Experiments with transitive dictionary translation and pseudo-relevance feedback using graded relevance assessments

Research on cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) has typically been restricted to settings using binary relevance assessments. In this paper, we present evaluation results for transitive dictionary-based CLIR using graded relevance assessments in a best match retrieval environment. A text database containing newspaper articles and a related set of 35 search topics were used in the tests. Source language topics (in English, German, and Swedish) were automatically translated into the target language (Finnish) via an intermediate (or pivot) language. Effectiveness of the transitively translated queries was compared to that of the directly translated and monolingual Finnish queries. Pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) was also used to expand the original transitive target queries. CLIR performance was evaluated on three relevance thresholds: stringent, regular, and liberal. The transitive translations performed well achieving, on the average, 85-93% of the direct translation performance...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: JASIS
• Authors: Raija Lehtokangas, Heikki Keskustalo, Kalervo Järvelin
• Keywords: JASIS 2008, Relevance Assessments, Transitive Dictionary-based Clir, Transitive Translation