Chakir Mahjoubi

Language Technologist

Arabic - English - French

                               +44 (0) 73 77508604                               

PROFILE

A Multilingual linguist and language Instructor with an experience in modelling natural languages, and testing language processing systems; My professional areas of specialization are the analysis of style in spoken and written languages, grammatical analysis. I focus on areas of semantics, syntax, and grammar. Prior to this, I worked in software development focusing on software localization and terminology management.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Expertise in several major areas of Human Language Technology, especially pertaining to Digital Humanities and Socio-linguistic. Practical knowledge in dialogue management.

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING: Textual Corpora, Discourse Analysis, Corpus Annotation, NLTK toolkits, Pen Treebank Tagset, Word Sense Disambiguation, Morphological Analyzer, Information Extraction, Classification, Metadata, tokenization, normalization, Praat,

SYSTEM & WEB TECHNOLOGIES: XML, Dita, Terminology, Database, Perforce, Agile, Jira, Perforce, Testing. NLTK Toolkit. Basic Knowledge of Graph technology & Semantic Web.

Research Interest

Terminology and Phraseology, Text Structure, Lexical Ontologies, Stylistics, Pragmatics, Syntax, Semantics, Translation, Cultural Studies, Digital Humanities.

I am Member of the European research and educational projects (TextLink) and the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST).                          

Contribute to the evaluation of COST Open Call proposals. Contribute to the impact and success of COST programme. Identify relevant and realistic impacts for science and society.

EDUCATION

CENTRE DE RECHERCHES INTERDISCIPLINAIRES ET TRANSCULTURELLES   2003 - 2006    

Doctoral researcher, Subject of research: Culture, Language Learning and Digital Media.

UFR SCIENCES DES LANGAGES DE L’HOMMES ET DE LA SOCIETE – France 2002 - 2003    

MPHIL in Archive, Documentation and Text Analysis “Autobiography in the Maghrebian novel.

Master’s Degree Languages, Literatures and Foreign Civilizations               2000 - 2002 

Internship report: “Translation for the Transfer of Laser Technology

FACULTE DES LETTRES ET DES SCIENCES HUMAINES SAIS-FES             1995 - 1999 

Bachelor’s degree in English Language & Literature “Narrative Space in Mrs Pollifax & the Whirling Dervish”.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

12/2019 – 02/2020

ISOFSTONE: Working as a linguist consultant, helping IT companies with linguistics related tasks: My Tasks include the extraction of information, categorization and classification. classification, software localisation, document editing and formatting. Defining resource requirements, budget and time for each project, review the performance of the localisation process, managed changes and ensured the project meet internal and external client expectations with respect to quality, budget and delivery timelines.

03/2016 – 07/2017

SAMSUNG R&D: Checked for NLG natural language responses and dialogues developed by third party creative content writers and highlight issues. Utilised UMS tool to extract and analyse user data and check where we can refine models and improve the product capabilities. Run data analysis using Pivot Charts and ToolPak. Provided daily statistics on capsules’ performance. Classified and structured natural utterances. Worked with large volumes of data to identify pattern for language and devise linguistic rules. Analysed system output, ensuring that phonemes are matched with correct transcriptions. Normalisation for conversion of non-standard words and their orthography to their spoken forms. Investigating failures and ambiguous tagging of the NLU training. Identifying NLU errors, potential gaps, and proposed recommendations. Executed regression test cases for all existing Bixby capsule. Attending international conferences and meetings. Research in state-of-art. Provided innovative ideas and solutions to engineering process on how to improve the NLU.

10/2017 – 06/2018

LANGUAGE Engineer - TEAM LEAD – HARMAN INTERNATIONAL

Checked for NLG natural language responses and dialogues developed by third party creative content writers and highlight issues. Created templates for Natural Language Generation (NLG Responses). Produced annotated datasets via large-scale collection of human speech data. Categorisation and classification of natural utterances. Performed localisation tasks and collaborated with external translation vendors to consistently raise bar on localisation quality. Back up data and restore it properly to prevent any type of data loss. Text-normalisation for conversion of non-standard words and their orthography to their spoken forms. Delivered weekly reports. Attended project workshops.

