u Ottawa L'Universit6 canadienne Canada's university FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES l==l FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'Universittf canadienne Canada's university Cheryl McBride AUTEUR DE LA THESE / AUTHOR OF THESIS M.A. (Translation) GRADE/DEGREE School of Translation and Interpretation 1^"ioOcrain>£pARTl^ Translation Memory System: An Analysis of Translator's Attitudes and Opinions TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Lynne Bowker 'DIRWEWpRKfRlciy^^ Elizabeth Marshman CO-DIRECTEUR (CO-DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS CO-SUPERVISOR EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRICES) DE LA THESE / THESIS EXAMINERS Debbie Folaron Jean Quirion Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Translation Memory Systems: An Analysis of Translators' Attitudes and Opinions Cheryl McBride School of Translation and Interpretation University of Ottawa Under the supervision of Lynne Bowker, PhD and Elizabeth Marshman, PhD School of Translation and Interpretation University of Ottawa Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA (Translation) © Cheryl McBride, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de Pedition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-61311-5 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-61311-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Abstract Translation memory (TM) systems are among the most aggressively marketed and widely used computer-aided translation tools. Previous studies have focused on when and how TMs are used, but there is significantly less information available relating to translators' perceptions of and attitudes towards them. The goal of this thesis is to explore translators' unprompted opinions of the issues related to TM system usage. After analyzing postings on translators' discussion boards, I propose to compare current assumptions about TM systems and their use with what translators are expressing in their unprompted opinions. I believe that with a better understanding of different perspectives and attitudes, translators can evaluate and potentially adjust their own perceptions in light of others' experience, developers and vendors can respond more accurately to users' needs, clients can better comprehend translators' concerns, and researchers and trainers can properly address the issues currently surrounding TM system usage. This thesis is organized into three chapters. Following a general introduction, Chapter 1 explains the functioning of TM systems and the issues surrounding their use, and then explores what is known about the use of TM systems and attitudes towards them as these are expressed in scholarly research, vendor promotional materials, surveys of practicing translators, and analyses of mailing lists. Chapter 2 provides a description of the methodology used in this project to select a primary resource, extract TM-related information, and classify the data. Chapter 3 presents a summary and analysis of the data found in the corpus. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the findings of this research and their implications for translators, vendors, clients/agencies, translator trainers, and researchers, addresses areas requiring further investigation and research, and evaluates the methodology of the project. II Resume Les memoires de traduction (MT) sont parmi les outils de traduction humaine assistee par ordinateur les plus vigoureusement commercialises et les plus utilises. Les etudes jusqu'a maintenant ont porte sur quand et comment les MT sont utilisees, mais il y a beaucoup moins d'information sur les perceptions de ces outils par les traducteurs et les attitudes de ces derniers envers les MT. L'objectif de la presente these est d'explorer les opinions a priori des traducteurs au sujet des questions liees a l'utilisation des MT. Apres avoir analyse des billets sur des forums de discussion de traducteurs, je propose de comparer les idees recues sur les MT et leur utilisation avec ce que disent les traducteurs. Je crois qu'en comprenant mieux les differentes perspectives et attitudes, les traducteurs pourront evaluer et potentiellement ajuster leurs perceptions en fonction des experiences des autres; les concepteurs et vendeurs de MT pourront mieux repondre aux besoins des utilisateurs; les clients pourront mieux comprendre les inquietudes des traducteurs et les chercheurs et formateurs pourront bien cerner les problemes de l'utilisation des MT. La presente these est composee de trois chapitres. L'introduction generale est suivie du Chapitre 1, qui explique le fonctionnement des MT et les questions sur leur utilisation, et explore les idees recues sur l'utilisation des MT qui se trouvent dans les recherches universitaires, les depliants publicitaires des vendeurs de MT, les sondages de traducteurs en exercice et les analyses de listes d'envoi. Le deuxieme chapitre decrit la methodologie employee pour choisir une ressource principale, extraire des informations liees aux MT et trier les donnees. Le troisieme chapitre resume et presente 1'analyse des donnees extraites du corpus. Enfin, la conclusion englobe un sommaire des resultats et les consequences pour les traducteurs, les vendeurs, les clients et cabinets de traduction, les formateurs de traducteurs et les chercheurs; elle traite egalement des domaines qui devraient etre examines plus a fond et evalue la methodologie du projet. Ill Acknowledgements I would like to thank Lynne Bowker and Elizabeth Marshman for their never- ending patience and unfailing support. You helped me keep my sanity and verbosity in check. This thesis would not be what it is if not for your willingness to read innumerable pages, and provide encouraging and insightful feedback. To my family - thank you. Yes, Dad, I'm finally finished. You were all there to encourage and listen, and I would not be where I am without your confidence in me and my abilities. You stuck with me through the Master's, now on to the PhD! My dearest fellow thesis writers: We've come a long way, and it was my pleasure to share this experience with you. We made it through the ups and downs, the moments of laughter and the cries of desperation. I am grateful to have such a supportive and caring group of friends! I offer my sincerest apologies to all who had to listen to me talk, complain, and whine about my corpus (and my thesis in general). I promise to never create a corpus again.. .well, at least not for a little while. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the members and staff of ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com. You have created a friendly and safe environment in which translators can freely share their thoughts and opinions, and receive advice and help from their peers. The forums on these sites are invaluable, and I would have no thesis without your contributions. IV Table of Contents ABSTRACT II RESUME HI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV LIST OF TABLES X LIST OF FIGURES XI LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS XII INTRODUCTION 1 0.1 Context and motivation 1 0.2 Objectives 3 0.3 Scope and limitations 3 0.4 General methodology 4 0.5 Outline 5 CHAPTER 1 -THE TRANSLATION MEMORY SYSTEM 6 1.1 Translation memories: Inception to adoption 6 1.1.1 The Birth of TM systems 6 1.1.2 TM systems today 7 1.2 Components of translation environments 8 1.2.1 TM systems 8 1.2.2 Other TEnT components 9 1.3 Purchasing or acquiring a TM system 10 1.3.1 Situational considerations 10 1.3.1.1 Text characteristics and format 10 1.3.1.2 Number of users 12 1.3.1.3 Languages 12 1.3.1.3.1 Language pairs 12 1.3.1.3.2 Language of the interface 13 1.3.2 Technical considerations 14 1.3.2.1 Computing requirements 14 1.3.2.1.1 Processing speed and memory 14 1.3.2.1.2 Operating system 14 1.3.2.2 Open-source