Conference
on Mechanical Translation
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
17-20
June 1952
Note. Most papers of this conference were not published.
Two that were (by S.C.Dodd and by R.H.Richens and A.D.Booth) appeared in
corrected forms in the collection edited by W.N.Locke and A.D.Booth Machine translation of languages
(Cambridge, Mass.: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1955). The article by Bar-Hillel on idioms in the Locke-Booth
collection was completely new; it was not a reprint of the paper given at the
conference.
Pre-conference material
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: Conference on
mechanical translation [invitations;
details of program were changed later] [PDF, 68KB]
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: The present state of research on mechanical
translation [as published in American Documentation, 1951 (actually
1953)] [PDF, 151KB]
June 17, evening: session I (public
session) - chair Jerome B. Wiesner
Opening speech by the convener of the
conference [no text traced]
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: Mechanical
translation: needs and possibilities [PDF,
77KB]
Leon Dostert: Human translation versus
machine translation [no text traced]
Olaf Helmer: The structure of the
problem of mechanical translation.
(One page abstract) [PDF, 42KB]
Andrew D. Booth: How intelligent can a
machine translator be? [no text traced]
James W. Perry: Machine techniques in index
searching and translation [extended version given on 20 June (see below)]
June 18, morning: session II - chair: Leon Dostert
Erwin Reifler, Erwin: Mechanical translation with a pre-editor, and
writing for MT [PDF, 110KB]
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: Mechanical translation
and a post-editor; later entitled: The treatment of "idioms" by a translating
machine. [PDF, 103KB]
Stuart C. Dodd: Model
English for mechanical translation. [PDF, 84KB]
June 18, afternoon: session III -
chair: A.C.Reynolds
Victor A. Oswald: Word-by-word
translation [PDF, 73KB]
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: Operational
grammar [PDF,
107KB]
William N. Locke: Mechanical translation of
printed and spoken material [no text circulated; summarised in Reynold’s
report]
June 19, morning: session IV - chair: A.Don Booth
Victor A. Oswald: Microsemantics. [PDF, 95KB]
William E. Bull: Problems of vocabulary
frequency and distribution. [PDF, 82KB]
Erwin Reifler: General mechanical translation and universal
grammar. [PDF, 69KB]
June 19, afternoon: visit to
Whirlwind computer, Computation Laboratory, M.I.T.
June 20, morning: session V - chair:
William E. Bull
Harry D. Huskey: Basic machine operations in
mechanical translation [no text circulated; summarised in Reynold’s report]
Jay W. Forrester: Problems of storage and cost
[no text circulated; briefly summarized in Reynold’s report]
A. Donald Booth and Richard H. Richens: Some methods of mechanized translation. [PDF,
178KB]
William E. Bull: Teaching foreign languages
or MT and language teaching ? [no text traced; summarized in Reifler’s report]
James W. Perry: Machine
techniques for index searching and for machine translation. [PDF, 68KB]
June 20, afternoon: session VI
Organization of future research [no text
available]
------------
Transcript of discussions [to be added at a future date]
--------------
Contemporary reports of the conference published in Mechanical
Translation:
Reifler, Erwin: The first conference on mechanical translation
Reynolds, Craig: The conference on
mechanical translation held at M.I.T., June 17-20, 1952.
========
List
of Participants
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (1915-1975), Research
Associate, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology,
Andrew Donald Booth (1918- ), Director,
Electronic Computer Section, Birkbeck College
Dudley A. Buck, Research Assistant,
Electrical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
William Emerson Bull (1909-1972), Department
of Spanish,
Stuart Carter Dodd (1900-1975),
Leon Emile Dostert (1904-1971), Institute of
Languages and Linguistics,
Jay W. Forrester (1918- ), Director, Digital
Computing Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Olaf Helmer (1910- ), Director of Research,
Math Division, Rand Corporation,
Harry Douglas Huskey (1916- ), Assistant
Director, National Bureau of Standards, Institute for Numerical Analysis,
William Nash Locke (1909-1980), Department of
modern Languages, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Victor Amandus Oswald (1909-2003), Department
of Germanic Languages,
James W Perry, Research Associate,
Erwin Reifler (1903-1965), Far Eastern and
Russian Institute,
A Craig Reynolds, Endicott Laboratories, IBM
Jerome B. Wiesner (1915-1994), Director,
Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Victor H. Yngve (1920- ),