03/2016 – 07/2017

HARMAN INTERNATIONAL: Work with Samsung global teams to ensure that the French language dependent content is delivered as per the requirements with good quality, in timely fashion, supported and Managed a linguist team. Reviewed translated content. Provided linguistic expertise in the areas of syntax, semantics. Categorization and classification of natural utterances. Labelled the semantic intent of phrases. Participated in management meetings, delivered weekly reports.

03/2016 – 07/2017

TEXT APPROACH: Undertaking updates to data workflow to meet the group communications objectives and plan across all channels. Create attributes in Excel spreadsheet and map them against existing data. Deliver detailed suggestions for improvement of usable data and visual assets. Update client Product Management System (PIM) including the maintenance of all records. Review data change requests. Populating product database with new information and testing the integrity of the data when necessary.

02/2014 – 09/2015                             

WORLD PROGRAMMING: Contributed to the localisation of a software application for the financial market, evaluating the application content, implementing the new content and testing its new features. Run data analysis in SAS program to check the content performance. Ensured application properties comply with corporate SEO guidelines. Contributed to the maintenance and enrichment of an in-house terminology database. Maintain multilingual glossaries. Troubleshoots bugs; performs fixes or creates software change requests for internal software developers for internationalization issues. Identify and address gaps in content localization processes to ensure high-quality output against process efficiency. Constantly improves the linguistic content, rewording and enhancing the writing style.

10/2012 – 02/2014

XEROX: Provided technical support for offshore clients based in France responding to issues received from a ServiceNow ticketing system. Identified, gathered information on errors and determined root cause. Provided internal and remote technical support. Created materials and guidelines and related business process documentation for users and ensure that they can use provided software to their maximum efficiency.

05/2012 – 09/2012

EMC EUROPE: Contributed to the localization of Documentum application requesting the user interface to be adapted to Bi-directional users, provided recommendations on Arabic grammar and syntax. Adapted product documentation design to local culture. Contributed to the maintenance and enrichment of an in-house terminology database. Worked closely with software engineers to identify and fix language problems. Reviewing inconsistencies in the content, inaccurate translations and suggested improvement when sentences or words sound unnatural. Released the language package. Analysed content to identify and correct issues related to localization and provided detailed reports of those errors, whilst making suggestions for improvements. Tested the application layout on different platforms, Mac, Windows.

08/2011 – 03/2012

BOND SOFTWARE: Contributed to the localisation of an HR Payroll system to be adapted to Bi-directional users. Understand client and project requirements and expectations and ensure that those requirements are adhered throughout the project. Define project requirements and prepare localization kits in collaboration with client. Adapted product documentation and all visuals to local culture. Worked closely with software engineers to identify, troubleshoot, and fix language issues. Managing the language data system and language requirements of the key cross-functional teams. Run manual, regression tests and reported results. and switch the design layout, assisted in the migration to the new environment. Run UAT test and ensured that the application properties comply with the SEO guidelines. Knowledge of internet related technology (.NET, HTML, XML). GUI resizing verification …). Run the application on the production server and development servers and demonstrate application issues. Manage translated terminologies and style guide for designated language for digital content. Run SQL Queries to ensure the integrity and consistency of the data across all the platforms. Run UAT test and ensured the application properties comply with corporate SEO guidelines.

EMC EUROPE: Worked as a linguist consultant, helping IT companies, marketing agencies and clinical research institutes with linguistics related tasks: translation, transcription, localization, transcreation, editing, proofreading and testing. Building and maintaining working relationships with clients. Defining resource requirements, budget, resource and time. Hired freelance and managed a linguist team, creating quotes and invoices. Coordinated the localization tasks and delivered projects in time and with the requested quality.

Oxford Outcomes: Contributed to the translation of an Electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) and digital applications (EQ-5D). Checked and Edited language translations for Arabic variations. Piloted testing of the ePRO measures assessing whether the patients have fully understood the instructions, run a cognitive debriefing tests and In-country review. Compared and evaluated data so that the content is culturally relevant and meaningful for use in the target language.

TRANSLATION & TRANSCRIPTION

American Dynamics: Contributed to the localization of a CCTV application. Testing User Interface layout to ensure that the application looks correct from an end user perspective. Review and approve changes to translated documents after they have been revised, tracked and logged bug defects by articulating and providing detailed bug reports.

