CTS Newsletter #2

This year’s edition of the Human-informed Translation and Interpreting Technology (HiT-IT) conference was held successfully in Naples, Italy from 7 to 9 July 2023, preceded by tutorial sessions on 6 July. Aimed at bridging the gap between those working in language automation and human translation practitioners, for the mutual enrichment of professionals from both fields, themes covered during the conference included user requirements for translation and interpreting technologies, the incorporation of human knowledge into automated processes, and the latest advances in terms of translation, interpreting and subtitling technologies.

Representing the University of Surrey were Constantin Orăsan, Félix do Carmo, Tomasz Korybski, Željko Radić, and Eleanor Taylor-Stilgoe of the Centre for Translation Studies. Félix do Carmo gave the first pre-conference tutorial on 6 July, on tools, resources and theoretical approaches to teaching neural machine translation to translators.

Tomasz presented his collaboration with Elena Davitti, titled ‘Effective Editing in Respeaking: Unveiling Uniquely Human Skills in Live Speech-to-Text Transformation’, on 7 July. The presentation centred around the live editing of speech during intra- and interlingual respeaking assignments. Eleanor also spoke on the first day of the conference, presenting a paper titled ‘An Exploration of Risk in the Use of Machine Translation in Healthcare Settings with Abbreviations as a Use Case’, which focused on investigating risk awareness among healthcare staff when using machine translation, with higher-risk medical abbreviations as a use case.

Constantin’s keynote presentation was held on 8 July. Titled ‘GenAI: the next step in the evolution of translation?’, it considered the impact of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT and Bard, on translation and the translation industry. Ahmed Saeed’s paper, ‘Comparing Interface Designs to Improve Remote Simultaneous Interpreting Platforms: Insights from an Experimental Study’, was also scheduled for 8 July and presented by Tomasz. The presentation focused on the impact of the interfaces of cloud-based conferencing and interpreting platforms on the interpreters’ user experience in remote interpreting.

Željko presented ‘Introducing Speech Recognition in Non-live Subtitling to Enhance the Subtitler Experience’ on 8 July, focusing on participants' reception of a new subtitling technique, Interlingual Subtitle Voicing (ISV), along with the accompanying specialised software, SpeakSubz. Development of this software was then presented on 9 July, with the title ‘Developing a Customisable Subtitling Tool Based on Academic Research and User Needs’. 

The conference proceedings, reflecting some of the work presented by CTS, are available here.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages of the House of Lords (APPG-ML) met on 16 January to discuss the theme ‘A brave new world: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Translation and the implications for policy’. The meeting was inspired by the work undertaken by Neil Coulson (CEO of CommSOFT) in 2020, for which a Freedom of Information Request was sent to over 60 public sector organisations regarding their use of machine translation (MT). Along with Neil, the APPG-ML invited Sabine Braun and Félix do Carmo, representing CTS Surrey, to discuss and expand on some of the themes raised in an earlier article, provocatively titled ‘Death by Machine Translation?’. Presentations were also given by Lucas Nunes Vieira, and representatives of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, the Welsh Government Translation Service and GCHQ.

During the meeting, Sabine and Félix presented an overview of current and emerging research themes relating to the use of MT and language technologies. They debated the technological impact of overestimating the output quality produced by neural machine translation, the social impact of transferring all responsibility concerning the risks present in MT use to its users, and the economic impact of extractivist business models, for which no regulations are currently in place. They highlighted the risks of using MT as a substitute for interpreters in healthcare and other settings, and discussed suggestions for regulating MT in terms of fair use, including the protection of consumers’ and workers’ rights, society’s right to ownership of its own knowledge, and safeguards against the manipulation of such rights for unchallenged private use. The materials presented at the meeting are available here. 

