| 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. |