Semi-automatic collation of versions of a text written in different languages

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Frank Fischer; Dr. Brigitte Grote; Professor Dr. Paul Molitor; Professor Dr. Manfred Stede
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 524057241

Texts written in different languages which are not translations in the sense of a word-for-word and sense-for-sense transfer from a source language to a target language, but rather multilingual versions of a text, which can differ from one another to varying degrees, are the subject of research in numerous disciplines. Versions of a text written in different languages can be found, e.g., in the case of authors who write their works in two or more languages, and for whom the change between the languages also can involve an adaptation of the text to the new target group. The goal of this project is the development and implementation of an e-research technology for the comparison of non-parallel versions of a text written in different languages, and their testing in exemplary application contexts. The result of the project will be software that identifies the differences between only partially-parallel texts on paragraph, sentence, phrase and word level, and allows for subsequent interactive manual editing.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)