machine translation

linguistics

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June 30, 2026

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Machine translation (MT) refers to the use of computers for translating text or speech from one language to another. While computers can efficiently generate aids for linguistic research, such as word lists and frequency counts, the automatic grammatical analysis of texts by computer presents significant challenges.1

Early research in the mid-20th century, particularly in the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, made progress in machine translation and information retrieval. However, the theoretical complexities of machine translation were underestimated, leading to a temporary decline in interest among some linguists. The feasibility of fully automatic, high-quality machine translation remains a subject of debate.1

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linguistics
Computational linguistics
…by research groups working on machine translation and information retrieval in the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and a few other countries in the decade between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s. But much of the original impetus for this work disappeared, for a time at least, in…
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…by research groups working on machine translation and information retrieval in the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and a few other countries in the decade between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s. But much of the original impetus for this work disappeared, for a time at least, in…
Read More