線上機器翻譯：東南亞新住民語言服務芻議

A Probe into the Language Service of Online Machine Translation for Southeast Asian Immigrants

本文研究動機緣起於近年來東南亞新住民在臺灣人口快速成長，卻缺乏以其母語提供網路資訊的平台，另則線上統計式機譯系統翻譯品質已大幅改善，可以成為多語服務的媒介，因而思考如何使用線上機器翻譯來做為提供東南亞新住民語言服務的平台。本研究首先採用文獻考察及初探性調查，探討何以線上機譯系統可以成為移民線上資訊取得之輔助工具，接著採用訪談方式進行機譯品質評估，證實前編措施確實能夠幫助東南亞新住民對其母語（越南語及印尼語）機譯內容大意之了解。最後再探究機譯語言服務所彰顯的語言人權及民主意涵。本研究藉由訪談四位越南籍人士和三位印尼籍人士，就其對母語機器譯文大意理解度來做分析，結果顯示越南籍及印尼籍受訪人士之理解程度皆達到八成以上；受訪者表示，只要網站能提供八成以上理解度之機器譯文，他們願意利用機器翻譯工具來擷取更多臺灣社會與文化的相關資訊。有鑑於此，作者建議臺灣網頁文本可增加控制性中文書寫版本，以利提供東南亞新住民友善的線上機譯服務，此種語言服務在東南亞新住民已佔有相當比例的臺灣社會中，可彰顯其人權意涵，如語言平權、多元文化主義與庶民語言運動。 This article looks at the use of online machine translation (MT) to provide language service to Southeast Asian immigrants in Taiwan. Its motivation is twofold: (a)Taiwan’s immigrant population has been growing in recent years and yet the immigrants still lack a web-based information service, and (b) there has been a significant improvement in the online statistical MT systems’ capacity for automated translation. This research began with a review of the MT-relevant literature and a pilot investigation, followed by an interview-based survey to demonstrate how pre-editing using controlled Chinese helped Vietnamese and Indonesian audiences to understand the gist of MT outputs. It concluded with a probe into the implications of online-MT-enabled language services. The findings of the MT-based comprehensibility survey showed that an average score of more than 80% earned by Vietnamese and Indonesian interviewees supported the effectiveness of pre-editing in improving MT performance. Meanwhile, all the interviewees expressed that they would use the MT tool to access Taiwan’s sociocultural information, since the gist of MT outputs was more than 80% comprehensible. Thus, besides natural Chinese web-texts, controlled Chinese web-texts can be supplemented, and so Southeast Asian immigrants will be able to read the MT outputs for the purpose of information mining and knowledge acquisition. Despite the small samples used in this research project, the positive findings have shed light on some humanistic issues: equal language rights, multi-culturalsim, and the “civic language” campaign. The importance of controlled-Chinese-enabled MT service cannot be overlooked in Taiwan’s contemporary society as Southeast Asian immigrants now constitute a significant part of Taiwan’s population.

This article looks at the use of online machine translation (MT) to provide language service to Southeast Asian immigrants in Taiwan. Its motivation is twofold: (a)Taiwan’s immigrant population has been growing in recent years and yet the immigrants still lack a web-based information service, and (b) there has been a significant improvement in the online statistical MT systems’ capacity for automated translation. This research began with a review of the MT-relevant literature and a pilot investigation, followed by an interview-based survey to demonstrate how pre-editing using controlled Chinese helped Vietnamese and Indonesian audiences to understand the gist of MT outputs. It concluded with a probe into the implications of online-MT-enabled language services. The findings of the MT-based comprehensibility survey showed that an average score of more than 80% earned by Vietnamese and Indonesian interviewees supported the effectiveness of pre-editing in improving MT performance. Meanwhile, all the interviewees expressed that they would use the MT tool to access Taiwan’s sociocultural information, since the gist of MT outputs was more than 80% comprehensible. Thus, besides natural Chinese web-texts, controlled Chinese web-texts can be supplemented, and so Southeast Asian immigrants will be able to read the MT outputs for the purpose of information mining and knowledge acquisition. Despite the small samples used in this research project, the positive findings have shed light on some humanistic issues: equal language rights, multi-culturalsim, and the “civic language” campaign. The importance of controlled-Chinese-enabled MT service cannot be overlooked in Taiwan’s contemporary society as Southeast Asian immigrants now constitute a significant part of Taiwan’s population.