You are on page 1of 13

Automation of the linguistic translation processes: A study on viability.

I. M. R. Pinheiroi

Abstract: In this paper, we present a discussion, of scientific level, on both the viability of
replacing the translator's figure with a software for linguistic translation and the impact of such a
replacement in the quality of the translated text.
Key-words: translation, Fuzzy Logic, Paraconsistency, Sorites Problem, language, logic.

1. Introduction

Our introduction has been split into four sections:

1.1) The Sorites Problem;


1.2) The logical system Fuzzy Logic, as originally proposed by Zadeh, and the Sorites
Problem;
1.3) The paraconsistent logical systems and the linguistic translation processes;
1.4) Intersection of the previous items.

1.1 The Sorites Problem

The word Sorites derives from the Greek word sorosii and originally referred to a puzzle known as
The Heap (Pinheiro 2006a):

“Would you describe a simple grain of sand as a heap?


No.
Would you describe two grains of sand as a heap?
No.
You must admit the presence of a heap sooner or later, so where do you draw the line?”
[Hyde 1997]

Sorites Problem is a linguistic expression that is universally accepted as referent for any problem
that be a variation of the just quoted puzzle.
The problem contained in the puzzle is that of determining the specific step in the sequence, or the
number in the sequence of the grain added, which has made the previous 'non-heap of sand' become
a 'heap of sand'.
The original Sorites Problem starts with a 'non-heap of sand' (accepted as such by the audience) and
one grain of sand is added at a time until there clearly be a (as for audience's judgment abilities)
'heap of sand' ([Hyde 1997]).
The question that must be answered in order for us to be believed when stating that the Sorites
Problem has been solved is: What is the decision strategy regarding the precise moment in time in
which a 'non-heap of sand' has started being a 'heap of sand' that bears strongest, or perhaps
absolute, if it is possible that it be absolute in this case, scientific support?
In other words, the original Sorites Problem consists in as scientifically as possible determining
both location and nature of the separation region (in case such exists) between 'non-heaps of sand'
and 'heaps of sand'.
Human language has been created from observing the personalization of communication (in groups,
communities, special isolated individuals, and others), so that the idea of the Sorites Problem comes
as a shock in the linguistic metiér. The Sorites Problem is about us, human beings, looking for the
'absolute' merit of an entity in what regards the label we give to it, that is: Instead of being worried

1/13
about what we are 'putting over the entity', as individuals, and that was the motivation for the
creation of language, we are now worried about, basically, almost, 'what the entity has to say about
it', like it could all be translated into the entity asking us 'OK, you, 'Kate', think I am a heap of sand,
but you, 'Michael', think I am not a heap of sand, at this stage, with x grains of sand, so am I a heap
or not, can you 'teach me' what I am right now and convince me of why I am such, please?'
The Sorites Problem has been entertaining the non-scientific community for millennia because it is
obviously the case that there is a separation between 'non-heaps of sand' and 'heaps of sand', once
we have, at the beginning of the puzzle, a 'non-heap of sand' and, at the end of it, a 'heap of sand'
instead, but each step of the puzzle is the result of a minor modification, according to a fixed rule, in
the entity under observation in the previous step, fact that seems to always allow for us to defend
the veracity of the main premise (if I add one grain to the previous amount of sand then it is
obviously the case that such a grain does not make any difference and I still have a 'non-heap of
sand', right?).
Be it because of the fascination caused by the challenge of finding absolutes in what seems to be of
relativistic nature or because of the clear need of refinement of the elements forming the puzzle in
order to have it satisfying the demands of Science, the Sorites Problem seems to move us into
debates regarding the application of the linguistic terms like no other problem has ever done.

