Informatics for Translation : A Semiotic Analysis of AMIA 2008 Papers
Translation has two phases: (a) the generation of information, and (b) its application. These phases are reflected in the vision of AMIA 2008 and 2009 Annual Symposia: From Foundations to Applications to Policy. They are also the two phases of the semiotic cycle, each consisting of morphologics, syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics. The resulting eight semiotic steps are necessary for effective translation. The author analyzed the loci of all the 180 papers in the AMIA 2008 Annual Symposium Proceedings in these eight steps. He found that more papers emphasized generation than application. Within generation, most papers focused on syntactics followed by morphologics, semantics, and pragmatics. This distribution represents the state-of-informatics-research if the AMIA 2008 papers are representative of that research. Interpreted in the context of the theme of the symposium the most frequent focus is on the foundations with significantly less frequent focus on applications and policy. These foci will have to be evaluated and rebalanced if informatics has to become an effective tool for translation