CONTROLLED LANGUAGE IN MACHINE TRANSLATION AND PLAIN LANGUAGE: EQUALLY INTERCHANGEABLE TERMS OR NOT?

The term “controlled language“ is used to refer to an important step in preparing the text for machine translation or rather the rules the writer needs to abide by in order to prepare the text for the translation. It usually relates to the translation of specialised texts(registers, such as engineering, medicine, economy etc.). On the other hand, “plain language” is aimed at the simplification of formal language and is primarily used in official public documents (legal acts, contracts, administrative forms etc.). This paper discusses whether there are any similarities between the controlled language and plain language in order to determine if both can be understood as useful linguistic tools in controlled writing teaching and usage.