Translation-based indexing for cross-language retrieval

Structured queries have proven to be an effective technique for cross-language information retrieval when evidence about translation probability is not available. Query execution time is adversely impacted, however, because the full postings list for each translation is used in the computation. This paper describes an alternative approach, translation-based indexing, that improves query-time efficiency by integrating the translation and indexing processes. Experiment results demonstrate that similar effectiveness can be achieved at a cost in indexing time that is roughly linear in the average number of known translations for each term.