1.1.1 How to build a Sorites Problem

Every problem that contains the essence of The Sorites Problem will also contain, in an implicit, or
explicit, manner, a soritical sequence.
Like all mathematical sequences, the soritical sequence, which is not a mathematical sequence itself
but contains a mathematical sequence, has rigid rules in what regards the order of its elements.
One of the possible consequences of changing the order of the elements in some chosen soritical
sequence is the problem, which contains it, starting to hold trivial solution, with the separation
between the equivalent to 'non-heaps of sand' and 'heaps of sand' becoming too obvious to allow for
the problem to be of scientific interest.
After studying, in detail and depth, some famous soritical sequences, we have noticed that each one
of them has its elements organized in either increasing or decreasing order in what regards its
mathematical sequence. Besides, other characteristics, which are common to all of them, have been
easily identified.
Those characteristics are:
a) All the elements are considered solely in what regards the variation of one of their attributes,
attribute which is found mathematically controlled in the sequence through one of its components;
b) As previously mentioned in this article, every soritical sequence is ordered in either decreasing or
increasing manner, according to the increment of the component of the attribute in relation to which
the elements of the sequence are considered in the Sorites Problem;
c) The first element of the soritical sequence is regarded as absolutely different from the last
element of the soritical sequence and what makes one be regarded as absolutely different from the
other is the fact that one of the two (only) will be told not to hold the attribute solely because of the
amount of the component that determines the order of the sequence;
d) All soritical sequences contain more than three elements and 'perfect' soritical sequences contain
a limited amount of elements.

1.2 The logical system Fuzzy Logic, as originally proposed by Zadeh, and the Sorites Problem

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to Fuzzy Logic like this:

2/13
The term “fuzzy logic” emerged in the development of the theory of fuzzy sets by Lotfi Zadeh
[Zadeh 1965]. A fuzzy subset A of a (crisp) set X is characterized by assigning to each element x of
X the degree of membership of x in A (e.g., X is a group of people, A the fuzzy set of old people in
X). Now if X is a set of propositions then its elements may be assigned their degree of truth, which
may be “absolutely true,” “absolutely false” or some intermediate truth degree: a proposition may
be truer than another proposition. This is obvious in the case of vague (imprecise) propositions like
“this person is old” (beautiful, rich, etc.). In the analogy to various definitions of operations on
fuzzy sets (intersection, union, complement, …) one may ask how propositions can be combined by
connectives (conjunction, disjunction, negation, …) and if the truth degree of a composed
proposition is determined by the truth degrees of its components, i.e. if the connectives have their
corresponding truth functions (like truth tables of classical logic). Saying “yes” (which is the
mainstream of fuzzy logic) one accepts the truth-functional approach; this makes fuzzy logic to
something distinctly different from probability theory since the latter is not truth-functional (the
probability of conjunction of two propositions is not determined by the probabilities of those
propositions).
Two main directions in fuzzy logic have to be distinguished [Zadeh 1994]. Fuzzy logic in the broad
sense (older, better known, heavily applied but not asking deep logical questions) serves mainly as
apparatus for fuzzy control, analysis of vagueness in natural language and several other application
domains. It is one of the techniques of soft-computing, i.e. computational methods tolerant to
suboptimality and impreciseness (vagueness) and giving quick, simple and sufficiently good
solutions. … .
[Anderson 1996]

In the context of the Sorites Problem, the logical system Fuzzy Logic has been used to assign
random veracity degrees either in strictly increasing or in strictly decreasing manner, all contained
in the real interval (0,1), to each association of the type (key-assertion of the problem; element of
the sequence), so that each implication of the Sorites Problem may be classified as either true or
false, according to the degree assigned to both antecedent and consequent (each implication is
formed by two couples of the type (key-assertion of the problem; element of the sequence) plus the
basic premise). With the gradual, and progressive, acquisition of non-veracity by the antecedent,
due to the just mentioned procedure, a false implication is reached in the sequence of implications,
so that the inadequacy of the last couple of the type (key-assertion of the problem; element of the
sequence) is always nicely justifiable, fact that provides a few researchers with reasons to defend
the use of the system Fuzzy Logic in the context of the Sorites Problem.
There are, however, several scientifically sound arguments that make us acquire certainty that the
Fuzzy Logic is an inadequate tool for problems which hold the same nature as that held by the
Sorites Problem.
One of those arguments involves mention to the absence of an explanation, which be universally
considered logical, for the choice of couples of the type (key-assertion of the problem; element of
the sequence) that are labeled as scientifically unacceptable matches.
In [Hyde 1997], for instance, one may find material referring to such an argument.
The application of the logical system Fuzzy Logic to the context of the Sorites Problem, this far,
seems to be equivalent to the use of two machines: One to translate usual languageiii terms into
mathematical intervals and another to translate mathematical intervals into Classical Logic standard
values.
iii We call usual language the linguistic expression that is not immediately seen as machine friendly.

