*apologies for cross-posting*

Tralogy 3: Human translation and natural language processing: Forging a new
consensus?

Deadline for submitting a proposal: 15 November 2021

Notification of approval will be sent by the 15th of December 2021

Conference: 7-8 April 2022

Please see full details at https://tralogy3.sciencesconf.org/

In line with the previous Tralogy events, this international conference is
geared towards bringing together specialists in the various fields and
disciplines involved in the translation professions of today and tomorrow:
academics (both in the Translation Studies and NLP fields), professional
translators (most notably through the involvement of SFT, the French
society of translators), users of translation (especially through the
European Commission’s  Directorate-General for Translation, DGT) and
translator educators (via the French association of translation training
programs, AFFUMT). It will be co-sponsored by the DGT, in the form of a
'Translating Europe' Workshop, and coordinated with the SPECTRANS and
PAPTAN projects (CLILLAC-ARP, Université de Paris), whose interests are
closely aligned to our own.

Call for Proposals (EN)
Over the last decade we have witnessed momentous changes in the field of
translation and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. The
popularisation of neural translation technology and the new directions
taken by research in translation automation (machine translation (MT),
text-to-speech and vice-versa, navigation between image and text,
evaluation metrics) are widening the scope of translation tools. The
dynamics of this research are boosted by the rapid growth of the language
industry (Nimdzi, 2021) and the interest of tech companies (GAFAM, BATX,
iFLYTEK, etc.) which invest heavily in translation technologies with a view
to embedding MT in their various interfaces, platforms and applications
(Larsonneur, 2020).

This is not only a research issue. It means that the conditions within the
translation profession are changing, perhaps along with the general
perception of what translation is (Lavault-Olléon & Zimina, 2019). Two
major shifts are underway. The first concerns the emergence of data as a
central issue in translation. Collecting, cleaning, annotating and
structuring data in massive corpora is key to the efficient training of
translation algorithms. Data can be viewed as a commodity, as an element of
a fundamental right and as an asset of the commons (Moorkens & Lewis,
2020). All of these aspects need to be assessed, put into perspective and
regulated according to the specificities of translation.

The second major shift is from a focus on content to a focus on usage:
texts are now produced, shared, assessed and repurposed online in ways that
challenge the division between gist, “fit-for-purpose” and “ready to
publish” work. Moreover, agile content, user engagement metrics and the
automated generation of texts by large language models like GPT-3 all rely
on a mix of human and machine language production, a combination which
needs to be addressed (Ehrensberger-Dow & Massey, 2019).

The pace and scope of technological, economic and societal change are such
that they raise a number of concerns. The recent hype about neural MT masks
the numerous areas in which language processing technologies, though
advanced, are still not up to mark: one could cite, on various levels,
discrepancies between high-resource and low-resource languages, the
limitations of MT interface design or the opacity that surrounds the
construction of training corpora. More generally, there are issues
concerning the future role, status and financial perspectives of
translators, the eco-sustainability of the translation model (Cronin, 2017)
and the accountability of the main providers of automated translation.
Translator education also stands at a crossroads, having to balance these
new developments with more traditional skills and contents (Froeliger,
2019; Massey & Kiraly, 2019).

In view of the crucial role translation and language technologies play in
societies, we propose that a new consensus between the human uses of
language and the inputs of the machine need to be reached, not only in
order to enable exchanges and contribute to the construction and
dissemination of knowledge, but also to feed our social sense of
responsibility (Martens & Hobbs, 2015). There appears to be a need for a
heightened and more widely shared digital literacy in language technologies
and of a greater awareness of their societal, economic and ethical
implications (Koskinen & Pokorn, 2021; Moorkens & Rocchi, 2021).

For the Tralogy 3 conference, we therefore invite presenters to identify
blind spots in the current landscape of translation and multilingual
language technologies in research, theory, practice and education, and to
offer critical perspectives and suggest innovative avenues for dealing with
the issues identified above. In line with the first two Tralogy events (
http://www.tralogy.eu,  https://webcast.in2p3.fr/container/tralogy_2013,
https://webcast.in2p3.fr/container/tralogy_2011), this international
conference is geared towards bringing together specialists in the various
fields and disciplines involved in the translation professions of today and
tomorrow: academics (both in the Translation Studies and NLP fields),
professional translators (most notably through the involvement of SFT, the
French society of translators), users of translation (especially through
the European Commission’s  Directorate-General for Translation, DGT) and
translator educators (via the French association of translation training
programs, AFFUMT). It will be co-sponsored by the DGT, in the form of a
'Translating Europe' Workshop, and coordinated with the SPECTRANS and
PAPTAN projects (CLILLAC-ARP, Université de Paris), whose interests are
closely aligned to our own.

We especially welcome contributions on the following topics:

Translation technology and power dynamics

Shifting power relations between LSPs and individual translators

Division of labour between humans and machines

Use of extended context in neural MT

Issues surrounding training corpora: Who builds and controls them, with
what data, on which principles, for what needs, at what cost?

