Comments for transubstantiation

Comment on Measuring Quality by transubstantiation

transubstantiation — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:25:05 +0000

Interesting work by Raf Uzar in Poland has demonstrated that it is possible to extract purely statistical information from a translation that says a lot about the ‘potential’ quality of a text. The logic is that if a particular text displays an atypical amount of a particular structure or pattern, we can assume that the text is probably poor in quality. For example, a translation that uses an above average amount of indefinite articles probably demonstrates the translator’s inability to use the article.

In other words, texts that do not gravitate towards the average are in some way ‘atypical’ and in all probability of poor quality. Idiosyncrasies, linguistic extravagances and eccentricities are in fact exceedingly rare in language (from a statistical point of view).

Comment on Measuring Quality by MT

MT — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:08:31 +0000

I just don’t think any enterprise that links computers to generating, translating, or reviewing language works or can work. Nothing I’ve seen from that field to date is even remotely promising, really, and even somethings like TMs have even done injury to the practice of translation and lowered quality in some ways. I just don’t see how numerically based quality assessment can work–mainly because “quality” depends largely on subjective elements. Even deciding what anchors to pick is subjective. Indeed, a translation that a computer might otherwise greenlight the quality of may in reality be abysmal simply because it’s too close to the original, or too clunky once read by humans. Computers just can’t deal with language properly, and they never will.

Comment on Mission Impossible I by Untranslatable words | yndigo

Untranslatable words | yndigo — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:47:56 +0000

[...] lists of these, such as the Mirror.co.uk. Transubstantiation, a blog I follow, covers the topic here and here. Read more of his posts and you’ll see how deeply he gets into the notion of the [...]

Comment on Cultural Anomalies - Part I by transubstantiation

transubstantiation — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:27:51 +0000

Very much so…

Comment on Foreign Concepts by transubstantiation

transubstantiation — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:27:11 +0000

Wonderful expression - “institutional non-equivalence”. Thank you!

Comment on Foreign Concepts by Colin Brayton

Colin Brayton — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:33:23 +0000

I meant “Roman elements” …

Comment on Foreign Concepts by Colin Brayton

Colin Brayton — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:32:40 +0000

What drive me crazy are what I tend to think of as “institutional nonequivalence.”

In Brazil, for example — whose legal system has Napoleonic and Roan elements — a police delegado is often some sort of commander, but the term does not actually denote a specific rank or function. It just means you have a college degree and passed the delegado test, making you eligible for posts that only delegados can occupy.

It is sort of like the general line differentiating a military officer from “enlisted personnel,” which in Brazilian police forces are agentes (or, in the case of the policia militar, praças.)
And the delegado also has legal rights and duties that go beyond what, say, an American “precinct captain” might have, such as limited prosecutorial powers.

I have been translating PT-Br for years now and have never really developed a satisfying solution.

Anyway, cheers from a fellow transblogger and consider yourself bookmarked.

Comment on Odd Collocations by ICanLocalize » Blog Archive » Why automated translation produces gobbledigook

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:31:52 +0000

[...] - Multi-word units such as idioms and collocations [...]

Comment on Cultural Anomalies - Part II by Kamil

Kamil — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:08:55 +0000

It’s better to leave those words and not use them.

Comment on Neologisms by Kamil

Kamil — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:07:29 +0000

These words sound stupid