A Study of the Functions, Features, and Applications of Google Translate:A Case Study of Chinese Translations of English Manuals

• Main Authors: Chang Chien, Shouchan, 張簡守展
• Other Authors: Michael TANANGKINGSING
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67191671558499198007

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 跨文化研究所翻譯學碩士班 === 100 === Frequent interaction and trade between countries have fueled the need for instant and large-scale translation, which triggers the emergence of machine translation (MT), and because of the ubiquitous Internet, translation services have been widely available in recent years. However, even though MT (or online translation services) is fast, convenient, easy to use, and even free of charge, it still cannot satisfy needs of all kinds. For MT to be fully accepted, translation quality has always been the biggest obstacle yet to be overcome. This present study examines a representative online translation service, Google Translate (GT), and its Chinese translation output. With a cell phone user manual as source text, the study analyzes its target text from lexical and syntactic perspectives, followed by a brief summary of the pros and cons of GT. Based on these linguistic characteristics collected from GT output, the study concludes with discussions and suggestions on how to use GT effectively so that the benefits of using it can be maximized. A thorough translation analysis finds GT prone to make certain lexical mistakes, categorized in this study as polysemy, semantic deviation, and word choice. Collocation in the source text is probably the key to producing good GT translation. Syntactically speaking, GT tends to translate sentences following their syntactic order; therefore, GT is most suitable for translating sentences with a clear and simple structure, among which imperative sentences, which have a verb phrase as the core, stand out from the rest. Furthermore, post-modifiers are usually the challenge GT fails to conquer. Finally, to make full use of GT, users should get used to the non-linear reading path caused by the uneven translation quality among sentences. Also, users should avoid translating an article all at one time; instead, breaking the article into sentences or smaller syntactic units would help improve translation quality and thus increase the effectiveness of using GT.