[OLAC-credits] Background info on translations

[John Hostage]

Hi Kelley,

Thank you for this.  It was helpful.

One issue I've run into with German credits is sometimes the credit will be something like "Bühne", the basic meaning of which is "stage."  I believe in a film context it is applied to a set designer or something similar.  Or the credit might be "Buch", which is literally "book", but in a film it is presumably short for "Drehbuch" (screenplay).  So part of the issue is that they are using words for what the person is responsible for rather than an actual role.  Another part is that unless you are active in the film industry in more than one country, it's hard to know what roles these terms actually refer to and what people are doing.

John

From: olac-credits-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu [mailto:olac-credits-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu] On Behalf Of Kelley McGrath
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 10:09
To: olac-credits at lists.uoregon.edu
Subject: [OLAC-credits] Background info on translations

I wrote this up for someone who had a specific question, but I thought others might be interested in some background information on what we're planning to do with the translations in particular. We are hoping to do two things:

1. Compile a multilingual dictionary of words and phrases that appear in credits. The input on the form will be the basis for this, but it will need editing and reconciliation. For this, translations that are the same grammatically as what's in the credit are probably most helpful (e.g., if the word means direction as a noun, don't put directed by).

2. Teach the computer to identify the names and roles/functions/actions in the credit. For this, the computer has first to recognize the role/function words, which is why we have you copy the words in the credit exactly in the "Role or function in credit" box even with typos (it is helpful if you point out the typos, though--thank you!) or if the role is plural. Then the computer will map the role/function words to a standardized term. For this, we won't use the exact translations that you and the others have provided. Instead, we will group all the terms that have essentially the same meaning (director, directed by, direction, dao yan, rendezó, regia di, direção and so on) and map them all to a single category name like "director". Then we will associate the related names with that category. So, although consistency in translations is nice, it's not essential since we'll be reconciling all the terms at the end. We do want to make categories for more specific roles than just really broad categories that first come to mind (e.g., stage director, TV director, executive producer, series producer) so it's best if you translate the specific term and not put something more general (e.g., don't put producer for productor ejecutivo)

Let me know if you have any questions.

Kelley
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uoregon.edu/pipermail/olac-credits/attachments/20140306/795a998c/attachment.html>