Computerlinguistische Methoden für die Digital Humanities. Eine Einführung für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen

by Melanie Andresen

While I was studying Applied Linguistics at university in Hamburg back in the 1990s, the academic subject of computer linguistics was just developing. I touched on the interdisciplinary field of computing and foreign language learning and teaching in some of my courses and later went on to write my Master's thesis about acquiring foreign-language vocabulary using software packages currently on the German market.

In other courses, we analysed language textbooks by using a digital corpus we created ourselves and rudimentary commands written in Turbo Pascal, a programming language popular at the time. This simple computer analysis of the contents and structure of language textbooks was essentially a practical, hands-on introduction to corpus linguistics in the language education sector.

A lot has happened in educational computing since then and a host of studies have been carried out based on digital corpuses of written language from sources like novels or news magazines. Lexicographers (dictionary compilers) built up huge databases of pre-existing linguistic data, most of which was in written form rather than spoken, and analysed these by computer to obtain information about the various senses of a word, its frequency and the contexts in which it was used in the corpus, for example. The Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary project was an early case in point from the 1980s and led to some very useful material being produced for language learners and teachers alike.

Some of the methods employed in corpus linguistics are also used in the field of computer linguistics, so there is an overlap to an extent. Melanie Andresen points this out in the introduction to her recent book on methods used in the digital humanities today, explaining how the two fields are linked and how they differ (see pp. 14-16). In a nutshell, while corpus linguistics describes the use of language by analysing corpora and looking for linguistic patterns, computer linguistics tries to model languages on computers in order to find technical solutions to practical problems (p. 16, quoting T. McEnery & A. Hardie, Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 228).

Computer linguists analyse language corpora for a number of reasons, one of which is to learn how to simulate speech on a computer and get it to produce helpful responses to things that users say. So one aim is to create chatbots and other 'interactive assistants' that can converse with customers in a naturally sounding way and help them achieve what they want to do (finding out how to get somewhere while they are driving, say).

Melanie Andresen's book is aimed at newcomers to the subject who have a background in the humanities and who presumably want to know how computational methods from another field can help them analyse humanistic data in new ways, gaining insights they would not have discovered otherwise by taking a traditional approach. She begins by outlining the basic concepts of linguistics of relevance to computer linguists, such as lexical aspects of language, syntax, semantics and pragmatics (chapters 2 to 8 ). The second part of the book concerns specific methods, such as corpus searches, manual annotation, machine learning and deep learning (chapters 9 to 12). These last two chapters will be of particular interest to translators who use CAT tools or online tools with an MT (machine-translation) component like Linguee/DeepL.

The third and final section of the book is called 'Gesellschaft' (society) and explores the issue of ethics in computer linguistics, or rather, artificial intelligence. Spanning 12 pages (in the first edition of the book), this part discusses issues such as dual uses of technology (i.e. conflicting uses), unclear authorship and 'author profiling' using metadata about people who have provided some of the linguistic data in the corpus (section 13.2). Other topics she goes into are bias, discrimination and (lack of) representation in the data, which all have a negative effect on the computer's linguistic output.

I'm still reading this interesting book at the moment, but one thing that's struck me already is that the author focuses on explaining what computer linguistics is rather than giving her readers an idea of how it could be employed in their own area of the humanities. (The digital dictionary examples above are my own, not hers.) How might it be employed by historians, for example? Some practical suggestions and pointers would have been helpful, I'm sure.

Still, Andresen's introduction to the subject is well written and certainly gives the reader some insights into a new interdisciplinary field that is expanding rapidly. Here's a link to the book on the publisher's website. You can order a printed copy of it online or from any bookshop (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2024, €26.99 for the softcover version, €21.99 for the e-book).

Enjoy the read.

Carl

Friday, 8 August 2025

Verstehen und Übersetzen

by Paul Kußmaul

This work is a textbook for students of translation studies. It stands out from the crowd because of the way it's written: it's clear and practical, and doesn't get overly abstract when it addresses theoretical aspects of cognition and semantics. The author taught translators at the University of Mainz in Germersheim, Germany, for many years and often draws on what he experienced in his classes, introducing questions the students had and explaining how they tackled linguistic problems encountered during translation exercises.

The book is divided into eight chapters and spans 230 pages in its third, revised edition (from 2015). The first edition of it appeared in 2007, so it seems to be popular (and justifiably so in my opinion). Each chapter is followed by a short section with exercises to practise what has just been covered in the book, and some suggested answers can be found at the back, which is handy.

