ABSTRACT
Though early approaches to computer programming and natural language processing were inspired by human language and translation, the limits of such approaches soon became clear, requiring computer scientists to adapt these notions to a computational framework. Developers created programming languages and applications such as computer-assisted translation and machine translation tools that harnessed the strengths of computers, including the ability to follow detailed instructions, the capacity to identify patterns in large volumes of data, and the ability to perform rapid and complex calculations. While the notions of and approaches to translation that apply in computing bear some relationship to those found in the language professions, their differences could provide a useful frame for investigating translation in other fields. This chapter illustrates this potential by considering how computational approaches to translation can be used to investigate translational medicine, knowledge translation and data processing in the data-information-knowledge pyramid. It concludes by echoing Wittgenstein’s observation that sometimes concepts are related via family resemblance, rather than by a single characteristic that is common to all. Such overlapping similarities can be found in the way that translation is conceived in the language professions, in computing, and elsewhere, helping to paint a richer and more intersemiotic portrait of translation.