TheBigWord: Provided Humint Language Analysis, transcription and analysis of Arabic conversation dialogues to recover essential elements of information. Providing gists, summaries, extracts, verbatim transcripts and English translations of a variety of audio and written materials. Applied gender lexicons and morphological rules to determine, among several candidates, who is the author of a spoken or written text.

Avant Assessment: Collecting short authentic listening passages (Weather report, News bulletins or interview) in Arabic and French. Assign the selected passages a difficulty rating based on the interagency language roundtable (ILR) scale, the provide a translation into idiomatic English.

Local Concept: Transcribing Arabic speech orthographically to be used in the automation of smartphone speech recognition. Worked with tools in order to provide phonetic transcription of lexicon entries in native orthography. Analysing, validating and augmenting language and speech data. Labelled semantic phrases and tagged entities for disambiguation. Collecting a corpus of context related and compiling all resulting sentence fragments in an Excel.

FILM & MEDIA

Sfera Studio: Contributed to the translation, subtitling of screen captions in Arabic and French using the company subtitling tool. Repurposing existing subtitle files to client files, checking for text corruption and content issues to avoid clashes with on-screen text.

UniFrance: Contributed to the localization of My French film festival websites customizing the organization front page in Arabic and French languages. Translated film synopses and subtitled screen captions in Arabic. Corrected translations done by other linguists, leading to a higher level of accuracy and customer satisfaction. Member of the film jury for 2011.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

08/2010 – Present

LISTEN & LEARN: Teaching the Arabic and French languages on a freelance basis to student of different backgrounds, developing work and lesson plans; provide a variety of learning materials and resources for use in the teaching activity, keep up to date with developments in subject area; teaching resources and methods and make relevant changes to instructional plans.

08/2007 – 07/2008

FRENCH CULTURAL INSTITUTE - Espoo: Taught French to preschool kids. Adequately equipped kids to participate in authentic dialogues through fun and interactive activities, acquiring the necessary skills such as conversational thematic vocabulary and structural knowledge to build communicative capacity in different situations entirely in French.

09/2005 - 07/2007       

MINISTERE DE L’EDUCATION NATIONAL – Besancon: Assisted students individually or in small groups to help mastering assignments to reinforce learning concepts. Advise students about which classes to take and how to achieve their goals.

ATTENDED CONFERENCES

La création et la gestion de bases terminologiques multilingues, éléments essentiels de la traduction et de la néologie, in Proceedings of the Workshop Machine Translation, Controlled Languages and Specialised Languages, Besançon, 5-6 May 2000.

Towards the enrichment of terminological resources by scientific corpora analysis, eLex 2015 conference: Electronic lexicography in the 21st century: Linking lexical data in the digital age. pp. 136-151. THOMAS I., ATANASSOVA I. (2015), United Kingdom, August 2015

Hanane Mahjoubi., (2009) Calcul de la référence dans les dialogues oraux et transfert du français vers l'arabe, Modélisation simplifiée de la théorie du Gouvernement et du liage, Thèse de doctorat sous la direction d’Henri Madec, Centre de Recherche Lucien Tesnière, Université de Franche-Comté, 2009.

BAUDOUIN J.-G. (2008), Les ambiguïtés de la langue arabe, mention très honorable, Thèse de doctorat sous la direction de Sylviane Cardey, Centre de Recherche Lucien Tesnière, Université de Franche-Comté.

ARTICLES & PRESENTATIONS

From Syntactic Analysis to Lexical Ontology: An Improvement of the Language Model, Staines, UK 2019

WORKSHOPS & PANELS

Digital Transformation – Data Platform, eBECS and Microsoft Data Platform Workshop, September 21, 2016, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES

Chakir Mahjoubi “Monitoring progress in eliminating landmines, cluster munitions, and other explosive remnants of war", Landmine monitors, Canada 2010.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Volunteering to the translation and localization of open source applications such as Moodle in Arabic.

Contributed to the translation and localization of digital libraries such as Lingotek in Arabic.

Translation of an article about Airworthiness Directives “Airworthiness Directive: Life”

ACTIVITIES & MEMBERSHIP

Certified Translator at the Chartered Institute of Linguist (CIoL).

Member of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).

Member of “Proz” community for linguists and translators.

Member of the Arabic Translation Association (Atida)

Member of the French film jury for 2011

LANGUAGES

Moroccan Darija: native knowledge

Classical & Arabic: native knowledge

French: native knowledge

English: near native speaker