What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation

Delorme Benites, Alice; Steele, Elizabeth; Cotelli Kureth, Sara; Lehr, Caroline

Publication type:	Conference other
Type of review:	Peer review (abstract)
Title:	What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation
Authors:	Delorme Benites, Alice Steele, Elizabeth Cotelli Kureth, Sara Lehr, Caroline
et. al:	No
Conference details:	3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023
Issue Date:	16-May-2023
Language:	English
Subjects:	Digitalisierung; Machine translation (MT); Language learning; Artificial intelligence (AI); Sprache; Unterricht; Schweiz; Übersetzung
Subject (DDC):	410.285: Computational linguistics 418.0071: Language teaching
Abstract:	The advent of neural machine translation (MT) has not only disrupted the translation professions but also the teaching and learning of foreign languages. This latter issue has long been unacknowledged, despite the efforts of individual researchers (e.g. Briggs 2018, Jiménez-Crespo 2017, Tsai 2020, Vinall & Hellmich 2021, Klimova et al. 2022) to deal with the elephant in the room. At a broader level, the concept of MT literacy (Bowker & Buitrago Ciro 2019) has emerged, but there has been a lack of knowledge about how MT is actually used, especially in relation to language learning. The popular media often claim that MT obviates the need to learn foreign languages, striking fear into the hearts of many language teachers. For these reasons, four Swiss universities have joined forces to investigate the practices, attitudes and representations of learners in higher education regarding the use of MT. We will present the results of a multilingual wide-scale survey we conducted in 2021 among all Swiss universities (6,400 respondents). We found that, even though most respondents claimed to be using MT, almost all stated that they considered language learning to still be necessary and that MT was a useful tool for this purpose. We observed a multitude of practices, situations and contexts in which MT is being used in varied and creative ways, contradicting the simplistic claim that language learners would just copy-paste texts into the machine and pass off the output as their own work. However, we also discovered a widespread lack of reflection and critical thinking when using these tools, especially regarding data privacy and possible consequences in the case of a mistranslation. These findings have helped us to fine-tune an MT literacy concept for language learning and teaching purposes. Since 2022, we have carried out 20 interventions to language teachers in various Swiss universities to foster their own MT literacy and empower them in harnessing the potential of MT in their classrooms. This is an iterative process in that each intervention provides us with new insights into the evolving needs and the concerns of language teachers, allowing us to refine our underlying concept. After attending our interventions, the teachers are able to take on multiplier roles for their learners regarding MT literacy. While the launch of easily accessible text generation tools such as ChatGPT has further disrupted language learning and teaching, we are applying the lessons learnt from our project so far to go beyond MT literacy and work towards a concept of a more general artificial intelligence (AI) literacy as a response to the newly arising challenges.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/28478
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)
Published as part of the ZHAW project:	Digital Literacy im Hochschulkontext (DigLit)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen Angewandte Linguistik

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Delorme Benites, A., Steele, E., Cotelli Kureth, S., & Lehr, C. (2023, May 16). What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation. 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023.

Delorme Benites, A. et al. (2023) ‘What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation’, in 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023.

A. Delorme Benites, E. Steele, S. Cotelli Kureth, and C. Lehr, “What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation,” in 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023, May 2023.

DELORME BENITES, Alice, Elizabeth STEELE, Sara COTELLI KURETH und Caroline LEHR, 2023. What we (all) do in the shadows : language learning in the era of machine translation. In: 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023. Conference presentation. 16 Mai 2023

Delorme Benites, Alice, Elizabeth Steele, Sara Cotelli Kureth, and Caroline Lehr. 2023. “What We (All) Do in the Shadows : Language Learning in the Era of Machine Translation.” Conference presentation. In 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023.

Delorme Benites, Alice, et al. “What We (All) Do in the Shadows : Language Learning in the Era of Machine Translation.” 3rd International Conference ‘Language in the Human-Machine Era’ (LITHME), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 15-16 May 2023, 2023.