Supporting arabic cross-lingual retrieval using contextual information

Abstract

One of the main problems that impact the performance of cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) systems is how to disambiguate translations and - since this usually can not be done completely automatic - how to smoothly integrate a user in this disambiguation process. In order to ensure that a user has a certain confidence in selecting a translation she/he possibly can not even read or understand, we have to make sure that the system has provided sufficient information about translation alternatives and their meaning. In this paper, we present a CLIR tool that automatically translates the user query and provides possibilities to interactively select relevant terms using contextual information. This information is obtained from a parallel corpus to describe the translation in the user's query language. Furthermore, a user study was conducted to identify weaknesses in both disambiguation algorithm and interface design. The outcome of this user study leads to a much clearer view of how and what CLIR should offer to users. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.