3/13
The impossibility of achieving perfection in the just mentioned translation processes, or in the
performance of the just mentioned machines, derives from the obvious discrepancy between the
nature of the input sets and that of the output sets.
Similar problem occurs with the translation of the language terms from Mandarin into the English
language (as written, and proved, in this article, Mandarin is phonetically richer than the English
language).
Notwithstanding, there should be no abnormal level of difficulty in the translation of language
terms from the English language into Mandarin or in the translation of terms from Classical Logic
into usual language.
Notice that close-to-usual language terms are not the same as usual language terms, therefore there
is no sense in proposing the logical system Fuzzy Logic, applied in the just mentioned manner, as a
solution to the Sorites Problem, once such a proposal could only be considered fine if the Sorites
Problem were not the Sorites Problem, but another problem, where the initial language terms were
seen as 'almost usual', not usual (we refer to the replacement of the usual linguistic terms with
mathematical entities, replacement that is not accepted by the lexicon of the time in which the
problem is created or even this far in time). Besides, we obviously need to justify any solution to
the Sorites Problem with argumentation of linguistic nature, for the entire problem never leaves
such a context), but the Fuzzy Logic based solutions only could allow us to present argumentation
of mathematical, at most mechanical, nature instead.

1.3 The paraconsistent logical systems and the linguistic translation processes

The main difference between the paraconsistent logical systems and the Classical Logic system is
that, in the paraconsistent logical systems, we cannot infer all the allowed possibilities of the system
from 'contradictions'.
If we wanted to explain the previous paragraph in the terms of the Constructive Mathematics
[Bridges 2009], we could write that, with the paraconsistent logical systems, having both a proof of
p and a proof of not-p (under the same logical assumptions and inside of the same logical system)
does not equate having a proof of every assertion that is allowed by the system, as it happens with
the Classical Logic system.
Paraconsistent logical systems are mentioned in abundance in the scientific literature. It is possible
that, in terms of introduction to such systems, [Tanaka 2003] be one of the most accessible scientific
literary sources.
As mentioned in detail in [Pinheiro 2006c], Priest believes that paraconsistency, whilst scientific
phenomenon, is part of the own entities, that is, that it is ontological, whilst Da Costa believes that
paraconsistency is a scientific phenomenon that is not part of the entities, that is, it is a phenomenon
that belongs solely to the abstract world, or to the purely logical world, or to the machines world.
One of the most modern suggestions of application of the paraconsistent logical systems has been
made public through the Brazilian conference in Logic from July of 2000, which took place in Sao
Paulo, conference that had both Priest and Da Costa as attendees [Priest 2000a].
The participant who is told to have presented the just mentioned application has exhibited a robot
that prompted humans to enter instructions in its system whenever it received something it
classified as 'conflicting data' from the environment.
To make it all as clear as possible, suppose that a robot has been programmed to, if receiving
information that it classifies as 'blue', raising its right arm and, if receiving information that it
classifies as 'non-blue', do all it can do in a certain order, apart from raising its right arm.
Suppose now that the same robot received data that it has been unable to deal with, which pointed
to both 'blue' and 'non-blue' at the same time... (conflicting data from the environment).
Such a robot must then attempt to both raise and not raise its right arm, both attempts taking place
at the same point in time.

