Translation, interpreting and new technologies

The translation of written language, the translation of spoken language and interpreting have traditionally been separate fields of education and expertise, and the technologies that emulate and/or support those human activities have been developed and researched using different methodologies and by different groups of researchers. Although recent increase in synergy between these well-established fields has begun to blur the boundaries, this section will adhere to the three-fold distinction and begin by giving an overview of key concepts in relation to written-language translation and technology, including computer-assisted translation (CAT) and fully automatic machine translation (MT). This will be followed by an overview of spoken-language translation and technology, which will make a distinction between written translation products (speech-to-text translation, STT) and spoken translation products (speech-to-speech translation, SST). The key concepts of information and communications technology (ICT) supported interpreting, which is currently separate from the technological developments in written- and spoken-language translation, will be outlined in a third section and a fourth will provide an overview of current usages of translation and interpreting technologies.