„eTranslation TermBank“ – naujas tarptautinis projektas Europos Komisijos automatinio vertimo kokybei pagerinti

205Terminology | 2017 | 24 eTranslation TermBank – a new international project to improve the quality of machine translation for the European Commission EGLĖ PESLIAKAITĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas On 1 September 2017, the new international project “eTranslation TermBank: Collection and provision of fieldand language-specific terminology resources for the digital public service sector” was launched. The main project coordinator is Tilde (Latvia). The project also involves representatives of eight institutions from Lithuania (Institute of Lithuanian Language), Denmark (University of Copenhagen), Estonia (Institute of Estonian Language), Slovenia (Joseph Stephen Institute), Austria (International Terminology Network (TermNet)), Iceland (Arne Magnusson Institute of Icelandic Studies) and Sweden (Institute of Language and Folklore, Swedish Terminology Centre). The aim of the project is to improve the quality and coverage of the European Commission’s machine translation. AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION – Linguistic diversity is a great asset of the European Union, but in today’s digital world, multilingualism often creates barriers, language barriers making it difficult not only to communicate, but also to cooperate between citizens and countries of the European Union. Machine translation (eTranslation) is one of the services funded under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme, which aims to bridge the missing links between Europe's energy, transport and digital resources. The translation service has been in operation since 2013 and is available to the EU institutions, Member State administrations and several European Commission information systems and web services. This translation is based on statistical machine translation (MT) technology, which learns to translate from available human translations (see European Language Resource Coordination for more details, accessible via the 206 Eglė Pesliakaitė eTranslation TermBank – a new international project Europos Komisijos automatinio vertimo kokybei pagerinti Internet: http://www.lr-coordination.eu). With automatic translation, users can instantly translate words, sentences, documents and web pages from one language to another. Most importantly, the machine translation system can also be connected to any digital service infrastructure for public administration (DSP) required for European cooperation. Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs), such as eHealth, Open Data Portal, Online Dispute Resolution Portal, etc., and make these infrastructures multilingual. However, in order to achieve efficient results for the benefit of European public administrations and public service users, i.e. quality translation and access to services in their mother tongue, it is necessary to accumulate as many appropriate language resources as possible. The eTranslation TermBank partners have joined forces to achieve this goal. The eTranslation TermBank project is managed by the European Coordination Network for Language Resources (ECNLR), supported by the EIF, and its Language Resources Council members (national representatives in each European Union country), who provide information on the terminology resources of each country. The project, which will last one and a half years, aims to collect field-specific terminology resources in all EU languages (plus Norwegian and Icelandic) and make them available to the digital public services sector. The European Commission is currently working to strengthen digital public services in several areas that require machine translation, namely health (eHealth), business law (company registration, deregistration (eJustice)) and consumer protection (online dispute resolution). The project will be implemented in 3 stages: 1. Identification of terminology resources. 2. Assessment of identified resources. 3. Providing appropriate terminology resources for the machine translation platform. Since it is important that machine translation is useful for the whole of Europe and translates from all the languages of the European Union into all, the nine project partners have shared the European languages whose terminology resources will be identified, collected, evaluated and made available for machine translation. Lithuanian representatives will work with Lithuanian, Polish and Italian terminology resources during the project. 207Terminology | 2017 | 24 In order to achieve the project objectives, the partners will cooperate with national institutions working with terminology and having the necessary resources across Europe. The project aims to collect 150 new terminology resources not yet registered in the European Commission databases and not included in the machine translation system in all languages of the European Union, as well as Norwegian and Icelandic. At the initiative of the project coordinators, new terminology resources will be added to the machine translation system, thus improving the quality of machine translation and expanding the full access to public services provided by the European Commission. The project will also provide a catalogue of national institutions working with terminology, a catalogue of terminology resources covering specific fields, and a methodology for the preparation and application of terminology resources for machine translation. Thus, the project will also be extremely valuable in order to expand and strengthen the cooperation between European terminologists and institutions working with terminology resources. eTranslation Termbank – A New International Project to Improve the Quality of Automated Translations for the European Commission 1 September 2017 saw the start of a new international project called eTranslation TermBank: collection and provision of terminological resources in sector-specific domains and languages of interest to sectorspecific digital public services. The key coordinator for this project is Tilde (Latvia); In addition, there are eight other partners involved in the project: the Institute of the Lithuanian Language (Lithuania), the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the Institute of the Estonian Language (Estonia), the Jožef Stefan Institute (Slovenia), the International Network of Terminology, TermNet (Austria), the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies (Iceland), and the Institute of Language and Folklore and the Swedish Centre for Terminology (Sweden). The project aims to improve the quality and coverage of automated translations for the European Commission. 