Can Pictograph Translation Technologies Facilitate Communication and Integration in Migration Settings?

Abstract

In this pilot study, we investigate the potential of pictograph translation technologies for facilitating communication and integration in the context of migration. We incorporate a new pictograph set in an existing text-to-pictograph translation system and carry out evaluations on three sets of authentic data (language classes, news articles, websites of local governments). We also evaluate whether a component targeting named entities can increase the coverage of the system. Our results show that, even though the pictograph translations can successfully represent parts of input sentences, conveying their full meaning proves to be a difficult task. We conclude that using the text-to-pictograph translation system as such in a migration context is not recommended. At the same time, we suggest other potential applications for the system in a migration context and point to potential improvements.