4/13
It is then that we would be saying that either the systems of the robot have entered short-circuit
mode or the robot has crashed.
The robot presented at the conference would not have crashed, for it would have stopped consulting
its systems by the time of the collection of the 'conflicting data', when it would prompt humans to
tell it what to do next.
Notice here the confusion created by the own philosophers over all that: It is obvious that the
creators of robots have managed to progress in the process of creation of their robots so that they
would not break in those situations anymore, but such a progress has nothing to do with any
possible application of the paraconsistent logical systems; it has to do, at most, with the
understanding acquired by the creators about the reasons for the crash as they studied those
systems... .
It is obviously the case that we could only call the presentation of the robot in the Sao Paulo
conference 'presentation of one possible practical application of the paraconsistent logical systems'
in case the robot were able to decide, on its own, about what to do in that sort of situation!
Notice that they confound logical system, therefore a system to deal with premises in their totality,
producing logical results inside of itself, fully described by means of symbols before any action
takes place, with randomly entered inferential reasoning results, which could, at most, form a basis
of study whilst we are building a new logical system.
In this article, we we focus on one of the typical features of the paraconsistent logical systems:
Contradictory premises are not a problem; they are just one more possibility.
In focusing on the just mentioned feature, of the paraconsistent systems, it is important that we
declare whether we take the viewpoint of the ontological paraconsistency or that of the non-
ontological paraconsistency because one of the intentions of this article is helping the computer
scientists sorting out what is of use in Philosophy for them in what regards the automation of the
linguistic translation processes.
The ontological systems are those that assume that the entities are, themselves, contradictory, and
the non-ontological systems are those that assume that the contradictions, about the characteristics
of some entity, are just moments of incompatibility between the reality of the entities in this world
and our ability to read, communicate, or express, it, what then leads to the necessity of
improvement, or refinement, of the means we use for those purposes so that we reduce the
discrepancy between the two 'universes'.
Ontological Paraconsistency, as a world phenomenon, was defended, for instance, by Priest in the
year of 2000 [Priest 2000a].
Tanaka mentions some of the argumentation presented by Priest in those regards in [Tanaka 2003],
for instance.
Priest seems to rely on our interpretation, of our senses, to declare that the entities are contradictory
in some regards.
Our senses have been proven to be scientifically equivocated not once, but several times. As trivial
examples of those instances of proof, we have the Parallax Mistake, the orbit debate (is it the sun
around earth or the earth around the sun?), and the shape debate (is our planet cubic or spherical?).
In our articles, we have consistently presented argumentation that frontally opposes accepting the
ontological paraconsistency as a scientific reality, so that we would like to make clear that whenever
we write about paraconsistent logical systems, we are referring solely to the non-ontological
systems.
Non-ontological Paraconsistency, however, has been defended, for instance, by Da Costa, according
to Priest [Priest 2000a] and Tanaka [Tanaka 2003], so that Da Costa's argumentation may be added
to ours in support to our claims here, with no loss of coherence or consistency.
Notice that, unless the objects are allowed to have interpretation that is not dependent on our
observation, we cannot guarantee that the object itself bears contradictions. Instead, we are obliged
to accept that the contradictions hold large probability of being part of our own internal confusion

