scholarly journals Can Machine Translation meet the needs of official language minority communities in Canada? A recipient evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Bowker
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Minimum Requirement ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Translation Services

Canada is an officially bilingual country, but the only legal requirement is for federal services to be offered in both official languages. Therefore, services provided by provincial and municipal governments are typically offered only in the language of the majority, with cost being cited as the main obstacle to providing translation. This paper presents a recipient evaluation designed to determine whether machine translation could be used as a cost-effective means of increasing translation services in Canadian official language minority communities. The results show that not all communities have the same needs, and that raw or rapidly post-edited MT output is more suitable for information assimilation, while maximally post-edited MT output is a minimum requirement when translation is intended as a means of cultural preservation and promotion. The survey also suggests that average recipients are more receptive to MT than are language professionals.

scholarly journals Official Language Minority Communities, Machine Translation, and Translator Education: Reflections on the Status Quo and Considerations for the Future

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Bowker
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Minority Community ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The Status ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Translator Education

AbstractOwing largely to budgetary pressures, official language minority communities in Canada have a great number of unmet translation needs. The use of machine translation presents the possibility of a cost-effective solution, but only if members of this community are willing to accept this form of translation. This paper reports on an experiment whereby members of one official language minority community in Canada—the Fransaskois—were surveyed to determine their level of acceptance of machine translation. Results show that while many Fransaskois are quite favourable to the possibility of using post-edited machine translation, those who are also language professionals are extremely opposed to the use of any form of machine translation. This finding prompts a reflection on whether the way in which translators are trained in the use of technology could be an underlying factor in their reaction to machine translation use, which in turn leads to a proposal for a new approach to integrating technology more fully into translator training programs.

scholarly journals Potential and Limitations of Horizontal Management

2012 ◽  
pp. 214-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rémi Léger
Keyword(s):  
Language Minority ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Linguistic Minorities ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Minority Community ◽  
Community Institutions ◽  
Canadian Institute ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Francophone Minority ◽  
Main Ideas

On 11 June 2010, ten leading scholars came together at the invitation of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities to discuss the autonomy and recognition of Canada’s official language minority communities. In this article, I examine the implications of this workshop for Francophone minority community institutions by emphasizing and contextualizing main ideas and expanding on key proposals. First, I map out and explain how the implementation of horizontal management has increasingly curtailed community autonomy. Next, I catalog and discuss participants’ proposals for fostering greater autonomy for Francophone minority communities. Last, I sketch the potential and limitations of horizontal management.

scholarly journals A New Deal for OLMC’s?

2012 ◽  
pp. 248-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Official Language Minority

While Canada is widely seen as a leader in accommodating different forms of diversity, the unique needs of official language minority communities (OLMCs) are not adequately recognized in the constitution, and often fall through the cracks of the “Canadian model”. Can we imagine a new deal for OLMCs, perhaps in the form of new legislation or even a new constitutional provision that would provide stronger recognition of their national status, their collective rights, and their political autonomy? While I share the political objectives of achieving greater recognition and autonomy, this paper identifies a number of potential pitfalls and dead-ends that need to be avoided in the pursuit of such a new deal. I focus in particular on a) the role of legal categories, b) the limits of international law, and c) the constraints on constitutional reform.

scholarly journals Odds of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in School-Aged Children From Official Language Minority Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérémie B. Dupuis ◽  
Jimmy Bourque ◽  
Salah-Eddine El Adlouni
Keyword(s):  
New Brunswick ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Community Membership ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Logistic Regressions

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to assess the odds of suffering from anxiety or depression symptoms based on the presence of certain determinants of health for youth living in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, and in two linguistically different Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) in the same province.Methods: With a sample of 22,329 students from grades 7 to 12 in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, logistic regressions were performed to assess each determinant of health's effect on symptoms of anxiety and depression.Results: Some social determinants, like family support, social support and food insecurity, were identified as important determinants of mental health status regardless of linguistic group membership or community membership, while other determinants, such as alcohol use, cannabis use and natural environment, were more prominent in one OLMC than the other.Discussion: Social psychology and public health theories are used in an attempt to explain the results. Limitations and recommendations are also brought forward.

scholarly journals Bilingualism in Canada: the legislation's reform

2021 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Tatiana Shchukina
Keyword(s):  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Language Minority ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
French And English ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Official Language Minority ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada

The Official Language Act plays a key role in the lives of Canadians. Its purpose is to ensure respect for English and French as the official languages of Canada in governmental and parliamentary institutions, support the development and vitality of official language minority communities, set out powers, duties and functions of federal institutions with respect to the official languages of Canada. The Government of Canada has decided to modernize the Act to ensure that it continues to serve Canadians in a changing environment. That is why the Government of Canada showed its commitment to promote, protect and update a law by sharing its vision for official languages reform in February, titled French and English: Towards a substantive equality of official languages in Canada. After 30 years since the last major update, a modernization of the Official Languages Act is necessary to allow the law to keep pace with the social, demographic and technological realities in today’s society, which did not exist during the last revision in 1988. The bill recognizes the diversity of provincial and territorial language regimes and focuses on learning opportunities of the first language in minority settings and on learning opportunities of a second official language in a majority situation to improve the rate of bilingualism among Canadians. The bill also seeks to protect institutions of official language minority communities both for the English-speaking minority in Quebec and for the French-speaking minority in the rest of the country, and proposes new ways to better protect French in Canada, including in Québec.  

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