(Non-Conventional) Content Profiling for Translation

Sharon O’BrienADAPT Research Centre

Dublin City University

What is Content Profiling for Translation Purposes?

• Put simply, it’s about describing your source language content according to some criteria in order to decide:

– How it should be translated– How the translation should be assessed

Why should we be interested in Content Profiling?

Context is all important for translation

TextType Purpose

Target Audience

Why should we be interested in Content Profiling?

Context is all important for translation

TextType

Purpose

Target Audience

Localisation/ Adaptation

Why should we be interested in Content Profiling?

Profiling helps make decisions about process

TextType

Purpose

Target Audience

MTTM

BothNeither

ProfessionalsCrowd-Sourced

Why should we be interested in Content Profiling?

Profiling helps make decisions about evaluation

TextType

Purpose

Target Audience

Full-scale/SampleError Typology

AdequacyFluency

Automatic Eval Metrics

Usability…

What profiling techniques are there?

Profiling Techniques? Complex!

GenreText TypeRegister

Style

Domain Classification

Topic Classification

CostTime

FunctionMarket

Linguistics NLP

Localisation Industry

• Interviews with key professional in 6 different companies selling into the global market with content translated into many different languages

Case Study Case Study

• All the participant produce all the content types listed in eight meta-categories suggested in the TAUS DQF (at the time).

• However…• Different content categorisation• More detailed typologies • Combining content types into one single

category.

Findings

Additional Content Types Included

Employee Engagement Survey Internal Announcements Support Documentation Online Knowledge Base Legal Texts Surveys (customers and end-users) User Generated and Industry Generated Content Sales Training Material Internal Sales Tools Texts Internal Training Material Metadata Templates Technical Developer Documentation

Add in ‘non-conventional content’

Break-Out Topics• How do companies profile SL

content?• What examples of best practice

exist?• How does that impact on

translation process decisions?• Is ‘one-size-fits-all’ the usual

approach?• Is everything driven by business

concerns rather than quality and impact on end user?

• What techniques exist for profiling ‘non-conventional content’?

• Can we agree on a definition for ‘non-conventional content’?