March 22, 2011 — Fredericton, New Brunswick
CLS Lexi-tech Ltd has licensed the PORTAGE technology from the National Research Council of Canada Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) in an effort to improve translators’ efficiency. The NRC statistical machine translation technology will be incorporated into the CLS Lexi-tech’s workflow to assist human translators, to reinforce rather than replace the human element.
Translating from one human language to another is a significant undertaking for most companies that operate internationally, and for governments of multilingual countries and regions, including the Government of Canada. The PORTAGE project has produced Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) technologies that augment the efficiency of human translators, which can lead to lower translation costs and improved quality for this activity. Improving efficiency is an essential element of Canada’s success in the Digital Economy.
Statistical machine translation systems use pre-existing bodies of documents produced by professional translators, along with statistical probability matching, in an effort to produce draft translations. By continually feeding completed translations by professional translators back in, the knowledge base grows, increasing the probability of higher-quality output in the future. In essence the system does not translate; rather, it predicts a potential translation based on the input of previously translated and revised work done by humans. The draft outputs can lead to enhancements in translation turnaround times. The ultimate quality of the translated document rests with the translator, but PORTAGE provides another tool in the translators’ toolkit to improve overall efficiency.
“CLS Lexi-tech Ltd is excited about the collaboration with the NRC and the potential impact that the software could have in maintaining our competitiveness in the marketplace,” said Larry Rogers. “CLS Lexi-tech Ltd prides itself on constantly being an innovator in the use of technology towards maintaining and improving our competitive position in the field. We have always been an early adopter of technology. The economic reality of 2011 requires increased efficiency and reduced cost to meet the desires of clients, employees, and owners alike. We feel that PORTAGE provides us with one more tool in our arsenal towards remaining price-competitive and a world leader in our field.“
CLS Lexi-tech Ltd (formerly Lexi-tech International inc.) was originally founded in 1988 in Moncton, New Brunswick and is now the leading Translation and Linguistic Services Company in Canada. The company forms part of the CLS Communication Group of Language Service companies headquartered in Basel, Switzerland with offices throughout Europe, ASIA and the USA. As the translator of choice for many leading Canadian firms in the Banking, Pharmaceutical, Airline, Market research, Government, Insurance and Automotive sectors, CLS Lexi-tech Ltd translates some 90 Million words per year into a multitude of languages. Headquartered in Moncton, NB, with offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, the company comprises over 250 in-house staff including experts in translation, copywriting, and terminology as well as technology experts and a large in-house desktop publishing team.
