The digital revolution of the past twenty years has massively changed the language industry, now heavily technology-based. The use of technology has changed the pace and organisation of labour, but has also created new opportunities, by making it possible to provide new services. One such example is live subtitling via respeaking, a technique based on speech recognition technology. Respeakers listen to live input and simultaneously repeat it to a speech recognition software that turns it into written subtitles. Respeaking is widely used to provide live intralingual subtitling in many settings, especially on television, but also live events such as conferences, academic lectures, and so on. By contrast, interlingual respeaking, i.e. between two languages, is still in its infancy but has the potential to bridge both linguistic and sensory barriers, thus improving accessibility to information, culture and entertainment. Both practices rely on efficient human-machine interaction and straddle across the translation/interpreting divide. The skills and competences required to provide such “hybrid” translation services are still being investigated, with a view to informing training methods and curricula. The paper provides an overview of current respeaking training and research experiences carried out at the University of International Studies in Rome and highlights potential future developments.
La rivoluzione digitale degli ultimi vent'anni ha cambiato in modo massiccio le professioni linguistiche, ora largamente basate sulla tecnologia. L'uso della tecnologia ha cambiato il ritmo e l'organizzazione del lavoro, ma ha anche creato nuove opportunità, rendendo possibile fornire servizi nuovi. Un esempio di questi è la sottotitolazione in tempo reale mediante respeaking, una tecnica basata sulla tecnologia di riconoscimento del parlato. Le abilità e le competenze necessarie per fornire tali servizi sono attualmente oggetto di ricerche, con l'obiettivo di informare la didattica e i programmi di studio. Il presente lavoro fa una panoramica sulle attività di ricerca in questo ambito svolte presso l'Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma - UNINT.
Training respeakers: a hybrid profession for the (near) future?
SANDRELLI A
2019-01-01
Abstract
The digital revolution of the past twenty years has massively changed the language industry, now heavily technology-based. The use of technology has changed the pace and organisation of labour, but has also created new opportunities, by making it possible to provide new services. One such example is live subtitling via respeaking, a technique based on speech recognition technology. Respeakers listen to live input and simultaneously repeat it to a speech recognition software that turns it into written subtitles. Respeaking is widely used to provide live intralingual subtitling in many settings, especially on television, but also live events such as conferences, academic lectures, and so on. By contrast, interlingual respeaking, i.e. between two languages, is still in its infancy but has the potential to bridge both linguistic and sensory barriers, thus improving accessibility to information, culture and entertainment. Both practices rely on efficient human-machine interaction and straddle across the translation/interpreting divide. The skills and competences required to provide such “hybrid” translation services are still being investigated, with a view to informing training methods and curricula. The paper provides an overview of current respeaking training and research experiences carried out at the University of International Studies in Rome and highlights potential future developments.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
