Issues of language structure in machine translation: a case study of English and Kiswahili

Abstract

This study is an investigation into the aspects of language structure in machine translation (MT) and their effect on translation of texts from English into Kiswahili. It is a linguistic exploration of aspects of morphology, syntax, and semantics in machine translated texts. The primary aim of the study is to establish whether structural differences between English and Kiswahili contribute to mistranslation in machine translated texts. The study had three objectives: to determine some of the mismatches in the source text (ST) and target text (TT); to identify some of the linguistic structural differences between English and Kiswahili; to discuss effectiveness of machine translation in relation to consumer satisfaction. The data was collected from two sampled texts from the internet using purposive sampling. Cases of mistranslation were classified into three categories namely; morphology, syntax and semantics. Data was also elicited through human translated texts. Two texts were each given to a human translator who translated the two texts already translated by machine, which were then used to compare with machine translated texts. A questionnaire was formulated and tested on twenty (20) respondents. These translations and the responses from the respondents were analyzed, interpreted and discussed. The findings indicate various types of linguistic mismatches that result into mistranslation. Structural differences between English and Kiswahili account for the mistranslations. Aspects of the structural differences include; word order, noun classes (con-cordial agreements), noun modification, equivalents, tense marking and meaning. This study shows translating from English into Kiswahili by machine is a tasking process and the quality of machine translated texts from English into Kiswahili leaves much to be desired. The study is divided into five chapters. Chapter one gives the concept and historical background of translation and Machine Translation, states the problem of the study in which issues that are related to the problem under study are discussed and synthesized. This chapter also gives the methodology used in eliciting and analyzing the data used in this study. Chapter two presents a comparative description of some aspects of linguistic properties of English and Kiswahili. Chapter three gives the presentation and analysis of data from the sampled texts.