MACHINE TRANSLATION: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Abstract

In today’s fast-moving world, when borders are blurred and information flows are borderless, the only barrier to communication is the language barrier. One of the ways to overcome the language barrier in communication is to use machine translation systems as a means of increasing translation activities productivity. In the XXI century, machine translation is becoming a special and effective means of interlingual communication in all spheres of human activity. However, this type of translation has been actively developed relatively recently. Just several decades ago, an interpreter had to change the translated text completely because the computer capabilities was limited, but at the present stage of machine translation systems development, the interpriter is more likely to act as an editor, leaving most of the translated material. The article gives a brief overview of the main stages of machine translation development, from the first generation systems, which are close to word-forword translation, to modern interactive systems, which involve the interpriter in the translation process. The existing machine translation systems, based on grammatical rules and based on statistical data, are analyzed and briefly characterized. The topicality of the paper is due to the continuous development and improvement of machine translation systems, which is the reason for the increased attention to this issue by the researchers around the world. As a result of studying the development of machine translation, the following conclusions can be made: there is no satisfactory solution to the problems facing the machine translation system, at least at this stage of their development; qualitative translation by machine translation systems is possible under the condition of pre-, post- or inter-editing of the text; machine translation is a useful tool when the translation is done for a common understanding of the document content. Further scientific investigations of the author include: detailed study of existing machine translation systems in order to identify their advantages and disadvantages; analysis of the quality and adequacy of machine translation by different systems; practical use of these systems in professional translation activities and in everyday life.