CTIS Research Seminar: Critical Approaches to Translation Technology
| Dates: | 25 February 2016 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Dorothy Kenny |
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Much contemporary thought on technology in general, and translation technology in particular, is characterized by defeatism, determinism and a tendency towards universalism. Such comment does not pay enough attention to local differences however, or to the demands of specific languages and markets, or the role of institutions in promoting given technologies. What’s more, there have so far been only isolated attempts to critique the practices that accompany the technologization of translation from an economic, legal, ethical or other non-technical point of view. And while technologists prioritize technical ‘innovation’, translation studies scholars bemoan the relative paucity of research into translation technology in use, and the relative lack of user involvement in the design of translation technologies. In this paper, I attempt to view recent developments in translation technology through a technostructuralist lens, one that is cognizant of the role of context and social and institutional forces in the advance of a technology, and that can draw on richer ethical reasoning than other more ‘neutral’ approaches. I draw in particular on the development, deployment and the metaphorical construction of statistical machine translation to exemplify the issues raised.
Speaker
Dorothy Kenny
Organisation: Dublic City University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
A113
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
