User interface language: English | Español

Date November 2017 Marks available 5 Reference code 17N.2.HL.TZ0.9
Level HL Paper 2 Time zone no time zone
Command term Discuss Question number 9 Adapted from N/A

Question

Google Translate is an algorithm whose function is to translate text from one language to another. One of the resources that it uses is the body of documents produced by the United Nations which are routinely translated by humans into various languages.

Discuss the reasons why Google Translate takes a probabilistic approach in preference to a cognitive rule-based approach.

Markscheme

Award marks as follows up to [5 max].
Award [2 max] for an outline of how the statistical/probabilistic approach works (award [1] for a less complete response).
Award [2] for an outline of how the rule-based/cognitive approach works (award [1] for a less complete response).
Award [1] for a reasonable conclusion that explains why the former approach is chosen.

Example answer
The statistical model involves comparing the text to be translated against previously stored sets of text pairs (e.g. English and its French equivalent) and then selecting the most probable translation;
The cognitive model involves establishing all the rules of each of the languages and then breaking down each section of text to establish its grammatical structure and then replacing the text with text that has an equivalent structure from the other language;
The second approach has not proved particularly successful for two reasons. The first is that the process of establishing a clear set of rules is extremely labour intensive.
The second is that the process can be ruined by the problems of context, double meanings and non-standard language;
The first approach was taken because the company has stored an enormous set of validated text in different languages and the increase in processing power which allows this corpus to be searched and processed;

Examiners report

[N/A]

Syllabus sections

Option B: Modelling and simulation » B.4 Communication modelling and simulation
Show 29 related questions
Option B: Modelling and simulation

View options