I like the variety of topics in this book. Initially, the author discusses lexical "false friends", ambiguity and knowing which word or meaning to pick in a dictionary (is a brush a "Pinsel" or a "Bürste" in German?). He looks at semantic prototypes and "framing" (1.5) in connection with mental images of words and situations to be translated and then covers words that are "hard to translate" (1.7).

Some of the examples he picks are taken from questionnaires in English that were translated for mass surveys in various European countries (ISSP surveys). These often contain references to culture-specific terms, such as "National Insurance Contributions", but even words like "local" or "government" (p. 88) can turn out to be tricky to translate and call for careful reflection (pp. 37, 38). One of the key points Kußmaul makes is that words don't live in isolation, but in a specific cultural setting (2.1), which a translator also needs to bear in mind.

Here are a few more points he covers: how close should a translation be? (chap. 3), the need to differentiate (3.3), how to go about researching a term or subject (4.1), linguistic v encyclopaedic knowledge, expanding your vocabulary by learning new meanings of existing words, going beyond dictionaries when their entries fail to help (4.2), referring to online resources (IATE, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) and analysing texts properly to deduce the right meaning of a word in its context (dictionaries don't always offer the right answer!).

In the second half of the textbook, the author looks at cognitive translation processes (chap. 5), creativity in translation (6), visualising and scenes (7), and problem-solving as a translator, along with various practical strategies and techniques (8) translators can use.

In a nutshell, then, "Verstehen und Übersetzen" is a useful, hands-on textbook that is well worth reading. And astonishingly for a German textbook, it's actually easy to follow.

Link to the e-book on the publisher's website (Narr Verlag). You can also order a printed copy of the book online or from any bookshop.

Best,

Carl

Thursday, 3 February 2022

"Best Practices – Übersetzen und Dolmetschen. Ein Nachschlagewerk aus der Praxis für Sprachmittler und Auftraggeber", (Hg.) Angelika Ottman

Dieses vielversprechende Buch erscheint demnächst beim BDÜ Fachverlag. Hier eine kurze Beschreibung dazu:



"Best Practices sind bewährte Verfahrensweisen, d. h. Methoden, Prozesse, Arbeitsweisen und Modelle, die sich in der Praxis bewährt haben und von einem Großteil der Praktiker angewendet und unterstützt werden. Das Werk wendet sich an alle, die mit den Dienstleistungen Übersetzen und Dolmetschen befasst sind, sei es als Ausführende (Übersetzer, Dolmetscher), als Vermittler (Agenturen) oder als Auftraggeber (Unternehmen, Behörden, Institutionen). Die Best Practices legen die Standards der Branche zu Vorgehensweisen beim Übersetzen und Dolmetschen dar. Mehr als 40 Autoren aus der Praxis geben ihr Expertenwissen weiter.



Bis 31.12.2016 gibt es das Werk zum günstigen Subskriptionspreis.



Für BDÜ-Mitglieder gilt bis Jahresende ein einmaliger Sonderpreis."



(Diese Angaben zum Buch sind zuerst am 21.12.2016 auf XING erschienen. Ich gebe sie hier nur wieder. Das Werk klingt, als würde es eine sehr nützliche Informationsquelle für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher sein. Auf der Bestellseite vom BDÜ Fachverlag findet man eine PDF des Inhaltsverzeichnisses als "Leseprobe" zum Reinschnuppern ...)



Frohe Feiertage! Carl



P.S.: Mehr über die Inhalte des Buches erfahren Sie in der Februar-Ausgabe der Fachzeitschrift MDÜ. Einige Aspekte werden darin einen Themenschwerpunkt bilden.

Book review: 'Alltag in Großbritannien. Leben und arbeiten in England, Schottland und Wales' by Katrin Koll Prakoonwit, Conbook Verlag, 2013



ISBN 978-3-943176-15-5, 384 pages, €18.95 (in Germany)



If you really want to learn a foreign language quickly, one of the best ways of doing so is by going to a country where it is spoken and living among the locals for a while. Practically every professional translator and interpreter will have done this at some point in their life and then have experienced a 'culture shock' when they discovered life was organised in a different way than what they were used to. This is where books like 'Alltag in Großbritannien' [Life in Great Britain] come in useful – for people who move abroad for a certain period (or even for good) and want to understand the way society works and get their bearings as quickly as possible.



'Alltag in Großbritannien' is aimed primarily at German speakers, but I'm sure it would be equally useful for anyone who can understand German and is intending to move to the UK. It explains what everyday life is like there and points out any obvious differences between British and German life where this is likely to provide some helpful insights.



