Call for Papers: First Workshop on Human-Informed Translation and Interpreting Technology (HiT-IT)

Human translation and Machine Translation (MT) aim to solve the same problem (i.e. translating from one language into another) in two seemingly different ways.

There are many Natural Language Processing (NLP) / Computational linguistics efforts towards improving the work of translators and interpreters (for example Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools, electronic dictionaries, concordancers, spell-checkers, terminological databases and terminology extraction tools, translation memories, partial machine translation of template documents, speech recognition systems for automatic subtitling, etc.). In turn, the NLP field makes use of the work and the knowledge of professional translators and interpreters in to build models for automatic translation – e.g. by using parallel aligned text and speech corpora for text and speech machine translation learning, human evaluators of machine translation output, human annotations for automatic MT post-editing or using eye-tracking for learning editing patterns of professional translators, etc.

While there have been many workshops and conferences representing both sides: 1) Machine Translation in NLP (e.g. WMT, EAMT conferences), and 2) Automatic tools for translators and interpreters in Translation/Interpreting studies (e.g. Translating and The Computer, and the MT Summit conferences), there has not been a common publication & discussion venue for both sides.

What makes our workshop unique is that it is a unified workshop which welcomes the contributions of both fields towards each other.

This workshop addresses BOTH the most recent developments in contributions of NLP to translation/interpreting and the contributions of translation/interpreting to NLP/MT. In this way it addresses the interests of researchers & specialists in both areas and their joint collaborations, aiming for example to improve their own tasks with the techniques & knowledge of the other field or to help the development of the other field with their own techniques & knowledge.

Submissions are invited on the following and other similar topics:

Theoretical papers and practical applications on applying translation techniques & knowledge to NLP and machine translation

Theoretical papers and practical applications on applying interpreting techniques & knowledge to NLP and machine translation

Pre-editing and post-editing of machine translation

NLP approaches & systems for building educational tools & resources for interpreters

NLP approaches & systems for building educational tools & resources for translators

Computer-assisted translation tools, such as translation memories, machine translation, etc.

Translation resources, such as corpora, terminological databases, dictionaries

Computer-assisted interpreting software, such as interpreters workbench, etc.

Interpreting resources, such as corpora, terminological databases, dictionaries

User requirements for interpreting and translation tools

Methodologies for collecting user requirements

Human accuracy metrics and human evaluation of machine translation

Theoretical papers with translators/interpreters views on how machine translation should work/what output should produce

Human-in-the-loop in automatic generation of inter-lingual subtitles

Given the focus of the workshop, submitted papers should underline their interdisciplinarity and how they gain insights/make contributions from one field to another (human vs automatic translation/interpreting).

Researchers and practitioners in the two fields are invited to submit full papers describing original completed research, short papers presenting ongoing research ideas and demos of working systems. Both theoretical ideas and practical applications are welcome.

The workshop will organise a poster session, should enough submissions be collected.

The workshop will also include a round table featuring discussion of how both fields can be of use to each other, and an invited talk of a well-known researcher in the field.

A special issue of a journal on this topic is planned. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their articles. More details will be announced in the Second call for papers.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline: 28 June 2017

Acceptance notification: 28 July 2017

Camera-ready versions: 16 August 2017

Workshop Date : 7 September 2017

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Papers should be submitted through the START system at: https://www.softconf.com/ranlp2017/hitit/

We invite three types of submissions (both theoretical ideas and practical applications are welcome):

full papers which present unpublished original research. Their lengths should not exceed 8 pages (plus up to 2 pages for references)

short papers which present work in progress. Their lengths should not exceed 6 pages (plus up to 2 pages for references)

demo papers describing working systems. Their lengths should not exceed 4 pages (plus up to 2 pages for references).

In addition to the papers, the authors will be expected to demonstrate the systems at the workshop.

Submissions should follow the RANLP2017 guidelines, available at: http://lml.bas.bg/ranlp2017/submissions.php.

The reviewing will be blind, so papers should not include the authors’ names and affiliations, self-references revealing the author’s identity, and acknowledgments of funding or assistance.

Double submission is allowed, but authors will be asked to declare it at the time of submission. Submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Programme Committee. Authors of accepted papers will receive guidelines as to how to produce the final camera-ready versions of their papers for inclusion in the proceedings. The workshop proceedings will be uploaded in the ACL Anthology. A printed version will be available at the conference upon request.

FURTHER INFORMATION & CONTACT DETAILS

Conference organizers contact person:

Irina Temnikova, e-mail: irina.temnikova@gmail.com