5/13
or part of the difficulty of expressing our clarity, of our internal ideas, to others.
Perhaps it is because of the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph that [Nadin 2008] brings
mention to Peirce's belief on the existence of interpretation that is independent of the observer in
what regards the observed entities.
'Interpretation', however, demands the presence of consciousness. At the machine level, which
would at most be that of the application in Bloom's Taxonomy, it is inconceivable that one thinks of
consciousness, once that belongs, with no doubts, to the analysis and synthesis levels instead, that
is, to those levels of the Bloom's Taxonomy that are considered exclusively human. Some results or
features of the human interpretation may even be 'put inside' of a machine, but the machine itself
will not, even so, hold consciousness of what it does, the consciousness remaining with the human
being who has programmed, or created, it instead, therefore the interpretational human skills, as a
whole, considering the usual human beingiv, cannot be transferred to a machine.
Because of that, it is impossible that the object bears interpretation that is independent of the
observer. Not only the observer is essential figure for any interpretation to exist, but the
interpretation itself is an ultra personal production, tailored by the person expressing it, even by the
time of the expression itself.
In our analysis of the Sorites Problem lies the root of all issues that we have mentioned in the
previous paragraphs.
It seems, to us, that the modern philosophers are looking for the absolute, for the total absence of
personalization of the human discourse, for a place where there be scientific certainty in the
application of the human language.
If the entities hold own interpretation then there is the right and there is the wrong in what regards
human discourse that is applied as interpretation of those entities.
Notwithstanding, it is obviously the case that human judgments have to do with the mental universe
of each human being and the absolute, in this sense, is a place that cannot, therefore, possibly exist.
It does not matter whether we write about the quality beauty and a specific human being or about
the color green and a desk: Both interpretative matches have to be made out of ultra personal logical
systems, rather than out of any told to be universal logical system.
It is obviously acceptable that a person spends their entire life calling objects 'universally' told to be
green red and, even so, be immediately understood, at all times they do that, by their acquaintances,
for instance.
What is interpretation?
Interpretation is the same as ultra personal reading!
We may think that we are contradictory, for example, in what regards what we feel for the man X.
We may think that we both love and do not love him.
However, when a third party observes us, that third party may hold 'absolute certainty' that we do
not love him, for instance.
It is obvious that it all has to do with the mental paradigms of each one of us.
Thus, we may believe that we suffer from 'ontological paraconsistency syndrome' in what regards
our feelings of love for X and it is also possible that, when another entity 'reads' us, or interprets us,
they believe that we do not 'suffer' from such a syndrome.
Peirce would like to write here that, independently of what we think (also of what the observing
entity thinks), there is a reading, or an interpretation, which is scientific, of our feelings of love for
X and, therefore, one of us is wrong in their judgment, or even we both are.
Priest, on the other hand, would like to write that we are contradictory in nature and, therefore, all
expressed judgments are correct (we love X and we do not love X at the same time, under the same
concept of love).
It is obvious that the words are tools to express our judgments and their meaning may change as we
apply them... .
This way, it cannot be the case that the interpretation is independent of us, human beings. The

6/13
interpretation is, itself, expressed by means of words, which are mutant entities thanks to the
element 'personalization of the language', which is always present in human communication and
expression.
Interpretation is also a word itself.
Once the meaning of the words change according to the user, Peirce cannot be scientifically right.
Besides, notice that our mental pictures from when we declare that we love X differ from our mental
pictures, or references, from when we declare that we do not love X.
Basically, when we declare that we love X, our mind focuses perhaps on those moments in which
we tolerated absurd actions of X, but, when we declare that we do not love X, our mind focuses on
those moments in which we have wished for his death, for instance.
We have reached certainty that our mental paradigms, or pictures, are not the same when our
assertions seem to be of contradictory nature, so that those assertions are not truly contradictory,
and may even be supplementary in nature instead.
Once the mental paradigms differ when apparently contradictory assertions are analysed, Priest
cannot be right in his possible argumentation here either.
As the 'paradigms problem' also explains third party interpretative contradictions, there is no chance
for the Ontological Paraconsistency to be a reality in the concrete world, like it may, at most, be part
of the abstract world, and solely whilst confusion is considered acceptable in it.
With the ontological paraconsistent logical systems out of consideration, it remains to us explaining
how one could connect the non-ontological paraconsistent logical systems to the art of translating.
Basically, we may 'know'something and, even so, be completely incapable of expressing that
something
with enough coherence, or in scientific terms, to others.
In one of the examples used by Priest (Priest 2000a) to defend the ontological paraconsistency, for
instance, an observer of a famous painting utters, with the same amount of belief, that a set of stairs
is departing from both a certain point in the painting and from another, distinct from the first and
incompatible.
Obviously the case that, as the utterer finishes uttering the first utterance, there is a shift in the
mental paradigms, so that they feel comfortable, mentally, with uttering the second utterance,
which is perceived, by the audience of theirs (and a computer with voice recognition system could
easily be part of this audience), as conflicting with the first utterance, but is
just another scientifically incomplete utterance of the same utterer instead.
At the moment of 'listening' to that, however, the audience could easily have to make a decision and
perform a
single action based
on the received data and, therefore, to scientifically describe what is going on there, in a first
moment,
one would
need to make use of a paraconsistent logical system of some sort.
Basic translator's reasoning explains the confusion: It all resumes to the speaker being 'incapable'
of translating what they think with perfection into words, that is, to the speaker being incapable
of making their audience see an image that holds enough similarity to their mental image, from the
time they 'created' the assertion, through their words.

