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Towards Sustainable Use of Machine Translation: Usability and Perceived Quality from the End-User Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Ramunė Kasperė

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Jolita Horbačauskienė

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Jurgita Motiejūnienė

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Vilmantė Liubinienė

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Irena Patašienė

    (Faculty of Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Martynas Patašius

    (Faculty of Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania
    Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania)

Abstract

Artificial intelligence-grounded machine translation has fundamentally changed public awareness and attitudes towards multilingual communication. In some language pairs, the accuracy, quality and efficiency of machine-translated texts of certain types can be quite high. Hence, the end-user acceptability and reliance on machine-translated content could be justified. However, machine translation in small and/or low-resource languages might yield significantly lower quality, which in turn may lead to potentially negative consequences and risks if machine translation is used in high-risk contexts without awareness of the drawbacks, critical assessment and modifications to the raw output. The current study, which is part of a more extensive project focusing on the societal impact of machine translation, is aimed at revealing the attitudes towards usability and quality as perceived from the end-user perspective. The research questions addressed revolve around the machine translation types used, purposes of using machine translation, perceived quality of the generated output, and actions taken to improve the quality by users with various backgrounds. The research findings rely on a survey of the population (N = 402) conducted in 2021 in Lithuania. The study reveals the frequent use of machine translation for a diversity of purposes. The most common uses include work, research and studies, and household environments. A higher level of education correlates with user dissatisfaction with the generated quality and actions taken to improve it. The findings also reveal that age correlates with the use of machine translation. Sustainable measures to reduce machine translation related risks have to be established based on the perceptions of different social groups in different societies and cultures.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramunė Kasperė & Jolita Horbačauskienė & Jurgita Motiejūnienė & Vilmantė Liubinienė & Irena Patašienė & Martynas Patašius, 2021. "Towards Sustainable Use of Machine Translation: Usability and Perceived Quality from the End-User Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-17, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13430-:d:694959
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Xinjie Deng & Zhonggen Yu, 2022. "A Systematic Review of Machine-Translation-Assisted Language Learning for Sustainable Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Kanglong Liu & Ho Ling Kwok & Jianwen Liu & Andrew K.F. Cheung, 2022. "Sustainability and Influence of Machine Translation: Perceptions and Attitudes of Translation Instructors and Learners in Hong Kong," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-29, May.

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