Conclusion
Somers' article brings into focus the state of technology in the subject of MT. In a certain measure, the reflection of Somers “despite nearly 25 years since the ALPAC report...for all the investment...perhaps one could have expected better results” should be applied not only to MT systems, but equally to NLP systems. However, this reflection of Somers should be interpreted and reevaluated in accordance with the distance between the evolution of our knowledge of the mecanisms of translatology and the ambitious objectives of producing FAHQT for more than 80% of sentences in unrestricted texts.
For the future of MT, specialists must play a double role (at the same time, scientific and economic) so as to make the right compromise at all times between language, which is a bottomless pit, and its users, who are clients with restricted R & D funds.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ALPAC (Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee). 1966. Language and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 123 pp.
BourbeauL. 1990. Elaboration et mise au point d'une méthodologie d'évaluation linguistique de sysèmes de traduction assistée par ordinateur, Présenté au Secrétariat d'Etat Ottawa, par Progiciels Bourbeau Pinard inc., Montréal, 1990, 203 pp.
BourbeauL. 1991. Fabrication et mise au point d'un corpus d'évaluation linguistique de systèmes de traduction assistée par ordinateur, Présenté au Secrétariat d'Etat Ottawa, par Progiciels Bourbeau Pinard inc., Montréal, 1991, 334 pp.
JEIDA. 1989. A Japanese View of Machine Translation in Light of the Considerations and Recommendations Reported by ALPAC, U.S.A., Machine Translation System Research Committee, Japan Electronic Industry Development Association, Japan, July 1989, 197 pp.
KingM., WilksY., AllenS., HeidU., AlbisserD. 1991. Evaluation of MT Systems — Panel Discussion, in Nirenburg S. (Chairman), Machine Translation SUMMIT III — Proceedings, Center for Machine Translation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, pp. 141–146.
LehrbergerJ., BourbeauL. 1988. Machine Translation: Linguistic Characteristic of MT Systems and General Methodology of Evaluation, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 240 pp.
NealJ.G., WalterS.M. 1991. Natural Language Processing Systems Evaluation Workshop, Technical Report RL-TR-91-362, Rome Laboratory, Air Force Systems Command, Griffiss Air Force Base, Rome, NY, December 1991, 167 pp.
PankowiczZ.L. 1966. Commentary on ALPAC Report (Language and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics), RADC, Griffiss Air Force Base, Rome, NY, December 1966, 55 pp. + Attachment I–IX.
Sundheim B.M. 1991. Third Message Understanding Conference (MUC-3), Proceedings of a Conference Held in San Diego-May 21–23 1991, Sponsored by DARPA & Software and Intelligent Systems Technology Office, Distributed by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Mateo, California, 363 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bourbeau, L.R. Current MT research orientation/disorientation. Machine Translation 7, 253–258 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00398469
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00398469