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<Paper uid="P84-1116">
  <Title>Machine Translation: its History, Current Status, and Future Prospects</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="550" end_page="551" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
SYSTRAN
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> SYSTRAN was one of the first MT systems to be marketed; the first installation replaced the IBM Mark II Russian-English system at the USAF FTD in 1970, and is still operational, Eased on the CAT technology (SYSTRAN uses the same linguistic strategies, to the extent they can be argued to exist), SYSTRAN's software basis has been much improved by the introduction of modularity (separating the analysis and synthesis stages), by a recent shift away from simple &amp;quot;direct&amp;quot; translation (from the Source Language straight into the Target Language) toward the inclusion of something resembling an intermediate &amp;quot;transfer&amp;quot; stage, and by the allowance of manually-selected topical glossaries (essentially, dictionaries specific to \[the subject area of\] the text). The system is still ad hoc -- particularly in the assignment of semantic features \[Pigott, 79\]. The USAF FTD dictionaries number over a million entries; Eostad \[82\] reports that dictionary updating must be severely constrained, lest a change to one entry disrupt the activities of many others. (A study by Wilks \[78\] reported an improvement/degradation ratio \[after dictionary updates\] of 7:3, but Bostad implies a much more stable situation after the introduction of stringent \[and expensive\] quality-control measures.) NASA selected SYSTRAN in 1974 to translate materials relating to the Apollo-Soyuz collaboration, and EURATOM replaced GAT with SYSTRAN in 1976. Also by 1976, FTD was augmenting SYSTRA~ with word-processing equipment to increase productivity (e.g., to eliminate the use of punch-cards).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> In 1976 the Commission of the European Communities purchased an English-French version of SYSTRAN for evaluation and potential use. Unlike the FTD, NASA, and EURATOM installations, where the goal was information acquisition, the intended use by CEC was for information dissemination -- meaning that the output was to be carefully edited before human consumption. Van Slype \[82\] reports that &amp;quot;the English-French standard vocabulary delivered by Prof. Toma to the Commission was found to be almost entirely useless for the Commission enviror--ent. '' Early evaluations were negative (e.g., Van Slype \[79\]), but the existing and projected overload on CEC human translators was such that investigation continued in the hope that dictionary additions would improve the system to the point of usability. Additional versions of SYSTRAN were purchased (French-English in 1978, and Engllsh-Italian in 1979). The dream of acceptable quality for post-editing purposes was eventually realized: Pigott \[82\] reports that &amp;quot;...the enthusiasm demonstrated by \[a few translators\] seems to mark something of a turning point in \[machine translation\].&amp;quot; Currently, about 20 CEC translators in Luxambourg are using SYSTRAN on a Siamens 7740 computer for routine translation; one factor accounting for success is that the English and French dictionaries now consist of well over i00,000 entries in the very few technical areas for which SYSTRAN is being employed.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  Also in 1976, General Motors of Canada acquired SYSTRAN for translation of various manuals (for vehicle service, diesel locomotives, and highway transit coaches) from English into French on an IBM mainframe. GM's English-French dictionary had been expanded to over 130,000 terms by 1981 \[Sereda, 82\]. Subsequently, GM purchased an English-Spanish version of SYSTRAN, and is now working to build the necessary \[very large\] dictionary. Sereda \[82\] reports a speed-up of 3-4 times in the productivity of his human translators (from about 1000 words per day); he also reveals that developing SYSTRAN dictionary entries costs the company approximately $4 per term (word- or idiom-pair).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> While other SYSTRAN users have applied the system to unrestricted texts (in selected subject areas), Xerox has developed a restricted input language ('Multinational Customized English') after consultation with LATSEC. That is, Xerox requires its English technical writers to adhere to a specialized vocabulary and a strict manual of style. SYSTRAN is then employed to translate the resulting documents into French, Italian, and Spanish; Xerox hopes to add German and Portuguese.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Ruffino \[82\] reports &amp;quot;a five-to-one gain in translation time for most texts&amp;quot; with the range of gains being 2-10 times. This approach is not necessarily feasible for all organizations, but Xerox is willing to employ it and claims it also enhances source-text clarity.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Currently, SYSTRAN is being used in the CEC for the routine translation, followed by human post-editing, of around 1,000 pages of text per month in the couples English-French, French-English, and English-ltalian \[Wheeler, 83\]. Given this relative success in the CEC envirom-ent, the Commission has recently ordered an English-German version as well as a French-German version. Judging by past experience, it will be quite some time before these are ready for production use, but when ready they will probably save the CEC translation bureau valuable time, if not real money as well.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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