Publication type: Conference other
Type of review: Peer review (abstract)
Title: MT literacy as a means of agency and empowerment for translators
Authors: Lehr, Caroline
Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen
Delorme Benites, Alice
et. al: No
Proceedings: The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts
Page(s): 37
Conference details: The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning, Winterthur (online), 2-3 September 2021
Issue Date: 3-Sep-2021
Publisher / Ed. Institution: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften
Publisher / Ed. Institution: Winterthur
Language: English
Subjects: Machine translation literacy
Subject (DDC): 410.285: Computational linguistics
418.02: Translating and interpreting
Abstract: Recent advances in artificial intelligence, natural language processing and ready access to freely available online tools are raising people's expectations that quality translation is easily accessible and practically instantaneous. In addition to the sobering reality of the risks and cultural inappropriateness associated with the misleadingly fluent output of some of the machine translation systems (cf. Martindale and Carpuat 2018), professional translators now often have to act as consultants and deal with unrealistic client expectations. Media citing research reports claiming human parity for neural machine translation (cf. Hassan et al. 2018) add to the strong underestimation of the complexity of translation work. Raising their clients’ awareness of the complex skills set required for professional translation and the risks associated with machine translation output (cf. Wahler 2018) has now become an important part of translators’ work. As a consequence, knowledge about the capabilities and limitations of the machines and tools with which translators are and will be working (cf. Massey and Ehrensberger-Dow 2017) is an increasingly relevant aspect of translation competence. This type of knowledge has been referred to as MT literacy by Bowker and Buitrago Ciro (2019), whose list of component competences includes: comprehending the basics of MT systems; appreciating the wider implications associated with the use of MT; evaluating how MT-friendly texts are; creating or modifying a text so that it could be translated; and modifying MT output to improve its accuracy and readability. In this presentation, we discuss how MT literacy can empower translators to bring their expertise as language professionals to the table and argue that it should be regarded as a means to foster translators’ agency and empowerment. We explore how it can be related to soft skills, such as a strong professional self-concept and self- confidence, in translator training.
Further description: References: Bowker, L. and J. Buitrago Ciro. 2019. Machine Translation and Global Research: Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly Community. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Hassan, H., A. Aue, C. Chen, V. Chowdhary, J. Clark, C. Federmann, X. Huang, M. Junczys-Dowmunt, W. Lewis, M. Li, S. Liu, T-Y. Liu, R. Luo, A. Menezes, T. Qin, F. Seide, X. Tan, F. Tian, L. Wu, S. Wu, Y. Xia, D. Zhang, Z. Zhang, and M. Zhou. 2018. “Achieving Human Parity on Automatic Chinese to English News Translation.” arXiv:1803.05567. Martindale, M. J., and M. Carpuat. 2018. Fluency over Accuracy: A Pilot Study in Measuring User Trust in Imperfect MT.” Proceedings of AMTA 2018 (1): 13–25. Massey, G., and M. Ehrensberger-Dow. 2017. Machine Learning – Implications for Translator Education. Lebende Sprachen 62 (2): 300–312. Wahler, M. E. 2018. “A Word is Worth a Thousand Words: Legal Implications of Relying on Machine Translation Technology.” Stetson Law Review 48: 109–139.
URI: https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf
https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/23088
Fulltext version: Published version
License (according to publishing contract): Licence according to publishing contract
Departement: Applied Linguistics
Organisational Unit: Institute of Translation and Interpreting (IUED)
Appears in collections:Publikationen Angewandte Linguistik

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Lehr, C., Ehrensberger-Dow, M., & Delorme Benites, A. (2021). MT literacy as a means of agency and empowerment for translators [Conference presentation]. The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts, 37. https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf
Lehr, C., Ehrensberger-Dow, M. and Delorme Benites, A. (2021) ‘MT literacy as a means of agency and empowerment for translators’, in The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, p. 37. Available at: https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf.
C. Lehr, M. Ehrensberger-Dow, and A. Delorme Benites, “MT literacy as a means of agency and empowerment for translators,” in The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts, Sep. 2021, p. 37. [Online]. Available: https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf
LEHR, Caroline, Maureen EHRENSBERGER-DOW und Alice DELORME BENITES, 2021. MT literacy as a means of agency and empowerment for translators. In: The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts [online]. Conference presentation. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. 3 September 2021. S. 37. Verfügbar unter: https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf
Lehr, Caroline, Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, and Alice Delorme Benites. 2021. “MT Literacy as a Means of Agency and Empowerment for Translators.” Conference presentation. In The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts, 37. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf.
Lehr, Caroline, et al. “MT Literacy as a Means of Agency and Empowerment for Translators.” The Łódź-ZHAW Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning : Book of Abstracts, ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, 2021, p. 37, https://www.zhaw.ch/storage/linguistik/institute-zentren/iued/upload/forschung/duo-colloquium-book-of-abstracts.pdf.


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