PLIN019 Machine Translation

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2018
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. et Mgr. Vít Baisa, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Zdeňka Hladká, Dr.
Department of Czech Language – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. et Mgr. Vít Baisa, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Czech Language – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Thu 12:30–14:05 G13
Prerequisites
Knowledge of basic terms and concepts from the realm of natural language processing.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 20 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/20, only registered: 0/20, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/20
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
After passing the course, a student will a) be able to understand basic concepts and facts from machine translation, b) have knowledge of both historical and current trends in this area.
Syllabus
  • Basic concepts and historical facts of machine translation (MT).
  • Methods of translation evaluation, general issues, the most important MT tools and systems.
  • 1. Basic concepts and progress of MT from 1940's
  • 2. Overview and basic classification of MT systems
  • 3. Rule-based methods I: from text to semantic representation
  • 4. Rule-based methods II: specific tasks and problems of RBMT
  • 5. Statistical methods I: theory of probability, theory of information
  • 6. Statistical methods II: word-based methods
  • 7. Statistical methods III: phrase-based methods
  • 8. Statistical methods IV: decoding algorithms
  • 9. Statistical methods V: language models
  • 10. Hybrid methods: combination of various methods
  • 11. Partial methods: computer-aided, human-aided methods, translational memories
  • 12. Automatic MT evaluation: concepts, overview of the most important methods
Literature
    recommended literature
  • SOJKA, Petr, Aleš HORÁK, Karel PALA and Pavel RYCHLÝ. MTW 2012 -- Hybrid Machine Translation, Machine Translation Workshop, Brno, Czech Republic, September 3, 2012. Edited by Sojka P., Horák A., Kopeček I., Pala K. prvni. Brno: Tribun EU a Springer Verlag, 2012, 68 pp. ISBN 978-80-263-0266-7. MTW 2012 workshop homepage info
  • BAISA, Vít. Problems of Machine Translation Evaluation. In Proceedings of Recent Advances in Slavonic Natural Language Processing 2009. Brno: Masaryk University, 2009, p. 121-126. ISBN 978-80-210-5048-8. URL info
  • Readings in machine translation. Edited by Sergei Nirenburg - H. L. Somers - Yorick A. Wilks. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003, xv, 413. ISBN 0262140748. info
  • Machine translation and translation theory. Edited by Christa Hauenschild - Heizmann Heizmann. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001, xiv, 226. ISBN 3110154862. info
  • ARNOLD, Doug, Lorna BALKAN, Siety MEIJER, R. LEE HUMPHREYS and Louisa SADLER. Machine translation: an introductory guide. London: Blackwells/NCC, 1994. ISBN 18555-42-17X. URL info
  • STEINER, George. After Babel : aspects of language and translation. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, xviii, 538. ISBN 0-19-212300-9. info
  • HUTCHINS, W. John and Harold L. SOMERS. An introduction to machine translation. London: Academic Press, 1992, xxi, 362 s. ISBN 0-12-362830-X. info
  • HUTCHINS, W. John and Harold L. SOMERS. An introduction to machine translation. London: Academic Press, 1992, xxi, 362 s. ISBN 0-12-362830-X. info
  • The nature of translation : essays on the theory and practice of literary translation. The Hague: Mouton, 1970. info
Teaching methods
Seminar - lectures each week, cca 5-10 minutes for students' presentations (in English/Czech)
Assessment methods
Written test. In addition: during a semester, compulsory presentation about a) significant paper / book / publication from the realm of MT; b) significant MT system (+ basic evaluation, comparison with other selected systems) OR students can prepare an article to be published on Czech and English Wikipedia (its extent and other details will be arranged in due time).
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
Teacher's information
http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/~xbaisa/plin019/
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2019.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2018, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2018/PLIN019