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.
Item Type:
Article (Published)
Refereed:
Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:
machine translation (MT); post-editing (PE); ergonomics; human factors;
Directorate-General for Translation (DGT); focus groups