actually, its power resides in this ambiguity.
Nevertheless, this ambiguity, whose source is the multiplicity of ways of
saying things, also becomes a linguistic barrier when translating as a work
team.
Within the discourse of a single
individual a certain amount of variability in diction is allowed as long as the
register and coherence of tone are kept. But the technical terminology is
plagued with synonyms, homophones, homonyms, hypernyms and hyponyms which may be
freely exchanged in a literary context, where the entertainment factor has a
greater relative importance. Nevertheless, in the technical context, where
the instructive function has the greater relative importance, clarity mandates a
terminological coherence, which is already hard to find in a single individual,
but attains a volatile variability between different translators.
The tool that solves this problem
of a lack of terminological coherence in the most cost-effective manner is the
online application Google Docs. Through this application our network of
collaborators keeps a series of glossaries that we all refer to and edit
simultaneously in real time via Internet, without an editorial hierarchy, but
with a clear system of rules that allows us to unify terms on the one hand, and
solve quickly and resolutely any conflict that may arise as to "le mot juste", the just word.
Furthermore, it comes with an option to review and undo a history of edits by each
collaborator, which allows to perform a centralized unification in case it may
be needed.
Google Docs is useful not just for
terminology unification but for project management with multiple collaborators,
allowing to set up an organizational chart more or less openly accessible to
collaborators, containing the relevant data and metadata of a project, appointment of
specific tasks to specific persons, and indications on general instructions. This Google tool allows a more dynamic flow of information at the level of internal operations, as well as at the level of
customer relations management, and at the level of financial accounting.
In the year 2012 Google launched
Google Drive, its own version of a kind of service that had recently begun to expand, globally recognized by the expression “cloud computing”, in
which data and file storage, transfer and processing services were provided
over Internet. At the same time that Google began to expand Google Docs to
include not just text documents and data sheets, but forms, presentations,
drawings, graphic calculations, and electronic signatures as well, it merged it
with Google Drive.
Google Drive offers the same
service as Dropbox, a major player in the cloud computing market: online
storage of many kinds of files with readers for visualizing them, and featuring
the possibility to access them in different places and devices as long as there
is presence of Internet and the corresponding device application. In both cases, under
a certain storage limit, the service is free, and above that, it is offered
under some payment model.
The great problem with Google Docs
is that in order to make the documents editable in its own browser-based
platform (a capability which Dropbox does not offer, as it specializes more in the sharing of the files, without
editing them) it requires the use of formats which are very similar but still
slightly different from the most popular formats used by Microsoft Office. This
implies that for very simple documents there is no difference, but for
documents which use the most advanced properties of Microsoft Office, when
Google Drive reconverts these document for transfer they lose part of the
information or formatting of the original. On the other hand, although
Microsoft Office is still the standard, that might change with the advent of
free and open source, robust and agile word processing software, such as
LibreOffice, although it still lacks some of the most advanced options in
Microsoft Office.
The great advantage of Google Docs
is that it is a part of the Google universe, Google being a constantly growing
company dedicated to Internet solutions. Microsoft Office, on the other hand, lacks
the capability to collaborate online with files, except with the use of
absurdly tedious software such as Microsoft Groove, which is complex enough
that an improper use of it may easily cause loss of important information, and
especially of precious time, even when it works properly. Therefore, barring other solutions outside of Microsoft's most popular and reliable tools, the documents still need to be printed in order to be shared effectively. Google Docs, on its part, is in constant development and expansion, approaching the
realization of the paradigm of the paperless office: a work environment where
the use of paper is reduced or eliminated, with productive, economic and
ecological benefits.
A positive step in this direction
is offered by the recent fusion of the company HelloSign with Google Drive,
allowing the electronic signature of contracts through documents on the cloud. The legal recourse of electronic signatures is in constant expansion all over the world. These are made even saver by means of the implementation of digital certificates, which can be obtained for a fee from third party services in digital certification.
The technosphere of computer
assisted translation is constantly evolving, including innovations that a few
years ago were still considered to be in the realm of science fiction, but
which now are here to stay, and whose many possible uses are still being
discovered, among them, and of importance to us, translation assistance.
Between these are services of automatic translation, portable electronic
devices and speech recognition software, which I will briefly describe in the
remainder of this article.
