Corpas Pastor, Gloria and Durán-Muñoz, Isabel (eds) (2018). Trends in E-Tools and Resources for Translators and Interpreters. Leiden (Netherlands): Brill/Rodopi, pp. 266, $110/€95. ISBN 978 9004351783.

This volume is a compilation of 10 papers, arranged in three parts, with the ultimate goal of raising practitioners’ awareness of the need to become tech savvy (4). It presents different types of e-tools and resources which are currently available or under development for translators and interpreters, features pioneering projects combining the efforts of academia and the industry and discusses methodological issues related to training. Regrettably, there is a bias towards translation as only two accounts deal with interpreting, and the one on emerging computer-assisted interpreting (CAI) tools offers limited insights into their quality and productivity. A strength of this publication is, however, its “balance and complementarity” (VIII) as suggested by Ruslan Mitkov in the Foreword, and it is comprehensive enough to benefit translation and interpreting (T&I) researchers, practitioners and trainers.

The contributions in Part 1 underline the increasing importance of technology in T&I contexts, and some of them give advice on future design and the development of ergonomics of user interfaces with the aim of improving practitioners’ efficiency. Based on her previous empirical research showing that freelance translators spend as much as 30% of their translation time on interactions with external resources, in Chapter 1, Gough explores how professional translators adopt resources while translating. She proposes a comprehensive framework for a multi-dimension analysis of translators’ research behaviour, an area overlooked by clients and relatively uncharted in Translation Studies. In Chapter 2, Zaretskaya, Corpas Pastor and Seghiri conduct a carefully planned survey investigating translators’ attitudes, practices and requirements with regard to e-tools. The authors of the first two papers point out that future e-tools should take practitioners’ working styles and habits into account and that they should include a full set of user-friendly features. In Chapter 3, Costa, Corpas Pastor and Durán-Muñoz compare standalone, web-based and mobile terminology management systems (TMSs) based on a set of features most relevant to interpreters’ jobs; this guides interpreters through the TMSs on the market. Furthermore, the authors emphasize the urgency to design terminology tools specifically for these end-users, taking consultation speed, intuitive navigation and information sharing etc. into account. As a part of designing meaning-based learning activities for a professional translation course, in Chapter 4, Poirier proposes deploying human translation technologies and natural language possessing applications in an innovative manner.

Part 2 centres around computer-assisted translation (CAT)and CAI issues, with Chapters 5 and 6 on CAT being especially impressive. Based on cooperation between translators, linguists, computer researchers and a multilingual text management firm, in Chapter 5, Picton, Planas and Josselin-Leray offer an interface prototype model, Argos, and state the usefulness of integrating specialised corpora into CAT tools. Collaborating with one of the world’s largest language services providers, in Chapter 6, Moran, Lewis and Saam describe the development of iOmegaT, an instrumented version of the open-source desktop-based CAT tool OmegaT. iOmegaT contains an analytics application aggregating user activity data (UAD) of translators, and UAD analysis will be useful for translation workflow enhancement and may help “optimise translation technology development and translator training” (137). CAI tools have only emerged in recent years and in Chapter 7, Fantinuoli gives a comprehensive overview of the development and features of the tools, outlines the challenges lying ahead and calls for empirical investigations into the impact of CAI tools and into didactic aspects of the tools. The ultimate goal of such technology should be an increase in interpreters’ efficiency and in the quality of their performance, but the paper offers few insights into these aspects.

Part 3 is devoted to machine translation (MT), with the first two papers addressing the design of genuine learning experiences that should be of particular interest to trainers. In Chapter 8, Bouillon et al. demonstrate the use of the ACCEPT Academic Portal in an MT course. The ACCEPT Academic Portal is a unique user-centred online platform which integrates the modules of advanced pre-editing, post-editing and evaluation of MT into a complete MT workflow. In Chapter 9, Rico, Sánchez-Gijón and Torres-Hostench illustrate their integration of a post-editing component in a localization course. Participants in these two chapters appreciate the proposed pedagogical activities and, perhaps more importantly, have a positive attitude towards working with MT while reflecting on their learning experiences. The papers are ideal examples of practical courses providing students with the opportunity to interact with e-tools. To address the industry’s concern with the quality of MT output, in Chapter 10, Tezcan, Hoste and Macken put forward the SCATE (Smart Computer-aided Translation Environment) MT error taxonomy and build an annotated corpus of MT errors, followed by a comparison and analysis of the profiles of errors made by different MT systems. The analysis method is novel and complex, and their findings may lead to improvements in existing MT quality estimation systems.

Generally, this book makes a valuable contribution to the field of technology implementation in T&I contexts as it sufficiently documents recent technological advances that address practitioners’ needs, and brings forward ingenious proposals for university teaching with usage of e-tools and resources. It also injects new vigour to research by suggesting new directions, by introducing inventive applications and taxonomies and by calling for studies of different natures and the use of modern experimental techniques.

Maggie Hui
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
E-mail: maggie.hui@polyu.edu.hk