Google N-grams, tracking word use

Posted in Articles, Resources by WordstoDeeds

This fascinating post by Dr Carol O’Sullivan at the University of Portsmouth may be of interest to translators and lawyers alike – sharing an interest in how words are used.
http://matsnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-n-grams-and-translation.html

It describes how collections of texts from 1500 to 2008, in several languages (Englishes, simplified Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish and Russian), can be used to examine synonyms, neologisms, and even to compare ‘competing words’.

I did a little test following Carol’s instructions, to compare “claimant” and “plaintiff”. Here are the results, for American English and for British English between 1800 and 2008. Note that the y-axis scales differ.

We can clearly see the jump in the use of “claimant” in the UK following the entering into force of the Civil Procedure Rules in April 1999. Continue reading →

2Nov2011

Machine translation of the law

Posted in Articles by WordstoDeeds

In this post, I would like to give you a taster of the controversial subject of machine translation (MT). Full references are given below so that you can read further if you are interested.

Potentially, MT could, inter alia, reduce costs, widen access to content, process large volumes of data in order to identify items of interest, make translators’ work more interesting by taking over repetitive tasks, and facilitate communication, for example in social networks or where very unfamiliar languages are involved. The key caveat is that users be clear about the limitations of MT with respect to the translation skopos (or purpose).

Continue reading →