Evaluating embedded machine translation in military field exercises

Abstract

"Embedded" machine translation (MT) refers to an end-to-end computational process of which MT is one of the components. Integrating these components and evaluating the whole has proved to be problematic. As an example of embedded MT, we describe a prototype system called Falcon, which permits paper documents to be scanned and translated into English. MT is thus embedded in the preprocessing of hardcopy pages and subject to its noise. Because Falcon is intended for use by people in the military who are trying to screen foreign documents, and not to understand them in detail, its application makes low demands on translation quality. We report on a series of user trials that speak to the utility of embedded MT in army tasks. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.