Controlled Language (CL) technologies aim at standardizing the way technical documentation is written so it is easy to create, maintain, retrieve or translate. This approach is being reported as highly cost-effective, particularly for companies and institutions that need to handle large amounts of information. CAT tool users benefit from this technology because CL increases the level of internal repetition on the source language side and CL helps maintain the consistency on the target language side.

This short, and useful, article suggests a simple set rules to improve text translatability, a relevant topic for the use of translation memories. Published by TC-Forum.

"The objective of CL applications for technical writing is to foresee the need of document translation [...]" A short and clear description of what "Controlled Languages" may mean and its connection to CAT tools. Published by TC-Forum.

This article gives some practical hints on technical writing so that the resulting text is easier to process for machines. The article is published by Language Partners International.

Since this new way of producing documentation is proving successful, technical translation will be affected in two ways: it will be used in the source side (and this will facilitate the job of CAT tools), and the target language will have to comply to similar rules.

Within the CL framework, this article looks brings up the idea of combining Authoring Memory and Translation Memory tools in a unique workflow as a way of optimizing document production and translation processes.

This article gives useful guidelines for writing documentation for translation in a way that they will assist the human translator as well as translation software.

This site has been gone for a long while and is back now at CMU. Although there is a lot of information to be added, it is the new reference point for Controlled Languages from an academic point of view (although not necessarily in connection with CAT tools).

Susan Harkus interviews Andres Heuberger, President of ForeignExchange Translations, Inc. on the so-called "writing for translation" approach that applies acknowledged writing practices in order to optimise source text for translation. The interview provides valuable insights into the commercial application of machine translation.

Deborah Ray interviewed Andres Heuberger, President of ForeignExchange Translations, on the steps that content developers and technical writers can take to prepare for translation issues.