On machine translation and simultaneous interpreting

Machine Translation (MT) is increasingly accepted as a useful guide with the help of specific terminological supports, such as translation memories or glossaries dictated by experience and extracted from parallel corpora. Driven by technological advances, its recurrent use without human review has given rise to strong dissent among translation professionals, who see in its use a lack of common sense towards the category of linguistic mediators, whose skills would more effectively meet the (extra)textual needs of the assignment. In fact, the heated debate about the role of the MT in the transfer process is not trivial. In principle, it is praised for its ability to transmit information promptly, which has for years facilitated the work of scientists in data extraction in the absence of a lingua franca. However, its perceived limitations make it a double-edged sword that robs the message of accuracy and naturalness. In this respect, we find that the lack of flexibility and the thematic and encyclopedic competence of human translators leads to a failure to detect the extra-linguistic aspect and a lack of diachronic perception in texts. It is in the transfer phase that post-editing plays a major role, as the latter is positioned as the third and last process of MT. Its demand in the professional field is gradually being felt, as the speed and volume of assignments require quantifiable work rhythms during the revision process. Likewise, the appearance of recent translation tools and headsets and programmes that allow automatic simultaneous interpretation, such as Pixel Buds, Google's imminent Translatotron capable of imitating the cadence and tone of the sender or Skype Translator, try to overcome the barrier of the existence of a non-binary, changing and socio-cultural language, such as the human language.

In view of the above, and because they are highly topical, the following lines of research are proposed, based on an update of new advances in the observation of theoretical and field studies on automatic translation and the new automatic simultaneous interpreting programmes, from an experimental and linguistic-translational point of view:

• New horizons in the use of computer-assisted translation software;
• Linguistic and translation studies on machine translation; 
• Studies on lexical and morphosyntactic errors and interferences; 
• Field studies and reflections on the use of machine translation and interpreting; 
• Machine translation as a resource to improve interlanguage;   
• Teaching computer-assisted translation: programmes and functionalities.

When submitting a proposal take into account the technical aspect of your contribution, as the main focus of Linguamática is Natural Language Processing.