A Comparative Analysis of Web-based Machine Translation Quality: English to French and French to English (open access)

A Comparative Analysis of Web-based Machine Translation Quality: English to French and French to English

This study offers a partial reduplication of a 2006 study by Williams, which focused primarily on the analysis of the quality of translation produced by online software, namely Yahoo!® Babelfish, Freetranslation.com, and Google Translate. Since the data for the study by Williams were collected in 2004 and the data for present study in 2012, this gives a lapse of eight years for a diachronic analysis of the differences in quality of the translations provided by these online services. At the time of the 2006 study by Williams, all three services used a rule-based translation system, but, in October 2007, however, Google Translate switched to a system that is entirely statistical in nature. Thus, the present study is also able to examine the differences in quality between contemporary statistical and rule-based approaches to machine translation.
Date: December 2012
Creator: Barnhart, Zachary
System: The UNT Digital Library
Étude Comparative De Messages Publicitaires Anglophones Et Francophones À La Lumière D'éléments Culturels [Comparative Study of English and French Advertisements Through a Cultural Lens] (open access)

Étude Comparative De Messages Publicitaires Anglophones Et Francophones À La Lumière D'éléments Culturels [Comparative Study of English and French Advertisements Through a Cultural Lens]

This thesis aims to demonstrate the crucial role of cultural aspects such as attitudes, values, social common places, and expectations in the international advertising industry. Through the analysis of written advertisements used in the United States and France, general trends regarding various commercial sectors and products (automobiles, electronics, cosmetics, and so forth) are highlighted and explored. From a linguistic perspective, the purpose of this thesis is not only to observe the semantic differences between translations of the same slogans and messages, but also to draw attention to the tools used in doing so.
Date: December 2012
Creator: Tison, Jean-Bernard
System: The UNT Digital Library