208 Eglė Pesliakaitė eTranslation TermBank – a new international project Europos Komisijos automatinio vertimo kokybei pagerinti ETRANSLATION TO BRING DOWN LANGUAGE BARRIERS IN EUROPE Linguistic diversity is a key value of the European Union, however in today’s digital world multilingualism often creates obstacles and language barriers that make it more difficult for the citizens and Member States of the European Union to communicate and cooperate. Automated translation, or eTranslation, is a service financed under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) that aims to provide the missing links between energy, transport domains, and digital resources in Europe. The translation service was launched in 2013 and is available to EU institutions, Member State administrations, and several European Commission information systems and Internet services. This type of translation is based on the machine translation (MT) technology, which learns to translate from the available pool of man-made translations (for details, see European Language Resource Coordination, online access at: http://www.lrcoordination.eu). Automated translation allows users to translate words, whole sentences, documents, and websites from one language to another. The most important thing is that the eTranslation system can also be customised and connected to render multilingual any public administration digital service infrastructure (DSI) needed to enable cooperation in Europe, such as e-health services, the open data portal, the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) portal, and so on. Still, to achieve outcomes that are both effective and beneficial to European public service administration institutions and public service users, which outcomes would constitute high-quality translations and a possibility to use the services in one’s mother tongue, we have to accumulate as many adequate language resources as possible. It is to attain that purpose that the partners of the eTranslation TermBank project joined forces. PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND DELIVERABLES The eTranslation TermBank project is supervised by the European Language Resource Coordination network and its members from the Language Resources Council (national representatives in every Member State) supporting the collection of data in each country. The eighteen-month project is geared towards collection and provision of sector-specific terminological resources for all European Union (as well as Norwegian and Icelandic) languages to sector-specific digital public services. Currently, the European Commission seeks to strengthen the digital public services in several domains that require automated translation, such as health 209Terminology | 2017 | 24 (e-Health), business legislation (company registration and de-registration; e-Justice), and consumer protection (ODR - Online Dispute Resolution)). The project will be implemented in three stages: 1. Identification of the required terminological resources. 2. Assessment of the resources identified. 3. Provision of the appropriate terminological resources to the eTranslation platform. Since it is critical for automated translation to benefit the entire Europe and be able to provide translations from and to every European Union language, the nine partners in the project have divided among themselves the European languages whose resources they will be identifying, compiling, and providing for automatic translation. The Lithuanian party will work with Lithuanian, Polish, and Italian language terminological resources in this project. To achieve the objectives of the project, the partners will cooperate with pan-European national bodies that work with terminology and possess the required resources. A total of 150 new terminological resources for all European Union languages, as well as Norwegian and Icelandic, that have never been registered in the European Commission’s databases or included in the automated translation system are to be collected in the course of implementation of the project. At the initiative of the project coordinators, the eTranslation system will be enhanced with the new terminological resources, which will allow improving the quality of automated translation and secure the opportunity for the users to fully enjoy the European Commission’s public services. In the process of delivering the project’s objectives, a catalogue of national institutions working with terminology and a catalogue of sectorspecific terminological resources will be made and a methodology of preparation and application of terminological resources for automated translation drafted, which will greatly increase the project’s value for expanding and reinforcing the fine-tuned cooperation among European terminologists and institutions that work with terminological resources. Article translated into English by Jūras Barauskas Retrieved 2017-10-30. Eglė Pesliakaitė Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania El. p. [email protected]