Wang & Kazarian | Evaluating automated translation of LGBTQ terms: towards multilingual Homosaurus
Channel: MSU Digital Humanities
Date: 09/03/2023

Shuai Wang (Presenting) and Anna-Maja Kazarian | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

LGBTQ terms can be confusing for many. Without training, it could be hard to describe gender identities and sexualities with accurate terms. Moreover, one’s tongues and pronouns can vary. While these terms can be translated by existing tools of machine translation, the accuracy remains unknown. In this thesis project, we would like to evaluate the accuracy of popular machine translation tools including Google Translate, Microsoft Azure, DeepL, Reverso, etc. Homosaurus is a linked data vocabulary of LGBTQ terms. It includes a wide variety of gender identities, including transsexual, drag queen, genderqueer, and butch. It shows great potential to be used to describe knowledge of literature, concepts, research topics, etc. It has been developed and maintained by the community including librarians and researchers at multiple institutes including the IHLIA LGBT Heritage. In this thesis project, we would like to sample 200 terms from the Homosaurus and evaluate the translated terms using machine translation tools. More specifically, we chose Spanish, German and Polish for this project. We study the following three research questions: How much do automated machine translation tools agree on LGBTQ+ terms? How accurate are machine-translated LGBTQ+ terms? How can we compare the approach of using automated machine translation tools for different languages? The analytical results could be used as guidelines to complete the remaining terms in Homosaurus. The expected outcome of this project is the evaluation result and 200 Homosaurus terms with enriched multilingual labels.

For more information about the symposium visit: https://msuglobaldh.org