Elena Davitti was invited to take part in a roundtable, with press and the general public, as a launch event for the “InCINEMA – Festival del cinema inclusivo” (InCINEMA – Inclusive cinema festival), the first Italian accessible cinema festival, an initiative by SUB-TI (one of the industry stakeholders in SMART) and MyMOVIES, in collaboration with Fondazione Sistema Toscana and FRED Film Radio. During this round table, Federico Spoletti (SUB-TI CEO), Annalisa Sandrelli (International Co-Investigator on SMART) and Elena discussed the concept of accessibility in relation to audiovisual content and provided an overview of research on this topic in Italy and Europe, before the accessible screening of a short film. (30 June 2023, Cinema La Compagnia, Florence)

Ana Frankenberg-Garcia was an invited speaker at Lexicom Cambridge 2023, an intensive workshop in lexicography and lexical computing. Speaking to participants from across the globe, she delivered a talk on “Lexicography for Writing” based on her work on the AHRC-funded ColloCaid project.

MACHINE TRANSLATION SUMMIT 2023

For a few weeks this summer, Félix do Carmo moved his office to Asia. He started by giving two lectures at the University of Macau, on 31 August and 1 September, at one of the most prestigious Departments of Portuguese in Asia. The first lecture was an introduction to the relationship between AI and translation, highlighting how variation, non-equivalence and differences between languages feed the need for human translation, even when we have powerful AI systems. The second lecture focused on how Large Language Models highlight the complexity and power of natural languages as the most efficient coding systems ever created. It also featured a discussion about managing risks of MT, as a clear requirement for future professional translators. 

On 11 September, Félix delivered a lecture at the University of Rykkio in Tokyo, directed at translation students, teachers and professionals. One of the topics Félix discussed was how the increasing demand for translators to accept more responsibility is not adequately reflected in role descriptions or by improved work conditions.

Together with Masaru Yamada of the University of Rykkio, Félix also co-chaired the User Track of the 19th Machine Translation Summit, which was held between 4 and 8 September in Macau. Dorothy Kenny, Akiko Sakamoto, Kirti Vashee and Chan Sin-wai, among many other speakers, joined the event, creating many opportunities to foster collaboration across Translation Studies and Computer Science.

In May, CTS had the pleasure of hosting our 7th Careers Fair. We had a great lineup of Language Service Providers, who created a wealth of networking opportunities for our MA students and collectively gave great insights into the diverse landscape of language services and the roles available in the language services industry. Thank you Surrey Translation Bureau, Mother Tongue, Wordbank London, Hogarth, Alpha, Oncall, Welocalize, Acolad group, Comms Multilingual Ltd and TransPerfect for the informative, engaging and fun afternoon! 

NETTT 2024

The second edition of the International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Technology’ (NeTTT’2024) will take place in Varna, Bulgaria, 4-7 July 2024. The Call for Papers can be accessed at https://nettt-conference.com/ 

Congratulations to Dr Yi Gu, who has recently completed her PhD in Translation Studies at CTS. In her research, Yi compiled ZHEN, a 2-million-word parallel corpus of Chinese translated into English, which she used to explore less well-known directional features of Chinese into English translation. The ZHEN corpus is available on Sketch Engine and Yi is happy to share it upon request (please contact her supervisor Ana Frankenberg-Garcia at a.frankenberg-garcia@surrey.ac.uk to request access).   

Yi started her journey at CTS as a MA in Interpreting student in 2017. Her MA dissertation 

exploring evidence of Chinglish in Chinese-English interpreting won the 2018 ITI Award for Best Academic Research. 

Yi published a book chapter about her research with John Benjamins and presented a number of papers at international conferences during her studies at CTS. 

Yi has recently relocated to France, where she holds a teaching position at the Neoma Business School in Reims and works as a freelance Chinese-English interpreter around Europe.

Earlier this year, our PhD student Andreea Deleanu, who is working on the development of Accessible Cues aimed at making audiovisual content more accessible for people with learning disabilities, successfully secured funding from the UK’s new Turing Scheme to visit Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). During her three-month stay, Andreea was able to work on her reception study material with Professor Jan-Louis Kruger, benefitting from his generously offered advice on all aspects of audiovisual translation and narratology relevant to her project.