Human factors in machine translation and post-editing among institutional translators

In September 2015, the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology carried out a focus group study of 70 translators at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation (DGT). The aim was to better understand the factors involved in the translators’ adoption and non-adoption of machine translation (MT) during their translation tasks. Our analysis showed that, while broadly positive attitudes to MT could be observed, MT was not consistently adopted for all tasks. We argue that ergonomic factors related to a human translator’s needs, abilities, limitations, and overall well-being heavily impacted on participants’ decisions to use MT or not in their tasks. We further claim that it is only by taking into account the special institutional circumstances in which the activity of DGT translation is situated that these ergonomic factors can be fully understood and explained.

[1]  M. Leblanc.  Translators on Translation Memory (TM). Results of an Ethnographic Study in Three Translation Services and Agencies , 2013 .

[2]  Pelagia Maria Lagoudaki.  Expanding the possibilities of translation memory systems : from the translators wishlist to the developers design , 2009 .

[3]  Sharon O'Brien,et al.  Correlations of perceived post-editing effort with measurements of actual effort , 2015, Machine Translation.

[4]  Sheila Castilho,et al.  Does post-editing increase usability? A study with Brazilian Portuguese as target language , 2014, EAMT.

[5]  Maarit Koponen,et al.  Comparing human perceptions of post-editing effort with post-editing operations , 2012, WMT@NAACL-HLT.

[6]  Karin Coninx,et al.  Recommendations for Translation Environments to Improve Translators' workflows , 2015 .

[7]  Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow,et al.  Ergonomics of the Translation Workplace: Potential for Cognitive Friction , 2015 .

[8]  R. Barbour.  Doing Focus Groups , 2008 .

[9]  Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow,et al.  Ergonomics of translation , 2018 .

[10]  Elina Lagoudaki,et al.  Translation Memories Survey 2006: User’s Perceptions Around TM Usage , 2006, TC.

[11]  Hanna Risku,et al.  Extended Translation. A Sociocognitive Research Agenda , 2013 .

[12]  Carlos S. C. Teixeira.  Perceived vs. measured performance in the post-editing of suggestions from machine translation and translation memories , 2014, AMTA.

[13]  Sharon O'Brien,et al.  Assessing the Usability of Raw Machine Translated Output: A User-Centered Study Using Eye Tracking , 2014, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[14]  François Masselot,et al.  A Productivity Test of Statistical Machine Translation Post-Editing in a Typical Localisation Context , 2010, Prague Bull. Math. Linguistics.

[15]  P. Liamputtong.  Focus Group Methodology: Principles and Practice , 2011 .

[16]  K. Koskinen.  Translating Institutions: An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation , 2014 .

[17]  Hanna Risku,et al.  A cognitive scientific view on technical communication and translation: Do embodiment and situatedness really make a difference? , 2010 .

[18]  Ana Guerberof Arenas.  Productivity and Quality in the Post-editing of Outputs from Translation Memories and Machine Translation , 2008 .

[19]  D. Morgan.  Focus groups as qualitative research / by Morgan, David L. , 1988 .

[20]  V. Braun,et al.  Using thematic analysis in psychology , 2006 .

[21]  Anthony Pym,et al.  Translation Technology and its Teaching (with Much Mention of Localization) , 2006 .

[22]  Michael Cronin,et al.  Translation in the Digital Age , 2013 .

[23]  Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow,et al.  Translators and machines : working together , 2014 .

[24]  Sharon O'Brien,et al.  Translation as human–computer interaction , 2012 .

[25]  Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow,et al.  Challenges of translation process research at the workplace , 2013 .