1.4 Intersection of the previous items

Due to the extraordinary number of matches, of similar meanings (one could even say of difficult
differentiation), in any other language, for any word in a particular language, one may think that a
certain lexicon word may both translate and not translate, at the same time, into the word chosen
from some lexicon as its equivalent in some other language.

7/13
Fact is that the words are always referring to something very specific, and very well defined, in the
head of those who use them (paradigms of thought, as explained earlier on in this very paper).
Epistemic reasoning may lead to the understanding of a few translation problems, therefore: If we
ever had instruments to read human minds that could be calibrated as necessary to match the
amount of refinement in the mind of the communicators, we would have far higher probability
of describing precisely, by means of words, the image (or reference) that the communicators see
inside of their heads whilst producing communication to third parties than the probability we
currently hold of doing that.
Even though epistemicism may help us reasoning and understanding what goes on in the translation
processes, the same way paraconsistency may help us understanding moments of human hesitation
and indefiniteness, it is obviously the case that, unless human minds are criminally made equal, we
will never succeed in eliminating translation inaccuracy in full in what regards human
communication.
Thus, translation inaccuracy is usually a non-negative and non-null presence in any translation
process involving human beings.
Notice here that the own lexicon is born with a non-negative and non-null inaccuracy measurement
value attached to the majority of its entries, once it is a collection of educated analysis results about
educated observations and guesses that refer to the discourse use of specific tokens of the human
language.
Once the modern communicators base themselves also in the lexicon to produce their
communications, and therefore are obliged to translate from the lexicon into their communications,
it can only be the case that the value of the inaccuracy measurement,originally attached to the
lexicon words, experiences a non-negative increase, per word in the communications, during the
moment in which the communications are produced.
Notice then that this is the moment in which the translator would appear and read those
communications to then re-write them in another language.
Once more, this process will add, in a non-negative way, to the inaccuracy measurement value, per
word of the translated text.
To make it all worse, once the translator bases themselves in at least two lexicons, of different
languages,their work inherits at least the original inaccuracy measurement value, non-negative and
non-null value, attached to each one of the lexicon words from each lexicon used by them.
Basically, we then have the original value of the inaccuracy measurement from the lexicons, which
suffers from positive increase in a proportional fashion to the amount of lexicons used, the value of
the inaccuracy measurement of the communicator when producing their communications, and the
value of the inaccuracy measurement of the translator's work, all non-negative values, to consider
when trying to read a translated text.
What we have written so far, in this section, does not imply that the translated text both is and is not
a translation: The translated text is, obviously, a translation.
How perfect such a translation is is another matter... .
We believe that the perfection of the translation is a matter of scientific interest.
In the pursuit of studying such a matter, we initially propose that a universal measurement of the
similitude between the original text words and the translated text words, say /delta, be attached to
the resulting words, in the target language, so that we allow for both Fuzzy Logic alike
processes to take place, in what regards choosing the most perfect match in the target language for
the source language word, and a degree of perfection to be attached to the translated version of the
text.
Our line of discourse, this far in this article, seems to be directed to proving that there is a huge
difference between what has got human nature and what has got mechanic nature.
Notwithstanding, we have eventually made light reference to the human conventions in language,
which have, as objective, making some human discourse elements universally single out an

