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Appendix 1
Experiments in Sight Translation
and Full Translation
In 1963, an experiment in sight translation was conducted by Dr. H.
Wallace Sinaiko of the Institute for Defense Analyses ("Teleconfer-
encing, Preliminary Experiments," Research Paper P-108, IDA
Nov. 1963~. Sight translation is a procedure in which written
material being received via teleprinter is read and a translation
is dictated to a typist simultaneously. In this experiment, profes-
sional conference interpreters translated the complete text of the
minutes of the 921st meeting of the U.N. Security Council into
English and French.
This experiment showed that the accuracy of the sight transla-
tion was uniformly high and that when the interpreters were work-
ing in an unaccustomed direction, i.e., English into French or
French into English, both the time required for the sight translation
and the number of errors were increased somewhat, although not
seriously.
Another experiment (full translation) used highly experienced
Department of State translators in two-man translating - review
teams. The partners in each team divided the incoming batches of
material between themselves, each translating a part and then re-
viewing the part translated by his colleague. The quality of the
translations was very high, but scarcely higher than the sight
translation.
COMPARISON OF SIGHT AND FULL- TRANSLATION ME THODS
Time, hr :Rate, words per min
Original U.N. Security Council Meeting,
consecutive interpretation 2.0 102.0
Sight translation 9.7 21.0
E`u11 translation 37.6 5.4
Although the sight translation was four times faster than the full
translation and of comparable quality, it would be dangerous to con-
clude from this that present translation output could be quadrupled
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by use of the sight-translation method. Since the material trans-
lated in this experiment was, presumably, all straight text, it lent
itself nicely to this type of translation. It is doubtful that such a
system could operate with the same efficiency on scientific texts
containing photographs, charts, tables, formulas, and other graphics.
Nevertheless, the Committee feels that certain features of this
system might be applicable to certain circumstances. One agency
in Washington that uses the dictation method states that on texts
that are suitable (few graphics to be inserted) the daily output per
translator is doubled—from 2,400 to about 5,000 words.
These experiments stress an important difference between human
and machine approximation in translation. Once the deeper mean-
ing of the content of a text is grasped, the human translator im-
mediately leaps to relatively grammatical output. The time taken
by him in successive approximation probably involves choices
among optional transformations, seeking the best base from which
final stylistic polishing may be made in order to recapture the
flavor of the original. On the other hand, the machine does its
approximating by moving through successive choices among un-
grammatical versions. Therefore, it would seem that there are
good reasons why cheap, hasty, and truncated jobs might be better
done by humans than by machines.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
containing photographs
