AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 6, Number2.  May 2022                                                   Pp.54-69
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol6no2.4

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A Study of Pre-editing Methods at the Lexical Level in the Process of Machine Translation 

Fan Feifei
School of Humanities and Foreign Languages
Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, China

Chen Rong
School of Humanities and Foreign Languages
Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, China
Correspondent Author:chenrong@xupt.edu.cn

Wang Xiao
School of Humanities and Foreign Languages
Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, China

 

Received:1/7/2022                 Accepted:5/4/2022                Published: 5/24/2022

 

Abstract:
As the demand for translation increases, the role of machine translation in improving the efficiency of translation is increasingly prominent, but due to its inherent limitations, the translation quality of machine translation is not guaranteed. Pre-editing is one of the ways to enhance the quality of machine translated texts. With Google online translation as a tool, the effect of pre-editing on the quality of machine translation is studied by adopting the Bilingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU) approach. The pre-editing methods of additions, omissions, replacing and terminology preprocessing based on the lexical level are proposed. The results show these methods can play a role in improving the quality of English-to-Chinese machine translations. In most cases, pre-editing at the lexical level is sufficient to generate high-quality machine translation output, but the effectiveness of pre-editing can be further improved when perspective-shifting is involved or when the target language involves contextually consistent verb or person usage.
Keywords: Bilingual Evaluation Understudy, lexical level, machine translation, pre-editing

Cite as: Feifei, F., Rong, C., & Xiao, W. (2022). A Study of Pre-editing Methods at the Lexical Level in the Process of Machine Translation.  Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 6 (2) 54-69.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol6no2.4

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Received: 1/7/2022
Accepted: 5/4/2022
Published: 5/24/2022
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9522-2850
http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol6no2.4

Fan Feifei is a graduate student of Translation at the School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. Her research interest is in translation theory and practice.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9522-2850 

Chen Rong is an associate professor of English at the School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. She is engaged in research on English for specific purposes. 

Wang Xiao is a lecturer of English at the School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. Her research interests are English language education and translation.