Translation memory software

HISTORY OF TRANSLATION MEMORY SOFTWARES

The onset of Translation Memory technologies dates back to late 1960’s and early 1970’s. This work was based on translation workstations. The workstationshad the objective of providing a range of resources to allow translators in a better performance of their duties. In addition, to improve the effectiveness of translators, early researchers developedword banks and glossaries as a reference tool for translators. By using these files translation archives, the translator could consult past translation in seeking of terms, phrases and sentencesuseful for current or future translations.
The increased storage capacity and processing power of personal computers since 1980 gave way to the development of commercial programs in the area of ​​digitaltranslation. Large databases of previous translations could be stored, indexed and searched efficiently, finally making the concept of TM available to ordinary translators (Benito, 2009).
The vastexpansion of translation memory Softwares during the 1990's, led to the providers of these programs increase their production with the promise of lowering the costs of the Softwares. One of the mainobjectives of these programs was to extend the translation capabilities of users, but quickly had a change towards increasing the efficiency of the translators to reducing costs.
Daniel Benito (2009)mentions: “This is not surprising, given that the commercial adoption of any new technology must be driven primarily by quantifiable measures of return on investment.” However, the birth of theinternet provoked the faster growth of the translation Softwares industry. Also, the buyers and promoters of this new tendency in translation tools started to think in what they should do in order to focustheir cost-cutting efforts.
One of the obstacles to fully development of the capabilities of TM presented in their beginnings was the focused of them in only a minor segment of translation industry:...