2014/15 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue
MODL5003M Principles and Applications of Machine Translation
15 creditsClass Size: 40
Module manager: Dr Bogdan Babych
Email: b.babych@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2014/15
This module is mutually exclusive with
| MODL5005M | Computers and the Translator |
This module is not approved as an Elective
Objectives
On completion of this module, students should be able to:- Explain the principal architectures of machine translation (MT) and their rationales.
- Describe the achievements and limitations of commercially available MT systems.
- Assess which text types are most suitable for processing with these technologies.
- Use one or more commercial MT systems to produce translations.
- Create new dictionaries for one or more commercial MT systems.
- Conduct evaluations of MT systems from both a user's perspective and a developer's perspective.
- Orient themselves in the MT research literature.
Syllabus
This module aims to equip you with the ability to advise organisations whether it makes sense to use machine translation (MT) to support their multilingual information needs. To do this, you need a combination of conceptual knowledge and practical experience providing answers to the following questions.
- What are the general problems in enabling machines to 'understand' language?
- What are the particular problems of translation by machine?
- How are programs designed to solve these linguistic problems efficiently?
- Which text types are most amenable to MT?
- What are the different uses of MT output?
- How can a user improve the performance of an MT system?
- How can MT be integrated into an organisation's workflow?
- What systems are available?
- What are the most appropriate and reliable techniques for evaluating MT systems?
- What alternatives to MT exist?
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Lecture | 5 | 1.00 | 5.00 |
| Practical | 10 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| Seminar | 5 | 1.00 | 5.00 |
| Private study hours | 130.00 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20.00 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 150.00 | ||
Private study
24 hours - reading48 hours - preparation for classes
58 hours - background reading / preparation for assessment.
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
Monitoring of weekly practical classes and dictionary exercise.Methods of assessment
Coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
| Assignment | Creation and validation of approximately 30 dictionary entries for a machine translation system (week 8) | 20.00 |
| Case Study | Case study of 1,500 words | 80.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100.00 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 07/10/2011
Browse Other Catalogues
- Undergraduate module catalogue
- Taught Postgraduate module catalogue
- Undergraduate programme catalogue
- Taught Postgraduate programme catalogue
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team.PROD