Machine Translation in Saudi Arabia

A Master of Arts Thesis in Translation and Interpreting (English/Arabic/English) by Faten AlMutawa entitled, "Machine Translation in Saudi Arabia." Thesis advisor is Dr. Sattar Izwaini and was submitted in December 2012. Available are both hard and soft copies of the thesis.

Abstract

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in machine translation technology in the Arab world and the world at large, especially with the growing demand for translation. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how widely Arabic machine translation systems are used and researched in the Arab world and what can be done to achieve real progress in this field. A survey was carried out in Saudi Arabia to collect the necessary data. Two questionnaires were used to assess how many Arabic machine translation systems are used by Saudi organizations, how much interest exists in machine translation in Saudi universities and research centers, and how much research is being conducted on issues of machine translation. The findings of this study indicate that most Saudi organizations and translation agencies do not trust or are not interested in machine translation. Only a few universities have conducted research in this field. It is recommended that more attention be paid and more research be conducted to get the most use out of this technology and that more efficient Arabic machine translation systems be developed.