Google Translate Service: Transfer of Meaning, Distortion or Simply a New Creation? An Investigation into the Translation Process & Problems at Google

Abstract

Intemet users have the choice between several machine translation services that can automatically translate a given text or website in another language. Google Translate is one of the most popular services of this kind. It allows web users to translate text or websites into 51 languages. The present research aims at exploring the nature of the translation process provided by Google Translate Service with an eye on the demerits of the mechanisms used by Google as well as the possibility of refining the system used so as make a better use of it on the part of the average Intemet user who is by no means a professional translator and, hence, may tend to take Google translation for granted even where it could be totally catastrophic. The scope of the research is confmed to Translation from Arabic into English and vice versa. The data used in this study is based on short translation assignments that were presented by Zarqa University students in the Department of English & Translation in their Research Writing Course during the Summer Semester 2010 under the supervision of the research.