Series | Studi e ricerche
Edited book | Human Translation and Natural Language Processing
Chapter | “I Looked It Up in DeepL”: Machine Translation and Digital Tools in the Language Classroom
“I Looked It Up in DeepL”: Machine Translation and Digital Tools in the Language Classroom
Abstract
This article looks at a widespread yet erroneous use of machine translation (MT): looking up single words, thus treating MT systems as online bilingual dictionaries (ODs). After a literature review of this trend in research about MT, we consider data from a large survey that we carried out in 2021 at all Swiss universities on MT use and users’ attitudes. When analysing users’ metalinguistic awareness, we discovered that non-translators perceive the text to translate, mostly at word level, leading to the misuse of MT systems as ODs. Moreover, the survey results revealed confusion between the different digital tools for language learning, namely MT, online parallel corpora like Linguee and ODs. We therefore suggest broadening the scope of MT literacy to include training learners in general digital literacy to enable them to use such tools appropriately.
Submitted: July 14, 2023 | Published Dec. 7, 2023 | Language: it
Keywords Language learning and teaching • Tools • Online dictionaries • Online corpora • Machine translation
Copyright © 2023 Sara Cotelli Kureth, Alice Delormes Benites, Mara Haller, Hasti Noghrechi, Elizabeth Steele. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-762-3/006
