Further Experiments in Language Translation: A Second Evaluation of the Readability of Computer Translations,

Abstract

Language translation by computer has been proposed as a solution to the backlog of training and operational manuals awaiting translation by more conventional means. The study reports one of a series of experiments to assess the quality of translations produced by human translators and computers. The type of material under study was technical text (i.e., maintenance manuals) and the translation was from English to Vietnamese. Major conclusions were: (1) Translations produced by highly qualified humans were consistently more comprehensible than those produced by computer, whether edited or un-edited; post-edited versions of computer produced text were more comprehensible than un-edited ones; most differences were not statistically significant; (2) Vietnamese Navy officer candidates were able to read text in English as well as its best Vietnamese version and their test scores were about as high as those of American control subjects. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1971
Accession Number
AD0742099

Entities

People

  • George R. Klare
  • H. Wallace Sinaiko

Organizations

  • Institute for Defense Analyses

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computers
  • Language
  • Language Translation
  • Maintenance
  • Materials
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Translations
  • Translators

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.