English-Malay Translation System: a Laboratory Prototype

This paDem ~esents tim remf[ts obtained by an English to Malay camputer translation system at the level of a lab~mat~y prototype. %~le translation output obtained for a selected text (secondary school 6~]e~ist~y textbook) is evaluated using a grading scheme based on ease o£ post-editing. The effect of a clmnge in area and typology of text is investigated by c~paring with the translation output obtained for a University level Cc~iputer Science text. An analysis of the p~ohle~s which give rise to incGrTeet translations is discussed. %~ds paper also ~vides statistical infcmmation on the English to Malay translation ~st~u and concludes with an outline of further wc~k being carried out on this system with the &Ira of att&ising an industrial prototype. i. The Eng![sh t_qMal_a~franslationSsSSSSSSSS_2~trm Baak~reusd Computer Aided T~anslation (CAT) research at Universiti Sa~m MalsysL~ (USM) began in 1976 as an individual research effcet. However, at that time, the work is more appropriately classified under hat, real language data ~cessing, including topics such as 'istilah' (temdnalogy) information retrieval, ,Malay ~otf(~m extraction, parsing of Malay sentences using context-free g~sn~s asd Malay language teaching tools [Tong 78, Chang 78]. In 1978, research into CAT was initiated, and by 1979, the researchers a~ U~4 began to develop g~mmmr medels for F~qglish to Malay translation using the software tool ~ [GETA 78]. In 1980, a natior~l wc~kshop was conducted in USM, where a pilot English to Malay tr~uslatlon system was desmnstrated. Financial sup~mt beckons available, and li~ther development on the basic translation model was ca~ied out [Tong 82, van Klinken 84, zsharin 84]. In 1984, a per~nanent Computer-Aided-@ranslation Project unit was set up at U~4, and full-time research staff were assigned to this project. Members of this project group now include t~o computer scientists, one linguist, and five lexicographer / edit~ / te~minologlst. '[his group was assigned the task of producing a labm, atory ~ototype for Englisll to Mal~ translation, and the result of their efforts is presented in this report. S~stem Envlro~ment The AK[ANE system .is an integrated software environment for cemput er~alded-translat lon, including tools for compiling grammes and dictionaries, and fer processing corpus of the source and tm~et texts. The CAT concepts beldnd this system is well-known and weE-documented [Boltet and Vauquols 1985]. This softwaPe has been prog~ammd using different levels of computer Isngnmges, from IBM assembly (PL360) to PL/I, and making extensive use of system tools of the IBM VM/CM~ ~stem-XEDIT and …