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This Service Genre interprets the
meaning of a source text in one natural language, and produces the
equivalent text in a different natural language.
It is important to note that it is meanings
that are translated, rather than individual words. Translation services
can be bilingual (two languages only), or multi lingual. Translations
can be in one direction only, or bi directional. Often an intermediate
form is used between the different languages.
Translation
services can be configured by domain. This allows the translator to use
a smaller set of substitutions, and thus a better translation can be
generated. Translations of conversations or ‘non standard’ text are
much more difficult than translations of legal documents or weather
reports.
There are broadly three algorithmic approaches used by translators:
- Direct: where a word is translated directly, usually without an intermediate into the target language. Typically meaning is lost.
- Interlingua:
where the text is analysed in a representation form from which the
final text is subsequently generated. The intermediate language can
then (theoretically) be used by any number of generator modules to
create the target text. The intermediate language is a machine
representation – it is probably not something that a human could read.
- Transfer:
where the text is translated into a language dependent intermediary. A
specific translation module needs to exist for each translation
language pair. Whilst this approach creates a lot more work if new
languages are to be added, the programming of the intermediary is much
easier – as there are only two languages to be involved.
Commonly,
human intervention is required for a successful translation, however,
the literature does contain some examples where machine translated
documents can be used directly. It is further noted within the
literature that translation software is typically used as an aide by
human translators.
NOTE: specifications exist for
defining a service where human translation can be requested and
managed. Such specifications are NOT part of this service genre.
As
defined the Translate Service Genre is not access controlled. Any
client may attempt to contact a translate service end point. There are
no authentication controls. The service end point is responsible for
determining which clients can make translations.
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