Geographers have long engaged with questions of language and translation, creating an interesting bifurcation within debates: for scholars who write in multiple languages, discussions about translation become urgent; while for those writing solely in English these matters can remain more peripheral or hidden away from public view.
Geographical Text Translation (GTA) is a new tool designed to simplify the process of identifying, georeferencing, processing and mapping geographical information contained within textual sources. It has been created under the leadership of researchers at Lancaster University.
Language
Geographic Text Translation (GTT) utilizes English as its base language. To accomplish its aim, this technique combines technologies from Natural Language Processing, Corpus Linguistics, and Geographic Information Systems into its workflow, in order to recognize geographical information in texts. Template libraries based on categories of geographical names are then compared against entries found in Geographic Names Database and evaluated manually for suitability before being returned for approval or rejection by humans.
Even though many geographers work, study, and live across many linguistic environments, it remains surprisingly common to find an overwhelming concentration of research literature about geography in English. This can be seen both through editorial policies of top journals as well as how geographers publish their papers: for instance most German or French geographers publish exclusively in English journals and vice versa.
George Steiner famously observed, „Without translation, we would all live in provinces bordering on silence.” This statement highlights how vital language and communication are in daily human life and interaction; our cultural identities depend on choosing languages appropriate to where we come from as well.
Translation can be challenging, so it’s vitally important for those working in translation to keep this in mind when designing their system. Furthermore, different characteristics in different languages could affect performance of translation systems significantly – particularly geographical text where lexical differences and cultural context are significant factors.
Translation is an indispensable aspect of modern life, yet can also create tension. Geographic text translation presents unique challenges due to a lack of shared vocabulary and cultural assumptions and biases which influence its translation. Yet despite these barriers, translation can still serve as an effective means for communicating geographical knowledge – particularly useful in areas with limited resources where access to geographic data may be limited due to poor infrastructure; translating geographic text allows knowledge to spread even in areas otherwise denied of such access.
Culture
Translating from one language into another requires an intimate knowledge of its culture of origin. This is especially essential when translating geographical texts as different cultures often have diverging conceptions of geography that could cause mistranslations that create miscommunication between readers of translated text. One striking example was seen when Google Translate began translating Lorem Ipsum from cod Latin into „appearingly geopolitical and startlingly modern” English phrases such as China, NATO and Internet – without any obvious intent of manipulation from Google itself; yet this highlights just how cultural factors have an effect on translations of all kinds.
Cultural translation is an integral component of geographical text translation, allowing literature and art from various cultures to be distributed around the globe. Cultural translation also fosters cultural understanding by encouraging readers from varying backgrounds to read works written by authors from across cultures – helping facilitate multiculturalism worldwide and fostering intellectual exchange across cultures.
Cultural translation can also be problematic when used to perpetuate biases and stereotypes, for example the phrase „clash of civilisations”, which can be taken to be an attempt at asserting western dominance over Muslim-majority countries or simply creating new meaning not intended by its author; for instance in Arabic this term translates directly as instruction (adab).
Geographers have long grappled with translation, yet only became an explicit focus in the 1990s as an effect of more scholars working outside English entering discourse on language and discourse (Barnes 1992; Duncan 1996). This led to division in these debates between those who saw translation as integral part of foreign fieldwork versus those who considered it more of an academic activity that required proficiency across multiple languages regardless of where one worked or spoke them (Barnaby 1992; Duncan 1996).
Audience
Localization refers to the process of adapting content to meet the needs and preferences of specific audiences. This may be accomplished using translation software, subject matter experts and a thorough review and proofreading process. Localization can help businesses expand their global presence while expanding and growing their business.
Geographic text translation involves translating texts that contain geographical references into another language, including names of locations, landmarks and place-related words. This process may prove challenging as these terms often have cultural or historical meaning in their source language.
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Technology
Utilizing technology to translate geographic text is an integral aspect of studies in geography. Being able to quickly and accurately translate texts can have several significant ramifications; businesses could communicate more efficiently across borders while automating translation processes could reduce costs significantly.
Research projects are investigating ways technology can aid translation. One such research initiative involves creating a translation tool designed to streamline the process of identifying, georeferencing, processing and mapping geographic information contained within textual sources in an user-friendly manner – this tool should become available by 2021.
Another project involves the creation of a geographical name translation system. This system utilizes natural language processing and machine learning techniques to translate English-language geographic names into Chinese. It supports special and general names alike and works well across languages including Arabic and Hebrew; additionally it utilizes different morphological features like syllable segmentation, word embedding and phrase embedding for translation purposes.
For translating text, the system analyzes both its semantic and geographical contexts to accurately translate it. It considers factors such as whether the location is urban, suburban or rural as well as any associated directions and landscape features that could aid translation. Finally, it translates the text using appropriate grammatical rules and semantic information into its target language – Chinese in this instance.
The tool allows translators to correct any errors they find during translation and displays its results visually for easy user consumption. Users can select their desired text for use on any website such as product descriptions or email messages and apply it quickly using this translation service that covers more than 91 languages.
Recently, there have been various studies exploring the relationship between translation and geography. Federico Italiano’s book addresses translation and space politics while his work also covers issues like postcolonial theory as well as impact of language power on meaning of texts.