8/13
undoubtful human related element.
Therefore, even though linguistic translation, in general, ought not to be seen as fully passive of
automation, whatever it is that may be regarded as a product of convention in human language may
be seen as holding linguistic translation processes that are fully passive of automation.
Technical lingo, or technical jargon, is seen as a product of convention in human language.
Therefore, the processes of linguistic translation in purely technical texts may be regarded as fully
passive of automation.
And it is in the automation of the processes of the technical linguistic translation that we can
imagine a few non-classical logical systems, such as Fuzzy Logic and the logical systems that are
classified as paraconsistent, being applied with success.
The work performed in computers with basis in our last paragraph has high probability of being
precursor because the majority of the creators of the non-classical logic systems has created those
systems without ever thinking of possible real life applications of those.
On the other hand, any research made along the lines of ours, on the association 'technical language
with machine', may easily generate precursor results, which may be successfully applied, in
practice, in the translation of purely technical texts.
The computer program is nothing else apart from the repetition of the programer's reasoning, which
is affected, in varied degrees, by the human conventions for computers (for instance the structure of
the computer language in which the program is written).
Because of that, there is a huge value that is added to the programming technique, therefore to the
computer program, each time the concerned programer reads texts like ours.
The first message that we imagine to have been passed to our readers by now is that translating is a
semiotic process (point of view also defended in [Gorlee 1994], for instance), not a mathematical
process (point of view defended by Wittgenstein, for instance, as seen in …).
The basic difference between the linguistic translation processes and the mathematical processes
may be understood by means of graphical illustration associated to the Bloom's scale ([Kovalchick
2004]), for instance.
While the linguistic translation processes are all located in the top of the Bloom's scale, where
analysis and synthesis are, if the purely technical texts are excluded from our universe of
possibilities, the mathematical processes oscillate in the Bloom's scale, passing by varied levels for
each new mathematical problem and sometimes remaining exclusively in the bottom levels, where
the comprehension and the application lie (just like when the problem follows a model of another
problem, which has already been solved by the person).
The second message that we imagine has been passed to the readers of this article by now is that the
paraconsistent logical systems are ideal tools to translate, into computer language, the hesitation, or
the human uncertainty, over something.
For instance, an isolated word of a certain translated text may or may not mean the same as the
original word meant, in the source-language, in terms of world reference.
Perhaps, however, two words, of the same translated text, will mean the same as the original word
meant, in the source-language, given that our universe is that of the technical lingo.
The third message that we imagine has been passed to the readers of this article by now is that the
logical system Fuzzy Logic is the ideal tool to translate, into computer language, the degree of
perfection, or universal belief, in the translated technical text.
The degree of perfection in the translation processes could be assigned by the own translator as they
translate the text, for instance.
The most important contribution of the logical systems we here mention to the linguistic translation
processes executed by machines seems to regard inferences or decisions contained in those
processes.
The last paragraph of ours marks the end of our first section for this article, the end of our
Introduction.

9/13
This article still brings the following sections:
2) Automated translation of technical texts;
3) The Sorites Problem and the Chinese language;
4) The logical system Fuzzy Logic, the paraconsistent logical systems, and the automation of the
technical translation;
5) Conclusion;
6) References.

2. Automated translation of technical texts

10. References

[Anderson 1996] Anderson, C. A.; Terence, B.; Tamar, G.; others (1996). Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Found online at http://plato.stanford.edu/about.html. ISSN 1095-5054. Accessed on the
28th of May of 2009.

[Bridges 2009] Bridges, D. (2009). Constructive Mathematics. Stanford Encyclopedia of


Philosophy. Found online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics-constructive/. ISSN 1095-
5054. Accessed on the 28th of May of 2009.

[Casti 1999] Casti, John (1999). Cinco Regras de Ouro. Editora Gradiva. ISBN: 9726626919.

[Chen 2000] Chen, Aitao (2000). Phrasal Translation for English-Chinese Cross Language
Information Retrieval. Citeseer, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.21.3287.
Accessed on the 26th of September of 2008.

[Da Costa 2006] Da Costa, Newton (2006). Curriculo Lattes.


Http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.jsp?id=K4787165A0. Acessed in 2006.

[Gorlee 1994] Gorlee, Dinda L. (1994). Semiotics and the Problem of Translation: With Special
Reference to the Semiotics of Charles S. Peirce. Approaches to Translation Studies 12, Rodopi, pp.
87-114, <<Wittgenstein, translation and semiotics>>.

