Writing for translation: controlled authorship
Last time we covered the idea of ‘controlled language’. Another concept that greatly improves both machine and human translation is ‘controlled authorship’.
Controlled authorship offers improvements to the writing process that make for better efficiency, and it reduces repeat work. Cost of human translation is often cited as the biggest bug-bear. However, by construction textual pieces with a proper process in mind, over time we can alleviate the cost of repeated translation of the same pieces.
There are four areas for attention…
Modularisation
The aim is to reduce the number of times that text is translated, saving time and potentially greatly reducing cost. With modularisation we break text into areas that could feasibly be used elsewhere – much like a computer programmer would write a general routine and call it multiple times. This is particularly easy to do when writing international instruction manuals for different models of similar products. It’s easy to understand that many instructions will apply to all models.
Standardisation
This is simply the process of ensuring that product or object-specific names are removed from text. For example, “Superputer THX1138 has capacity for extra RAM expansion” should be written as “The computer has capacity for extra RAM expansion”. The product name could then be confined to a section heading, and the translated text could be used for different computer models.
Simplification
This is very straighforward: why use long-winded text when short, punchy (but grammatically correct) statements will translate better, and be better understood?
“When using the computer, make sure all cooling vents are uncovered and unobstructed, to allow efficient case cooling.”
…could be better written as…
“Keep the case cool by not obstructing vents”.
Reduction
Reduction is very similar to simplification in effect, the difference being is that this last pass should focus on the removal of words that add nothing to the sense of the statement.
“To make the sentence structure more efficient without changing the meaning, we can remove words and sections that add nothing to the piece.”
…could be expressed by writing…
“Make the sentence more efficient by removing words that add nothing to the meaning.”
…or even better…
“Improve sentence efficiency by removing redundant words.”
By applying these simple steps, and remembering the guidelines noted here, we can drastically improve the quality of both machine and human translations.
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