The Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University is offering a 1-day online training workshop on metaphor in Machine Translation Post-Editing.
Training in post-editing is becoming increasingly popular in response to the growing industry requirements to integrate MT into the translation workflow. This workshop covers the basics of post-editing with a special focus on the intertextual element of conceptual metaphor. At the end of the course, learners should be confident in identifying MT errors and correcting them, with a better understanding of how metaphors work in the text and how to translate them effectively. Participants will be asked to complete a detailed feedback form about their learning experience to inform the research project. At the end of the workshop, participants will receive a CPD Certificate.
The workshop is open to professional translators with a minimum of 2 years experience. Prior experience in MTPE is not required.
The event covers the following language combinations: Arabic<>English, Chinese<>English, French<>English, Spanish<>English. Proficiency in one of these combinations is required to take part in the workshop.
The workshop is free of charge as it is part of a research project funded by the CTISS to investigate how machine translation handles metaphor and develop guidelines for post editing machine translation with a focus on metaphors. There are 20 spaces available on a first come first serve basis. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email. Pre-workshop material and further information will be provided 2 weeks before the event.
Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
Programme
This workshop will combine theoretical presentations with discussion and practical individual and group work activities. it will cover:
- Introduction to MT and MTPE
- Introduction to metaphor translation
- Textual cohesion and coherence
- Approaches to MT quality assessment
- Error analysis – error categories at word, sentence and whole-text level
- Metaphor identification and analysis in the context of MTPE
Speakers
The workshop will be delivered by three experienced researchers and translation trainers.
Dr. Khadidja Merakchi is Assistant Professor of French at Heriot-Watt University. She is a fluent speaker of Arabic, French and English. She completed her PhD in popular science metaphor translation from English to Arabic at the University of Surrey in 2017. She is an experienced professional translator and interpreter, as well as a teacher in both of these fields.
Dr. Khetam Al Sharou is a Researcher in Machine Translation. Her research lies at the intersection of Translation Studies, Computer Science and Natural Language Processing, producing work with academic and industrial impact in tool development and user-experience. She has held research and teaching positions at various universities in the UK (Imperial College, UCL, LSE, Surrey) and Syria (University of Damascus).
Ms. Juliette Rutherford is Assistant Professor in Chinese at Heriot-Watt University. She worked as an in-house translator from Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish into English for 8 years before joining Heriot-Watt in 2019, as a teacher of Chinese-English Translation and Interpreting. Her research interests include machine translation, conceptual metaphor and pedagogy for translator training.