Teletranslation

Abstract

The translation industry developed in response to the need to assimilate or disseminate information across different languages where the text in one natural language had to be converted into another. Strictly speaking, “translation” deals with written text, whereas “interpreting” handles spoken dialogues, although the latter is often subsumed in the former in common terminology. Translation services are called upon when the sender and the receiver of the message do not share a common language. Although translation is not a new area of professional practice, the industry as a whole has been transformed due to the recent advancement of information and communication technology (ICT). While computer applications ranging from text processing tools to Machine Translation (MT) have affected the production of translation, telecommunications technology has changed the operational dynamics of translation services. The development of electronic networks and computer applications to translation gave rise to the concept of teletranslation (O’Hagan, 1996). Furthermore, ICT is creating new types of content which becomes subject to translation, driving new types of language support. Teletranslation can be characterized by increased reliance on ICT in terms of transmission, storage, and processing of translation in contrast to conventional translation which dealt with off-line text distributed in print. Today modern translation operators are using the Web as a customer-interface and also as a platform to interconnect a team of translators and tools in different locations, dealing with the new types of text embedded in various electronic forms.