An Evaluation Of Output Of TRADOS On EST Translation

The study intends to evaluate the output of TRADOS on EST translation. TRADOS is CAT (Computer-aided Translation) software mostly applied in EST translation for translation team. It can collect all the translated materials in order to create a language database, in which the software automatically determines the repeated content. When translators use TRADOS to translate new sentences, the software will automatically offer the repeated part for translators when similar or the same sentence segments appear. Therefore, due to the characteristic of automatical memorization of TRADOS and the repeated terminology and relatively fixed sentence structure of EST, TRADOS is applied in the EST translation. In order to evaluate the credibility of the output of TRADOS, the author carries out an empirical study from the perspective of match value.The author chooses 822 sentences in EST in thirteen scientific fields and uses TRADOS to put them into Chinese. Then she records their corresponding match value, which is automatically showed in the dialog box of TRADOS during the translation process. By making the statistics, the author wants to find out the relation between the match value and the output quality of TRADOS. Through the statistical analysis, the author finds that when the rate of match value is above 59%, the valid sentences account for 88% of all the sentences above the match value 59%. In this sense, the translation quality is reliable. Therefore, the author argues that the match value of 59% could be used as a criterion to judge if the output quality is guaranteed based on the restored information in TRADOS. Then the author does the statistics of the sentences above the match value 59% and finds such sentences account for 65% of all the sentences. Also the author analyzes the reasons behind the low output quality. Generally speaking, the whole output is reliable with the application of TRADOS.Finally, the author safely concludes that TRADOS can extensively be applied in EST translation and it is of significant practical value.