The book was first published in 2013, which means some sections of it are slightly outdated now (in May 2015), but the publisher saw this coming and has kept it pretty much up to date on its website, providing current information and new material – see this page. A great idea!



Besides being able to refer to these, readers of the book are also provided with a large number of web links to further sources of information on the subjects covered in each chapter.



This practical guide focuses on many aspects of daily life in England, Scotland and Wales and is divided into 24 chapters and five annexes, including a helpful glossary of key terms (what's an ISA? It tells you here), and it has a comprehensive index in German and English as well so you can look up individual terms and see what sections to read.



The book starts with a general introduction to the country's geography and history and then goes on to describe its institutions (e.g. the political and judicial system, the police and armed forces, and the monarchy) and Britain's multicultural society. The next sixteen chapters (3 to 18) each focus on a particular aspect of everyday life, e.g.

- how to look for a house or flat (ch. 3)

- moving to Britain (ch. 5)

- driving (ch. 6)

- public transport (ch. 7)

- looking for employment (ch. 8 )

- insurance policies (ch. 12)

- marriage and family life (ch. 13)

- schools (ch. 14) and higher education (ch. 15).

The author even looks at shopping and British food (ch. 16 and 17).



To help German-speaking readers understand the British mentality better, Katrin Prakoonwit also touches on this subject (ch. 19) and provides some language tips to make it easier for them to communicate naturally with the locals (ch. 20 and 21).



In chapter 24, she comes full circle again by explaining what practical steps are necessary if you decide to move back home again after your stay. You can tell she has put a lot of thought and practical research into every single subject she has covered here. (She moved to the UK herself a few years ago and is therefore talking from personal experience.)



In my opinion, this book is essential reading for anyone who is considering moving over to the UK to work, study or simply to stay for a while. The sections I have read so far are all written in a compact way and yet often make interesting and even entertaining reading. It's an excellent introduction to everyday life in Britain with lots of valid internet references for further reading.



Incidentally, the publisher has also produced six other guides of this kind so far on living in the US, Australia, France, Sweden, Switzerland and even Mallorca (a favourite destination for many Germans). See this page on the Conbooks website for more details.



To order a copy of the book, go to the publisher's website or purchase it via Amazon.de, for example. (The Amazon page lets you browse through parts of the book.) You can also order it from your local bookshop if you prefer, of course.



Hope you enjoy the read.



Carl

 

Recently I came across a reference to a book on editing that caught my attention, partly because I hadn't encountered many comprehensive guides on editing at that point and partly because this one was specifically aimed at translators. It turned out that the work had been around since 2001 and was now in its third edition (issued by Routledge in early 2014), so it was obviously popular and had been updated, too).



"Revising and Editing for Translators" is written by Brian Mossop, a Canadian who worked for the Canadian Government's Translation Bureau for many years and now teaches editing/revision and translation at university level. The author's considerable experience of revising translations and teaching students and teachers alike about revising and editing is reflected in the clear structure, real-life examples and broad scope of this work.



Routledge's edition of the book is 244 pages long and divided into 14 chapters. These are followed by six appendices (e.g. on assessing quality and grading texts) and a list of bibliographical references and other books and articles for further reading, plus a helpful index. There are a number of practical exercises and tips for further reading at the end of each chapter, which relate to the subject matter covered. This way of presenting material makes the book suitable for self-study as well as classroom use.



What I like about this work is its clarity: the language the author uses is straightforward and lucid (not academic and dense), the chapters are structured well and he employs plenty of examples to make his points understood. He also illustrates different kinds of attitudes and approaches to editing/revising, i.e. proscriptive v. liberal, without dictating the stance the reader should actually take.



I also like the amount of differentiation Mossop uses, which makes it clear how many different levels there are to editing and how many factors play a role in the choices editors make (cf. chapter 2, "The work of an editor", chapter 3, "Copyediting" and chapter 4, "Stylistic editing", for example); basically, chapters 2 to 7 all make this point.



Chapter 8 is particularly interesting in my view as it's concerned with software tools that editors and revisers can employ:

- internet searches to check terms and phraseology using search engines like Google

- looking for definitions of terms online

- using bilingual databases like Linguee and WeBiText and online translation-memory programs

- using editing features that word-processing programs offer (spelling and grammar checks, find & replace, displaying changes, adding reviewer's comments, comparing different versions of documents, etc.)



