EAMT supports TeTra5: Technologies for Translation (Forlí, Italy, 14–15 March 2019)

EAMT is one of the organizations supporting the fifth edition of the “Technologies for Translation” (TeTra) international conference, organized and hosted by the University of Bologna on the Forlì campus, in Italy, on 14-15 March 2019. This year’s edition of this biennial event has the thought-provoking title “Is translation dead? Machine translation, post-editing and the challenges that lie ahead”, and will focus on the technology that has gained more ground than any others in the world of language services: machine translation and its associated activities, such as post-editing and revision. Key questions such as the following will be addressed during the two days of the conference: How and how much have modern machine translation systems improved? How can (or should) these systems be exploited, and which skills are most valuable to be successful in today’s translation marketplace? And above all: is it so plausible that artificial intelligence will replace human intelligence in the near future?

Talks on these stimulating topics will be given by high-profile international invited speakers who have close ties with the translation and language services industry, including Jost Zetzsche (International Writers’ Group), Lieve Macken (Ghent University), Sharon O’Brien (Dublin City University), Maarit Koponen (University of Turku), Bert Wylin (KU Leuven), Giovanna Scocchera (University of Bologna), Antonio Toral (University of Groningen), and Federico Gaspari (University for Foreigners “Dante Alighieri” of Reggio Calabria and Dublin City University). The second day of the conference will offer practical hands-on workshops concerning the use of machine translation and translation technologies as productivity tools for translators and interpreters; these workshops will be run by Luisa Bentivogli (Fondazione Bruno Kessler), Claudia Lecci (University of Bologna), and Nicoletta Spinolo (University of Bologna). In addition, following on from the success of past TeTra conferences, a “lunch and demo” session will feature software demonstrations and provide valuable networking opportunities with like-minded colleagues in the translation business; software products demonstrated during this session will include MateCat, MemoQ, SDL Trados Studio, Raw Output Evaluator/IntelliWebSearch, and TranslationQ. A final round table will encourage interaction between the conference organizers, the invited speakers and the audience.

Around 150 delegates from Italy and beyond are expected to attend the conference, consisting of an exciting mix of forward-looking and innovation-oriented in-house and freelance translators and interpreters, managers of translation/interpretation companies, localisers, technical writers and editors, project managers, linguists, academics, lecturers, researchers, trainers and students in translation and interpreting. In addition to EAMT’s support, the conference is organized in collaboration with leading professional associations of translators and interpreters in Italy, namely AIIC, AITI, ANITI, ASSOINTERPRETI and TradInFo.

Further information is available from the official conference website ( https://events.unibo.it/tetra-technologies-for-translation ) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/events/2175866905998036/ ).