ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some definitions of Machine translation (MT) and differentiates between the different forms of electronic aids for translators, including MT. It depicts the different strategies for optimizing the quality of MT output and general architectures of MT systems. The chapter explores the relevance of special-language texts for MT. MT systems make up the third level of Melby's translator workstation. They are the electronic translation tools that attract the most public attention, especially non-translators. In 1952 the first conference on MT was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and two years later there was the first public demonstration of a Russian-English machine translation system that had been developed at Georgetown University. The term 'machine-aided human translation' (MAHT) includes the use of aids such as electronic dictionaries or translation memory systems. In contrast to human-assisted machine translation (HAMT) and fully automatic machine translation (FAMT), the decoding and analysis of the source text lies in the hands of the translator.
