The Application and Advantages & Disadvantages of CAT

【Abstract】：Translation technology cannot yet create knowledge in the form of high quality translation， nor can it significantly improve the quality of human translation. However， MT may outperform human translators in producing translation of a usable quality at high speed and low cost. Machinery-translating is a kind of translation between natural languages conducted by computers. It is one of study branches of the natural languages processing and its development should on the basis of perfect linguistics study. At present， computer is just an assistant tool during the translation process and cannot replace manpower in the coming years. This paper put forward the concept of CAT and gives a brief introduction of some CAT tools， analyzes its advantages and disadvantages and points out that only by the combination of the CAT and human translation can produce a fine work in modern times.

【Key words】： Machinery-translating; CAT; human translati

Introduction

With an increasing relationship of different cultures and the development of globalization， people are of more information accessibility in foreign languages in their daily life. Therefore， handling quantity of materials in foreign languages efficiently is a common requirement. Although computers are available in most families around the world and the history of computer translation is more than half century， people are still not satisfied with the work of computer translation. So it can only be an assistant option at present. That's why people pay more attention to CAT.

1. Definitions of machinery-translation and CAT

Machinery-translation， within the computer translation system， is one study branch of natural language processing which transfer human languages translation rule into computers' algorithm and then translate the source language into a target language. The software conducting the whole translating process is machinery-translation system and CAT is a valuable stage of its development. Given to the unfavorable development of machinery-translation， CAT is a temporary substitute. CAT is of great storage capacity and conduct translation with the help of efficient searching ability of computers which is time saving. In a board sense， although is applied to all sorts of software systems， CAT is just an assistance for it has no practical translation tasks. In 2002， Bowker pointed out that the main difference between MT and CAT is who actually complete the translation job. We can learn from above that people are mainstay of translation task. At present， the core technology of CAT software is its translation memories. There is a database that can reserve the translated materials， both source texts and target texts， so as to save time by avoiding duplicate work.

2. The History of CAT

At the early of 1930s， G.B. Artsouni， a France scientist， is the first who came up with the idea of machinery-translation. 1946， the head of physical science department of Rockefeller Foundation， Warren Weaver and British engineer A.D. Booth first put forward automatic translation by computers during they were studying on computers' application fields. 1954， Machine Translation was founded， and the first machine translation system was developed by Georgetown University which marked a new stage of machine translation. In the mid to late of 1980s， machine translation was in its golden age. And computational linguistics theory was on its way to maturity.

3. Main tools of CAT

By using of translation software， people can conduct translation on a computer. Translation tools including term management system， translation memory system， search tool and glossary， spell error inspection， ect. CAT is mainly using term management system to correct and standardize terms and make sure veracity and quality of translation.

3.1 Corpus aided translation

There are two main aspects about corpus aided translation： First， choosing texts that suit for machine translation; second， searching for and standardizing vocabularies of human translation. The most difficulty problem of machine translation is choosing suitable texts. The quality of translation is directly decided by the selected source language text. For this reason， choose a proper source text is important for a successful translation. Another noteworthy function of corpus is that it can enrich the existing grammar and traditional dictionary and offer people a convenient translation tool. Consequently， collecting a mass of bilingual corpus and establishing a database is of great benefit to CAT. Besides， translation system has a function of memory. It can store some operation processes and simplify people's work and make the translation work more efficiency.

3.2 Electronic dictionary and network aided translation

Traditional dictionaries are often short of people's needs owning to its slow variety replacements and lacking of new words and vocabularies. However， electronic dictionary with computer technology is of huge capacity， fast refresh rate， and easy to use and can overcome some shortages of traditional one. The speed of searching vocabulary with electronic dictionary and network is much faster than traditional dictionary. People can look up a vocabulary in different dictionaries at the same time through internet.