Ethics and governance

Policy issues at regional level

Collaboration, commons, and governance: Should translation be considered a
global commons?

Multilingualism, linguistic diversity and linguistic equality

Translation and both ecological and social sustainability

Black and glass box applications of machine learning to translation

Translation technology, censorship and disinformation

The human-in-the-loop in translator education

New interactions with automated translation and interpreting systems



References

Nimdzi (2021, 1 March) The 2021 Nimdzi 100: The ranking of top 100 largest
language service providers.
https://www.nimdzi.com/nimdzi-100-top-lsp/#market-size-growth

Bowker, L., & Buitrago Ciro J. (2019). Machine translation and global
research: Towards improved machine translation literacy in the scholarly
community. Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781787567214

Cronin, M. (2017). Eco-translation: Translation and ecology in the age of
the anthropocene. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315689357

Ehrensberger-Dow, M., & Massey, G. (2019). Le traducteur et la machine :
mieux travailler ensemble ? In É. Lavault-Olléon & M. Zimina M. (Dir.) Des
mots aux actes. 2019, n° 8: Traduction et technologie, regards croisés sur
de nouvelles pratiques, 47–62.
https://doi.org/10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-09779-2.p.0047

Froeliger, N. (2019). At a Certain Stage, one has to Deliver: Why
Professional Translation Masters’ Matter. Cultus: The Journal of
Intercultural Mediation and Communication, 12.
http://www.cultusjournal.com/files/Archives/Cultus_2019_12_003_Froeliger.pdf

Koskinen, K., & Pokorn, N. K. (Eds.). (2021).The Routledge handbook of
translation and ethics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003127970

Larsonneur, C. (2020). Neural machine translation: From commodity to
commons? In R. Desjardins, C. Larsonneur & P. Lacour (Eds.), When
translation goes digital: Case studies and critical reflections (pp
257-280). Palgrave-Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51761-8

Lavault-Olléon É., & Zimina M. (Dir.) (2019).Des mots aux actes. 2019, n°
8: Traduction et technologie, regards croisés sur de nouvelles pratiques.
Classiques Garnier. https://dx.doi.org/10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-09779-2

Martens, H., & Hobbs, R. (2015). How media literacy supports civic
engagement in a digital age. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23 (2),
120–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2014.961636

Massey, G., & Kiraly, D. (2019).  The future of translator education: A
dialogue. Cultus: The Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication,
12, 15–34.
https://www.cultusjournal.com/files/Archives/Cultus_2019_12_002_Kiraly_Massey.pdf

Moorkens, J., & Lewis, D. (2020). Copyright and the re-use of translation
as data. In M. O’Hagan (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of translation and
technology (pp.516–530). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315311258

Moorkens, J., & Rocchi, M. (2021). Ethics in the translation Industry. In
K. Koskinen & N. K. Pokorn (Eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation
and ethics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003127970

-- 
*Joss Moorkens*
Ollamh Comhlach | Scoil na dTeangacha Feidhmeacha & Staidéar
Idirchultúrtha | Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath
Associate Professor | School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies
| Dublin City University

[email protected] | + 353 1 700 7477

C2116 | Foirgneamh Henry Grattan | Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath |
Campas Ghlas Naíon | BÁC 9
C2116 | Henry Grattan Building | Dublin City University | DCU Glasnevin
Campus | Dublin 9


General Co-Editor Translation Spaces <https://benjamins.com/catalog/ts>
 journal


[image: Image result for emt network]
*Latest article*: Moorkens 2020. *"A tiny cog in a large machine": Digital
Taylorism in the translation industry
<https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ts.00019.moo>*.
Translation Spaces 9:1.

*Séanadh Ríomhphoist
<https://www4.dcu.ie/iss/seanadh-riomhphoist.shtml>/Email Disclaimer
<https://www4.dcu.ie/iss/email-disclaimer.shtml>*


*Any content below has been automatically generated by the university
and not by the sender of this email.*

-- 
*

*Séanadh Ríomhphoist/Email Disclaimer*

*Tá an ríomhphost seo agus aon 
chomhad a sheoltar leis faoi rún agus is lena úsáid ag an seolaí agus sin 
amháin é. Is féidir tuilleadh a léamh anseo.  
<https://sites.google.com/view/seanadh-riomhphoist>*

*This e-mail and any 
files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use 
by the addressee. Read more here. 
<https://sites.google.com/view/dcu-email-disclaimer>*



*

-- 

 <https://www.facebook.com/DCU/> <https://twitter.com/DCU> 
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/dublin-city-university> 
<https://www.instagram.com/dublincityuniversity/?hl=en> 
<https://www.youtube.com/user/DublinCityUniversity
_______________________________________________
Mt-list site list
[email protected]
https://lists.eamt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mt-list

Reply via email to