Human VS Machine Translation

Presented by : -Amani carolina Yehya -Douaa Al Ayash -Ramona Shaaban - Amina Al Ashkar - Nivine El Banna I – Abstract This paper compares the human translation with the machine translation. It studies the different aspects of sentences’ structure that are: semantics, syntax, morphology and comprehension. It realizes the big difference in both the meaning and the purpose behind each text. After applying this analysis, results can be clear that no machine translation can result in a credible, meaningful and loyal translation to the source text. This is highly applicable in the legal translation. An immense difference in the quality of translation is obviously realized which led into an incomprehensible translation because of the weakness of the grammatical structure, the word choice, the word order and the lack of coherence.     II. Commentary Translation studies have known the emergence of new methods of translation including the so-called Machine Translation. However, its emergence was not at the expense of Human Translation for the latter proved to be the only subject capable of translating not only by means of substituting words for words, like Machine Translation, but also in terms of respecting linguistic, semantic, and more importantly cultural differences between languages. Actually, before any translation, there should be a full understanding of the source text from the part of the human translator. A. Human VS Machine Translation 1. Analysis Why Human Translations are better than Machine Translations? The limitations of the most popular online translation tools are apparent, but there are more points to consider: • only humans can understand and effectively translate the cultural components of source text to target text. While machine translators can quickly produce target text from inputting source text, the machine does not recognize nor translate idioms, slang, or terms that do not appear in the machine’s memory. • Machine translations are often literal, or word-for-word translations, hence the errors and strange language that often appear. • Human translators can manipulate language in such a way that they mimic the style and purpose of the source text. For example, if the source text is an upbeat promotional piece, a human can reproduce that to create effective materials in the target language. Hatim, B. & Mason, I. (1997) It is conventionally believed that familiarity with the source and target languages, as well as the subject matter on the part of the translator is enough for a good translation. However, due to the findings in the field of text analysis, the role of text structure in translation now seems crucial. To compare and contrast between human translation and machine translation (Google) we must deal with six main parts of the text: semantics, morphology, syntax, mechanics, coherence and thematic links. 2. Morphology We often use final inflections to change an English word's grammatical characteristics, such as the number, tense or voice. English uses prefixing and affixing as the most popular methods of word formation. Arabic uses modeling which means creating words according to the models or patterns. Google translated the word لم يكن متاحا into unreachable. What we realize here is that in Arabic we added لم but in English we added a prefix which is "un". As for the French part then it was translated into inaccessible . In google , the past tense Arabic word اسس into established in English. An "ed" was added to clarify that this verb is in the past tense. This addition is related to the inflectional part of the language. Another word in الأجيال which was translated into generations by adding an s at the end to show that this noun is in its plural form and that’s also related to the inflectional part of the English language. 3. Syntax Classical Arabic tends to prefer the word order VSO (verb before subject) rather than SVO (subject before verb). Subject pronouns are normally omitted except for emphasis or when using a participle as a verb (participles are not marked for person). Auxiliary verbs precede main verbs, and prepositions precede their objects. In human translation, the syntax is well done. However, the Google translation contains syntax mistakes. For example, the sentence “Both parties hereto have hereby agreed that the rental value of the dwelling unit subject to this Agreement shall be of the sum of L.E …” was translated by Google as the following: "كلا الطرفين لهذه الرسالة قد وافقت بموجب هذا أن القيمة الايجارية للوحدة السكنية الخاضعة لهذه الاتفاقية تخضع لل من مجموع جنيه ............... (ليرة فقط ........... المصرية ) ليتم دفعها شهريا ويكون زيادة من قبل ”. However, the translation done by human for this sentence is “اتفق الطرفان على أن تكون القيمة الايجارية الوحدة السكنية موضوع هذا العقد هي مبلغ جنيه (فقط جنيه) شهرياً تزاد بواقع % سنوياً في بداية السنة السنة الثانية . 4. Lexical English words have been traditionally classified into eight lexical categories or parts of speech (and are still done so in most dictionaries): • Noun: any abstract or concrete entity • Pronoun: any substitute for a noun or noun phrase • Adjective: any qualifier of a noun • Verb: any action or state of being • Adverb: any qualifier of an adjective, verb, or other adverb • Preposition: any establisher of relation and syntactic context • Conjunction: any syntactic connector • Interjection: any emotional greeting (or "exclamation") This category contains Arabic parts of speech: Grammatical functions of Arabic words. • Category: Arabic adjectives: Arabic words that give attributes to nouns, extending their definitions. • Category: Arabic adverbs: Arabic words that modify clauses, sentences and phrases directly. • Category: Arabic articles: Arabic words that indicate and specify nouns. • Category: Arabic conjunctions: Arabic words that connect words, phrases or clauses together. Grammar: The example of “human translation” mentioned before is also a fault in grammar. But in the other hand, there are no major mistakes in the translation of Google regarding plural, singular, or verb tenses. However, verb tenses have to be chosen in way that preserves the meaning of the sentence. So from grammatical point of view the sentences translated by Google may be correct, but the meaning may differ if the verb tense is not well chosen. This case may be found in literary text which contains the variety of verb tenses, and, usually, it is not the case in journalistic texts. Word choice: In word choice, Google didn’t choose the accurate word like in the human translation. Names and family names: Sometimes Google translation fails to give the name or the family name of an author, politician, etc … Coherence: Sometimes there is no coherence at all in a text in Arabic already translated from English or French. It is a good example to know how much Google translation may be like a “collection of word” not a sentence well cohered. In the given above machine translated text we see the inappropriate transition from one sentence to another. The relative shortness of the text makes it easier for the machine to translate it and keep the overall meaning coherent, but even in such short texts it is essential to keep the structure and conjunctions that deliver the right meaning. In Arabic language we do not start a new sentence with an adjective or an adverb or a noun, the right structure is: subject- verb- object- complement. Any wrong use of words and transitions makes the text incoherent and hard to follow the meaning. III. Recommendations Translators should recognize and learn to exploit the potential of the new technologies to help them to be more rigorous, consistent and productive without feeling threatened. Some people ask if the new technologies have created a new profession. It could be claimed that the resources available to the translator through information technology imply a change in the relationship between the translator and the text, that is to say, a new way of translating, but this does not mean that the result is a new profession. However, there is clearly the development of new capabilities, which leads us to point out a number of essential aspects of the current situation. Translating with the help of the computer is definitely not the same as working exclusively on paper and with paper products such as conventional dictionaries, because computer tools provide us with a relationship to the text which is much more flexible than a purely lineal reading. Furthermore, the Internet with its universal access to information and instant communication between users has created a physical and geographical freedom for translators that were inconceivable in the past. We share the conviction that translation has not become a new profession, but the changes are here to stay and will continue to evolve. Translators need to accept the new technologies and learn how to use them to their maximum potential as a means to increased productivity and quality improvement. IV. Conclusion Any attempt to replace Human Translation totally by machine translation would certainly face failure for, due to a simple reason, there is no machine translation that is capable of interpretation. For instance, it is only the human translator who is able of interpreting certain cultural components that may exist in the source text and that can not be translated in terms of equivalent terms, just like what automatic translation does, into the language of the target text.