Transsearch: A free translation memory on the world wide web

A translation memory is an archive of existing translations, structured in such a way as to promote translation re-use. Under this broad definition, an interactive bilingual concordancing tool like the RALI’s TransSearch system certainly qualifies as a translation memory. This paper describes the Web-based version of TransSearch, which, for the last three years, has given Internet users access to a large English-French translation database made up of Canadian parliamentary debates. Despite the fact that the RALI has done very little to publicize the availability of TransSearch on the Web, the system has been attracting a growing and impressive number of users. We present some basic data on who is using TransSearch and how, data which was collected from the system’s log file and by means of a questionnaire recently added to our Web site. We conclude with a call to the international community to help set up a network of bi-textual databases like TransSearch, which translators around the world could freely access over the Web. 1