Intermediality and Human vs. Machine translation

Abstract

In his article "Intermediality and Human vs. Machine Translation" Harry J. Huang analyzestranslation as a process of transferring meaning and/or information. The process and the translatedtext represent a new medium. When machine translation originating from human translation isintegrated into the world wide web, it becomes part of global media. Accordingly, machine translationmay best be studied within the context of intermediality, especially its quality vs. that of humantranslation. Based upon data generated from an international survey of 300 translators, writers,editors, and translation scholars, Huang analyses the participants' expectations and their acceptanceof imperfection in the translated text. Huang postulates the dividing line between the acceptability andunacceptability of the translated text demystifies the concept of "good" translation versus "bad."Huang also proposes a statistical approach toward translation quality assessment intended formachine translation and human translation. © Purdue University.