The most popular automatic
translation tool is the Google Translate website, in which a language pair and
translation direction may be chosen, a text may be entered as input, and a scarcely usable
target language text may be produced automatically. Google Translate sets
misleading traps with an alarming frequency, returning apparently fluid and
coherent text that is really a senseless gobbledygook, or even worse, a
perfectly semantical and grammatical text that bears no relation to the
content of the source text. This makes translation enormously difficult,
because if at the beginning there was a source text that by itself may be
complex and laden with booby traps, now there are two texts, the source, and an
intermediary that, if the translator is not careful, will become an obstacle and
confuse them, leading them astray.
The next innovation, much
more useful and versatile, are portable electronic devices, whose main
usefulness for a translator is acting as source that is more or less
immediate (depending on device and application used) for access to digital
reference material (such as handbooks, encyclopedias, glossaries, dictionaries
or term databases, whether online or offline, whether monolingual, bilingual or
multilingual). Although this may be done in the same computer used by the
translator as workstation, the proliferation of windows and applications may
dampen the workflow somewhat. On the other hand, resorting to a different
device is at least an excuse to change body position, if only slightly and
briefly, which is already a luxury for a translator who sits for hours in front of a computer. And of course, these
devices, whether they be smartphones, tablets or ebook readers, have an
invaluable usefulness when translating outside of the workstation, or
interpreting (performing simultaneous oral translation), although the act of
consulting them still gets a little on the way, interfering with the flow of
translation or interpretation.
The barrier posed by current
reference tools on translation and interpretation will, nevertheless, be
overcome in a short time, especially with the advent of two new tools that will
revolutionize not just translation, but all other aspects of our lives, if not
directly by being quickly assimilated, at least indirectly by sparking
innovative competition for a market in the kinds of tools these new products
may implement. One of these tools is Google Glass, a hardware consisting of a
head-mounted monitor. The other tool is the main product from the company
Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a dictation writing software, and its variations (for
different OS for mobile, tablet or computer).
Both of these tools will bring us
closer to the paradigm of the cyborg, which means cybernetic organism, that is,
one in which the control regulation systems have expanded beyond the body, into
technological devices which expand the cognitive, perceptive and acting capabilities of
the human body. And at the same time they bring us closer to another paradigm,
one less anticipated, but perhaps more revolutionary: wearable computing. This
concept refers to computing devices which, instead of being carried in bags or
pockets, are worn in the same way as clothing items such as glasses, wristbands,
earrings or belts. This tendency, allowed by the unstoppable miniaturization of
chips and batteries, enables a greater mobility which in turn has an effect in
the proliferation of the phenomenon of telework, which is also called work from
a distance, or work from home.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is
already being marketed, is a speech recognition software that may be used to
make dictation by converting natural human voice automatically into digital text, as well as to
convert text into synthetic voice, and to execute voice commands. All of this
promises to be a much more efficient and intuitive way of interacting with
computers and robots, but is especially an opportunity for people who work with
texts, among them, of course, translators. There are cases when the text to be
translated is simple and voluminous enough that it is worth it to invest in a
human assistant that takes a dictation, whether in person or from a digital
recording which may be sent over email. This suffices when those conditions are met only occasionally, but when the bulk of the work is of that nature, it starts to
become an attractive option to invest in the automation of the dictation
process.
Google Glass, which at the moment
of completing this manuscript is still in the development stage, will be the
first massive commercialization of a head-mounted display device for augmented
reality, that is, it allows to see more information about the surrounding
environment than is visible by the naked eye, and even consult ancillary
information without loosing visual orientation of the surroundings. That is,
through the combined use of the head-mounted display and speech recognition it
will be possible to compose text messages while crossing a street without
danger, and of course, consult reference material without losing sight of the
working text or the clients in an interpreting job.
Before I even thought I would ever
be a translator I read a lot about Artificial Intelligence and I was very eager
to be able to see Turing's test be passed by a machine. Then when I became a
translator I started to fear that moment, because I thought the day a computer
could generate natural language, translators would be left out of a job. But
now I'm a rational optimist: robots and artificial intelligence are just the last
expression of an ancient, non-stopping trend, and in fact, all of our lives
improve when they improve, even if a few of us have to find new ways to earn a
living. I know I'd like to earn a living at a café with a view to the sea, with
a Google Glass on, taking my dictation.