Mossop also makes a clear (albeit personal) distinction between editing and revising at the beginning of the book and consequently divides the work into two sections on each area. Chapters 2 to 7 are on editing, while 9 to 14 are on revising. In a nutshell, he takes editing to mean "reading a text which is not a translation in order to spot problematic passages, and making any needed corrections or improvements" (p. 29). As for revising, he regards this as a task "in which [translators] find features of the draft translation that fall short of what is acceptable, as determined by some concept of quality" (p. 115).



In chapter 10, he discusses 12 parameters that play a role in revision, including accuracy, completeness, logic, facts, page layout and even typography (i.e. the use of bold, italicised or underlined text, capitalisation and colouring). Chapter 11 covers degrees of revision (from "intelligible" to "polished"), whether or not full or partial checks should be done and the risks inherent in spot checking. Chapter 12 is about the actual revision procedure (e.g. which steps to take and in which order) and what you can do about any unsolved issues.



There's a lot more to the book than I can write about here. In short, I'd say it's essential reading for any translator, not just for editors and copywriters, since every translator has to read their own work through and edit (or "revise") it themselves before sending it off to the customer. I'm surprised I only discovered the book by chance, but that may be because it used to be published by a very small specialist publisher (St. Jerome Publishing); perhaps word will spread faster now that Routledge is backing it. (Click here for details about the book.)



Carl

Although "The Entrepreneurial Linguist" by linguists Judy and Dagmar Jenner first appeared on the book market in 2010, I have to admit it took me a while to get round to buying a copy and reading it myself. Fortunately, many of the subjects the book covers are still applicable to freelance translation work today – as the title implies, it's mostly about setting up and running a translation business long-term rather than using specific software tools to get your work done, although these are also discussed briefly.

The book is basically a practical "how to" guide and covers 11 subject areas over almost 200 pages. The choice of topics is a personal one reflecting the two authors' own interests and activities – as translators, bloggers, members of translators' associations and conference speakers. This and the fact that it focuses on ways of doing business soundly and successfully ("the business-school approach" in the title) make it stand out from other works of this kind, which try to be as general as possible. It's also not solely directed at translators in the US market – the two authors actually work in different countries, the United States and Austria. They are also sisters and spend time together in each other's country every year, which gives them a broader perspective on business than usual.

Consequently, the scope of this book is pretty wide. It sets the scene by addressing the way you should see yourself as a freelance translator, namely as an independent entrepreneur who wants to make a living from his or her skills:

"The first thing you need to do is stop thinking of yourself as 'just' a freelance linguist and to start thinking of yourself as a business. You are selling your services; therefore, you are a business."

(p. 19)

This might seem obvious, but it's worth reminding ourselves what we are actually doing from time to time as it's easy to lose sight of sometimes. The Jenners also make a point of putting things into context: "In addition, one-person businesses account for a staggering 78% of all U.S. businesses" (according to figures from 2007; p. 20).

Having discussed the best mindset to adopt, the Jenners turn to organisation and accounting, a section which contains useful tips (including the very wise insight that it might be best to get a trained accountant to help you rather than attempting to tackle the financial side of your business all by yourself, which not everyone's cut out to do). The authors then go into some detail about social media, networking, blogging and marketing (the longest sections, in fact) and subsequently talk about strategies for developing your business (in a nutshell, "no pain, no gain" and "yes, you can"!).

This is followed by sections on pricing, negotiating, professional development, getting actively involved in an association and starting up a local chapter, and getting the right balance between your work and private life. A recap in the final chapter conveniently sums up the most important points made in the book.

As I've said, this is a personal selection of topics; the sections on blogging and "giving back" won't appeal to every reader as we are all under time constraints and things like blogging and playing an active role in a professional association are time-consuming and may involve travel as well as background research. But still, there's something of value for every translator in this book. In fact, much of what's said applies to anyone who wants to set up a business of their own. A worthwhile read.

Regards,

Carl

Links

• Judy and Dagmar Jenner's website on "The Entrepreneurial Linguist"




• the sisters' own blog on translating and interpreting, Translation Times.

