From GAT To CAI-a Report On Conputer Aided Interpretation Practice

With the development of new Internet technologies, Computer Aided Translation(CAT) is booming and becoming wildly acknowledged. Currently, available CATapplications include Wordfast, Trados, Alchemy Catalyst, Across, DéjàVu, memoQ,Snowman and so forth. While translators benefit greatly from CAT applications,interpreters often find themselves helpless when undertaking an interpretation project.Based on real translation and interpreting practice, this report talks about theenormous assistance of CAT applications and more importantly, this report offers anew term, namely Computer Aided Interpretation (CAI), and makes a tentative studyon the function of CAI applications.CAI applications is a new concept, however the fact is many translators,interpreters and researchers have already come across and used them. Common CAIapplications include headphone, microphone, audio players, recording tools andinterpreters professional training module; what‘s more, translation soft wares likememoQ can help interpreters with their interpretation projects by means of creatingterm base and corpus and so on, therefore they can be safely classified into thecategory of CAI applications as well. CAI applications also include CAI electronicnotebook or CAI system, which are now just an envision but are expected to cometrue in the future; and the author discusses this envision in this report too. This reportoffers the definition of CAI applications, points out common as well as potential CAIapplications and makes a basic analysis and comparison between CAT applicationsand CAI applications. Besides, this report talks about the assistance of CATapplications and CAI applications in the author‘s translation and interpretationproject.The translation project and interpretation project studied in this report come fromthe same client—Schaumann, and are related with fields like biology and animalhusbandry. In the translation project, the author applied memoQ and experienced thetremendous function of CAT. The subsequent interpretation project, which hassimilarities with the previous translation project, is more specific, complex anddifficult. Under this circumstance, the author applied memoQ again and other CAIapplications, which achieved satisfying results as well.The assistance of CAI applications is elaborated from three aspects, namely theassistance of CAI applications before an interpretation project, during an interpretation project and after an interpretation project. This report explains in detailsabout the assistance of CAI applications before and after an interpretation project, andtalks about using CAI applications to collect and uniform terms as well as create anduse interpretation corpus.As a preliminary study on CAI and CAI applications, this report lays great stresson the creation and application of term base and corpus with the assistance of CAIapplications. It is expected that this report will draw scholars‘attention to CAI andCAI applications, bring inspirations to interpreters and relieve their heavy burden intheir future work.