3.3 Electronic reference book and telephone interpretation

Electronic reference book and telephone interpretation are become familiar in people’s daily life. Both ways are essential to translators and interpreters except for extensive linguistic knowledge. Electronic reference book is of great practicability and convenient to search. What is worth to celebrate is that people conducted CAT by using natural speech. For example， in 1990s， Germany started to research this project and developed its first Verbmobil system in 1995. They successfully translated a certain German spoken language into English （李怡平等，1998：53）. With the development of science and technology， there will be more and more new products serve translation area.

4. The advantages of CAT

In traditional ways， in order to get a fine version of translation， translators have to consult kinds of dictionaries and reference books and write it down after conjectured， modified and conceived again and again. This is a high-duty mechanical work requiring much time and effort and causing translators much more inconvenience. While the advantages of CAT mainly are it can make separative translation activities more speedy and smooth. And they are mainly as following aspects：

（1） It offers encyclopedically vocabulary translation. Actually， translation system is a dictionary with huge capacity and save much time that translators are used to consulting traditional dictionaries. Meanwhile， CAT has the ability of applying specialized knowledge to grammar structure and lexical item and finally forms a passage.

（2） Relatively advanced computer can provide sentences translation. With advanced memory technology， it can reserve source sentences in the database and with a rapid analysis by search engine. It can find related information to target language in its memory bank in the shortest possible time.

（3） It can provide as much as information related to source language that need to be translated. An abundance of data can not only improve the efficiency of translation， but also improve the accuracy and consistency of translation and it equals to an encyclopedia for the translators. There are many translation soft wares in the market， including lexicon and thesaurus with abundant information. This is quite convenient to use and of special application value in translation.

5. The limitation of CAT and improvement strategies

Except for the advantages mentioned above， CAT also has some disadvantages：

（1） Because of the complex syntactic structure of English， machine hardly can translate complex sentences correct and only available to some simple sentences. For example：

1. Communicating successfully with people of another culture is one of the most challenging things we do.

譯文： 成功地通信與其他文化的人是我們的最富挑戰(zhàn)性的事的當中一個.

2. 翻譯是人類交流思想過程中溝通不同的語言的橋梁， 使通曉不同語言的人能通過原文的重新表達而進行思想交流.

譯文： The translation is the humanity exchanges in the thought process to link up the different language the bridge， enables the human which thoroughly understands the different language through the original text again expression but to carry on the thought exchange.

Both sentences above are translated by software and neither of them is acceptable. Translation software cannot recognize complex grammatical construction.

（2） Given to blurry meaning of some words， it is difficult for the machine to identify the meaning automatically and organize the sentence structure. For example， the following sentence is translated by software into three different sentences.

a. When turning over control operators will switch to zero.

當交給到控制中時，操作員會轉換到零位

b. When turning over control， operators will switch to zero.

當營業(yè)額達到控制時，操作員會轉換到零位

c. When turning over， control operators will switch to zero.

當翻轉時，控制操作員會轉換到零位

（3） At present， many CAT soft wares in the market are lack of sufficient promotion. Subjectively or objectively， people know little about translation soft wares.

（4） The research and development of translation soft wares at present are not consummate. Most translation soft wares are researched and developed by computer experts and translation is human language activity， so some feature sets are not so perfect.

Conclusion

On the whole， CAT is a technology as well as an art. In the future's the research and utilization， joint efforts of computer experts， translation specialists， linguists and mathematician and so on are needed to develop a better translation software. What's more， translators should gain knowledge of computer operation， especially skilled in basic operations and widen the scope of knowledge so as to make more contribution to translation undertakings. Machine translation is an interdisciplinary research area， and we should study it from multiple angles such as lexicology， translatology， information technology and computational linguistics.

Machine translation still has many problems to solve and it is necessary to realize that， no matter what time， computer is just an assistant tool during the process of translation. All people's work is to promote its efficiency but make it a substitution of human. Since China joined WTO， many foreign companies would like to enter China market and the local companies have encountered the intense competitions from the international corporations. English become popular and important more than ever before. As an interpreter and translator， how to translate in high quality as well as efficiency is crucial for one’s career.

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