[Hajek 2006] Hajek, P. (2006). Fuzzy Logic. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Found online at
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-fuzzy/#2. ISSN 1095-5054. Accessed on the 1st of June of
2009.

[Hasan 2000] Hasan, Md. Maruf and Matsumoto, Yuji (2000). Japanese-Chinese Cross Language
Information Retrieval: An Interlingua Approach. Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language
Processing. Vol. 5, nr. 2, August 2000, pp. 59-86.

[Hyde 1997] Hyde, Dominic (1997). Sorites Paradox. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Found

10/13
online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/. ISSN 1095-5054. Accessed on the 31st of
October of 2000.

[Kovalchick 2004] Kovalchick, A. and Dawson, K. (editors) (2004). Education and Technology: an
encyclopedia. Vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, ISBN: 1576073513 9781576073513.

[Mansei 2003] Mansei, Martin H. (2003). Oxford Concise Chinese-English and English-Chinese
Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 3rd ed. ISBN: 7100039339.

[Nadin 2008] Nadin, M. (2008). Semiotics for the HCI community. Online at http://www.code.uni-
wuppertal.de/uk/hci/Concepts/welcome.html. Accessed on the 27th of September of 2008.

[Parker 2010] Parker, Philip M. (2010). Definition of mass, Greek (transliteration), Webster's online
dictionary with multilingual translation, http://www.websters-online-
dictionary.org/definitions/mass?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID
%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=mass&sa=Search#922, accessed on the 18th of October of 2010.

[Pinheiro 2006a] Pinheiro, Marcia R. (2006). A Solution to the Sorites Paradox. Semiotica, ¾, pp.
307-326.

[Pinheiro 2006b] Pinheiro, Marcia R. (2006). A Summary of the Statements Contained in A


Solution to the Sorites Paradox and Further Details on the Solution.
Http://www.scribd.com/illmrpinheiro2, preprint, accessed in 2009.

[Pinheiro 2006c] Pinheiro, Marcia R. (2006). A Paraconsistent Solution to the Sorites Paradox.
Http://www.scribd.com/illmrpinheiro2, preprint. Accessed in 2009.

[Priest 2000] Priest, Graham (2000). Introduction to Non-classical Logic: Moving about in worlds
not realized. Cambridge University Press. ISBN-10: 052179434X.

[Priest 2000a] Priest, Graham (2000). Personal communications with M. Pinheiro during the
acquisition of the UQ Postgraduate Diploma in Logic by M. Pinheiro. UQ, 2000.

[Priest 2006] Priest, Graham (2006). Professional webpage. Http://www.st-


andrews.ac.uk/philosophy/old/gp/gp-papers.html. Accessed in 2006.

[Read 1995] Read, Stephen (1995). Thinking About Logic: An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Logic. Oxford University Press. ISBN-10: 019289238-X.

[Sintra 1998] Sintra website authors (1998). http://www.sintra.org.br/site/index.php?


pag=valores.Accessed in 2006.

[Tanaka 2003] Tanaka, Koji (2003). Three Schools of Paraconsistency. Australasian Journal of
Logic, July.

[Xiaoqing 1995] Xiaoqing, Z. K. (1995). Grundkurs Der Chinesischen Sprache. Sinolingua. ISBN
(Band 1): 7-80052-476-0.

[Wikipedia 2003] Wikipedia authors (2003).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiktionarylogoen.png. Accessed in 2006.

11/13
[Zadeh 1965] Zadeh, Lofti (1965). Fuzzy Sets. Information and Control, 8: 338-353.

[Zadeh 1994] Zadeh, Lofti (1994). Preface in R. J. Marks II (ed.). Fuzzy Logic Technology and
Applications. IEEE Publications. ISBN-10: 0780313836. ISBN-13: 978-0780313835.

12/13
i PO Box 12396, A'Beckett st, Melbourne, VIC, AU, 8006.
ii In the English language, the word soros translates into heap (see [Parker 2010], for instance).
iv We call usual human being the human being who is mentally and physically, as for the body pieces that are strictly
necessary for the interpretation under consideration to be made and expressed, fit.

You might also like