ACL4 Machine Translation Course
CA460 Machine Translation I
This page under construction.
CA107 Topics in Computing Slides on Web-Based MT Systems now available (.ppt).
This module is one of the most popular courses on the ACL degree scheme.
As a result of
following this course, students will become familiar with the
techniques developed for MAT and MT, develop skills in the use
and construction of such systems, become familiar with the major problems
in the area, and will be able to evaluate such systems. There
is a good deal of overlap with contrastive work done in SALIS language and translation courses.
Content
- General Introduction: aims of MT, brief history, misconceptions etc
- MT in practice: MT vs MAT. Identification of MT errors, explanation, tentative solutions. Pre- and post-editing
- Making MT easier, e.g. amending Input, controlled languages, Sublanguages.
- Knowledge Representation: syntactic/semantic/pragmatic/real world knowledge
- MT engines: Transfer-based vs. Knowledge-based MT
General concepts. Multilingual vs bilingual systems. Investigation of
examples of these types of system.
- Evaluation of MT systems.
The slides used in the teaching of this course can be found here, and the lab exercises can be found here.
Assessment
This course is assessed by 50% coursework, and 50% final exam (2 hours).
There will be an early assignment on evaluating online MT systems, and one 2-hour labtest set in the latter part of the semester. There is equal weighting for each assessment.
Primary Texts
1. Arnold, D. et al. (1994): Machine Translation - An Introductory Guide;
NCC Blackwell, Oxford (418/020285).
This book, currently out of print, can be found on the WWW at the above address.
2. Hutchins, J. & H. Somers (1992): An Introduction to MT; Academic Press, London (418/020285/HUT).
3. Trujillo, A. (1999): Translation Engines: Techniques for MT ,
Springer, London (418/020285/TRU) (Chapter 6 available free!).
Where else to look?!
More information on MT, including systems, journals, societies etc, can
be found here.
The ALPAC report is now on-line.
Articles on Eurotra that Google has found are available. The Language Industry Monitor, a newsletter on the language industry published from 91-96, can also be searched for useful information on MT.
A very good site on MT Evaluation has recently been made available. This includes a link to the famous Van Slype paper on Evaluation of MT systems published in 1979.
A new site documenting postediting has just been set up by Jeff Allen (Feb 2004).
Past MT Papers
The library and exams office are in some dispute as to whose job it is to
assemble and make available past exam papers. Until this dispute is rectified,
I shall make some of the past papers available here:
Note that I obviously need to add more up-to-date papers here!
Student Feedback
I would appreciate it if you took time out to fill in this questionnnaire. It'll only take about 10 minutes, and
the feedback gained will help to improve this subject for future students!
October, 2005