7. CAT tools in international organisations: Lessons learnt from the experience of the Languages Service of the United Nations Office at Geneva
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Marie-Josée de Saint Robert
Abstract
The language staff at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) has a very selective attitude towards language technologies despite the fact that these technologies are widely spread in the work environment of translators. Tests and pilot projects with computer-assisted translation software have been conducted over the past five years at UNOG and have amply shown that such software is neither a source of improvement of quality nor a source of improvement of quantity in translation. Obstacles to efficiency gains that have been identified prior to the introduction of CAT remained the same as those identified after its introduction. New obstacles also appeared with the introduction of CAT in the work of language staff of an international organisation that point to the following conclusion: the usefulness of work habit changes may not be found in the area in which the changes occur but in other somewhat unexpected areas. In the case of translation in international organisations, as translation is not an isolated activity, synergies with other, sometimes far related business processes are required.
Abstract
The language staff at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) has a very selective attitude towards language technologies despite the fact that these technologies are widely spread in the work environment of translators. Tests and pilot projects with computer-assisted translation software have been conducted over the past five years at UNOG and have amply shown that such software is neither a source of improvement of quality nor a source of improvement of quantity in translation. Obstacles to efficiency gains that have been identified prior to the introduction of CAT remained the same as those identified after its introduction. New obstacles also appeared with the introduction of CAT in the work of language staff of an international organisation that point to the following conclusion: the usefulness of work habit changes may not be found in the area in which the changes occur but in other somewhat unexpected areas. In the case of translation in international organisations, as translation is not an isolated activity, synergies with other, sometimes far related business processes are required.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- 1. A comparative evaluation of bilingual concordancers and translation memory systems 1
- 2. Interactive reference grammars: Exploiting parallel and comparable treebanks for translation 23
- 3. Corpora for translator education and translation practice 39
- 4. CORPÓGRAFO V.4: Tools for educating translators 57
- 5. The real use of corpora in teaching and research contexts 71
- 6. The use of corpora in translator training in the African language classroom: A perspective from South Africa 89
- 7. CAT tools in international organisations: Lessons learnt from the experience of the Languages Service of the United Nations Office at Geneva 107
- 8. Global content management: Challenges and opportunities for creating and using digital translation resources 121
- 9. BEYTrans: A Wiki-based environment for helping online volunteer translators 135
- 10. Standardising the management and the representation of multilingual data: The Multi Lingual Information Framework 151
- 11. Tagging and tracing Program Integrated Information 173
- 12. Linguistic resources and localisation 195
- Index 215
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- 1. A comparative evaluation of bilingual concordancers and translation memory systems 1
- 2. Interactive reference grammars: Exploiting parallel and comparable treebanks for translation 23
- 3. Corpora for translator education and translation practice 39
- 4. CORPÓGRAFO V.4: Tools for educating translators 57
- 5. The real use of corpora in teaching and research contexts 71
- 6. The use of corpora in translator training in the African language classroom: A perspective from South Africa 89
- 7. CAT tools in international organisations: Lessons learnt from the experience of the Languages Service of the United Nations Office at Geneva 107
- 8. Global content management: Challenges and opportunities for creating and using digital translation resources 121
- 9. BEYTrans: A Wiki-based environment for helping online volunteer translators 135
- 10. Standardising the management and the representation of multilingual data: The Multi Lingual Information Framework 151
- 11. Tagging and tracing Program Integrated Information 173
- 12. Linguistic resources and localisation 195
- Index 215
