Automatic Translation of Languages Since 1960: A Linguist's View

Abstract

This chapter presents a survey of the field of automatic translation of languages that discusses some difficulties of machine translation (MT), the nature of language and problems of language description, MT as symbiosis between man and machine, and practical MT problems and some tentative solutions. The history of MT, in terms of both the shift of emphasis of the philosophy of approach and the activities of the individual research groups, is briefly reviewed. A series of MT conferences organized by Wayne State University (United States) and various international conferences are discussed. The chapter also discusses the linguistic problems in MT research, components of an MT system, Wayne State University MT procedures and automatic syntactic analysis, other MT syntactic analysis techniques, surveys of MT groups since 1960, and automatic language processing committee (ALPAC) report and reactions toward it. One of the major aims of developing a functioning MT system should be to avoid mistranslations and MT research contributes to the expansion of the knowledge of how language operates. So, MT is the most important area where symbiosis between computer and man can be most successfully advanced.