You can order a copy of the book from Lulu.com, other internet bookshops or your conventional high-street bookshop. The book is available in print and as an e-book (PDF).

image: © Judy and Dagmar Jenner, The Entrepreneurial Linguist

This month's issue of my German translation association's journal MDÜ (3/13) has just arrived in the post. This time it focuses on "human issues", namely coping with stress: the difficult or unsettling situations we experience at work, how we react to them and what we can do to cope with them better. Three of the four articles on these subjects are actually about interpreting – in court, for example, and in a medical environment:

• "Mitfühlen, nicht mitleiden – Dolmetschen im medizinischen Bereich"


• "Machen Sie dem Stress Beine – persönliche Bewältigungsstrategien entwickeln" (with a checklist on personal stress factors)


• "Wenn Helfer Hilfe brauchen – zur psychischen Belastung beim juristischen Dolmetschen"


• "Wenn es einfach zu viel wird – sekundäre Traumatisierung" (interpreting in extreme situations).

It's good to see these topics being addressed in our own trade journal, particularly as it currently has a relatively wide reach with the largest circulation of its kind in the German-speaking world (over 8,000 issues a month, apparently). Mental strain ("psychische Belastung") is something we all have to deal with at some point, and we should think about it and discuss it with colleagues and friends to find ways of handling it effectively. If we don't, it can lame us.

The second article in the above list – on stress at work – is something we will all be able to relate to personally (and the two checklists at the end of it are likely to be helpful aids we can use to reduce stress). Click here to access part of the article as a PDF file (go to the bottom of the page that appears and then click on "Titelthema").

There are three things I've noticed over the years that can be a cause of stress or anxiety at my own workplace from time to time:

• assignments don't come in regularly, but in fits and starts


• it's hard to predict when work is going to be coming in, which makes it difficult to plan your time in terms of what you'll be doing over the next few weeks or months


• as the amount of work varies, so does your income and liquidity.

What can we do about these negative aspects of our work? Well, first of all, I'd say that what we do largely depends on what kind of person we are: introverted, extroverted, ready to pick up the phone and get the ball rolling by contacting customers and asking them about work we are likely to get from them in the near future, or asking them when they will be able to settle an outstanding bill, for example. There's no "right" way of tackling problems that will work for everyone; we all need to choose an approach that suits us personally.

Birgit Golms has emphasised this point in her excellent little book on marketing for translators and interpreters, which I reviewed here in June.

By making marketing an integral part of the working week (or month), we can

• increase our general workload in the short and long term


• balance out the lulls in our work, creating a more even spread of the workload


• increase our monthly and annual income as well as improving our liquidity, thereby reducing the strain on our minds caused by an unsatisfactory business situation.

That's it for this post. To get some more insights and tips, why not take a look at some of the guides on marketing for small businesses available in your own language or talk to a few of your colleagues and pick their brains? Just seeing that other people are in the same position as you are can calm you down by putting things into perspective.

Regards

Carl

image: courtesy of BDÜ Weiterbildungs- und Fachverlags GmbH

As the German title says, this practical little book is a basic guide on marketing and is specifically tailored to the needs of translators and interpreters. Although it's written for speakers of German, I expect much of what it has to say is equally applicable to other cultures as well, although marketing styles no doubt vary internationally.



Author Birgit Golms is an expert on the subject of marketing and holds workshops on it as well as writing articles and books on related issues (partly for the German Association of Interpreters and Translators (BDÜ), which I happen to belong to). You can tell she's familiar with the way in which translators and interpreters work and think as she provides lots of practical examples that ring a bell.

The book is a handy size – approx. 150 pages long and A5 size, so it can just about fit into your coat pocket. It's divided into four practical sections: (1) how to position yourself, (2) the basic marketing material you need, (3) how to win customers and (4) developing your own marketing strategies and putting them into practice.



One of the things that make it a bit different from many "Ratgeber" is that it's meant to be used, not just read – it includes various checklists and plenty of practical tips and links to resources on the Web. Since the guide was published in 2011, it's also fairly up to date (so most of the links will still be active) and it puts a lot of emphasis on self-marketing via the internet, e.g. by means of your own website or blog or by using social media. What I particularly liked here was the author's open-minded approach to tapping social media as a marketing resource – it's not everybody's cup of tea, and how much (and how successfully) you use it will depend on your own personality.

In my opinion, "Marketing für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer" is well worth the read for any self-employed person interested in boosting their turnover and winning new customers. At 20 euros, it's reasonably priced as non-fiction goes and the investment is quite likely to help you move your business in the direction you want it to go (and make your income flow more steadily as well thanks to the extra custom you get).

You can order the book from BDÜ Fachverlag in Berlin or from any good bookseller.

(German) ISBN: 978-3-938430-34-7

Carl

image: courtesy of BDÜ Weiterbildungs- und Fachverlagsgesellschaft mbH