Article published in:
Fair MT: Towards ethical, sustainable Machine Translation
Edited by Joss Moorkens, Dorothy Kenny and Félix do Carmo
[Translation Spaces 9:1] 2020
► pp. 98–122

Machine translation in the news

A framing analysis of the written press

| University of Bristol
Machine translation (MT) is now firmly in the public eye. The media can reflect and influence the public perception of MT and, by extension, of translation itself, but the news coverage of MT has to date remained largely unexplored. This study draws on the news framing literature to present an analysis of how MT is described in the written press. Based on a sample of 284 MT-focused newspaper articles, the news reporting on MT was found to be significantly more positive than negative. This positive framing was unrelated to the launch of neural MT. Furthermore, the portrayal of MT in the press tended to lack nuance, with few instances that raised awareness of the technology’s use implications. The study calls for higher standards in the public discussion and promotion of MT and for more research on non-professional conceptualisations of translation technologies and their role in communication.
Keywords: machine translation, news coverage, news framing, content analysis, translation technology
Published online: 17 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.00023.nun
References

References

Adams, Douglas
1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Basingstoke: Pan Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ames, Nick
2018 “Google Translate: The Unlikely World Cup Hero Breaking Barriers for Fans.” The Guardian 11 July 2018.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Jeremy
2016 “Sex Attacker ‘Used Google Translate to Search “I Am Interested in You” Before Attacking Schoolgirl.” Mirror Online 29 September 2016.Google Scholar
[ p. 115 ]
Bahdanau, Dzmitry, Kyunghyun Cho, and Yoshua Bengio
2015 “Neural Machine Translation by Jointly Learning to Align and Translate.” Accessed 3 March 2020, https://​arxiv​.org​/abs​/1409​.0473
Baker, Mona
2006 Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ballantyne, Neil
2015 “Human Service Technology and the Theory of the Actor Network.” Journal of Technology in Human Services 33 (1):104–117. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
BBC News
2019 “Translation Errors Force Osaka Metro Websites Offline.” BBC News, March 19 2019 Accessed 28 October 2019, https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk​/news​/world​-asia​-47622639
Beall, Abigail
2016 “Google Translate Just Got Better: AI-Powered Software Is Now Almost as Good at Translating Chinese as Humans.” Daily Mail Online 28 September 2016.Google Scholar
Blair, Anthony
2018 “Google Translate Users TERRIFIED as Site Reveals Disturbing DOOMSDAY Prophecies.” Daily Star Online 23 July 2018.Google Scholar
Bowker, Lynne, and Jairo Buitrago Ciro
2019 Machine Translation and Global Research: Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly Community. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, Darren
2018 “Sham Wedding Gang Who Made £500,000 Marrying Bogus Couples Who Had to Communicate via Google Translate Are Jailed for 20 Years.” Daily Mail Online 4 April 2018.Google Scholar
Cadwell, Patrick, Sharon O’Brien, and Carlos S. C. Teixeira
2017 “Resistance and Accommodation: Factors for the (Non-) Adoption of Machine Translation Among Professional Translators.” Perspectives 26 (3): 1–21. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
de Vreese, Claes H.
2005 “News Framing: Theory and Typology.” Information Design Journal + Document Design 13 (1): 51–62. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
de Vreese, Claes H., and Hajo Boomgaarden
2003 “Valenced News Frames and Public Support for the EU.” Communications 28 (4): 361–381. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, Greg
2018 “Is Google Translate Improving or Ruining the Way We Travel?” Telegraph Online 12 April 2018.Google Scholar
Eleftheriou-Smith, Loulla-Mae
2015 “Google Translate Error Sees Galician Town of As Pontes Accidentally Celebrating ‘Clitoris Festival’.” Independent Online 3 November 2015.Google Scholar
Griffin, Andrew
2015 “Google Translate Live Translation Upgrade to Let Anyone Speak Any Language, Any Time.” Independent Online 12 January 2015.Google Scholar
Grissom, Robert J., and John J. Kim
2011 Effect Sizes for Research: Univariate and Multivariate Applications, 2nd edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Guerberof, Ana
2013 “What Do Professional Translators Think About Post-Editing?” JosTrans. The Journal of Specialised Translation 19:75–95.Google Scholar
Harding, Sue-Ann
2012 “ ‘How Do I Apply Narrative Theory?’ Socio-Narrative Theory in Translation Studies.” Target 24 (2): 286–309. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hassan, Hany, Anthony Aue, Chang Chen, Vishal Chowdhary, Jonathan Clark, Christian Federmann, Xuedong Huang, Marcin Junczys-Dowmunt, William Lewis, Mu Li, Shujie Liu, Tie-Yan Liu, Renqian Luo, Arul Menezes, Tao Qin, Frank Seide, Xu Tan, Fei Tian, Lijun Wu, Shuangzhi Wu, Yingce Xia, Dongdong Zhang, Zhirui Zhang, and Ming Zhou
2018 “Achieving Human Parity on Automatic Chinese to English News Translation.” Accessed 3 March 2020, https://​arxiv​.org​/abs​/1803​.05567
[ p. 116 ]
Hudson, Rebecca
2019 “Glenside Care Home Pembroke Lodge Rated ‘Inadequate’ by Care Quality Commission.” Salisbury Journal 17 January 2019.Google Scholar
Hutchins, John
2010 “Machine Translation: A Concise History.” Journal of Translation Studies. Special issue: The Teaching of Computer-Aided Translation 13 (1 and 2): 29–70.Google Scholar
Jolly, Bradley
2019 “Couple Who Don’t Speak Same Language Fall in Love – Thanks to Google Translate.” Mirror Online 9 January 2019.Google Scholar
Jun-ho, Lee
2019 “Can Machine Translation Stand Alone?” The Korea Times 2 March 2019.Google Scholar
Kassam, Ashifa
2015 “Google Translate Error Sees Spanish Town Advertise Clitoris Festival.” The Guardian 3 November 2015 Accessed 28 October 2019, https://​www​.theguardian​.com​/world​/2015​/nov​/03​/google​-translate​-error​-as​-pontes​-spain​-clitoris​-food​-festival​-grelo​-galicia
Kockaert, Hendrik J.
2019 “Machine Translation Still Needs Human Aid.” China Daily Global 14 June 2019.Google Scholar
Korea Times
2016 “Automated translation app available for PyeongChang Olympics.” The Korea Times 18 July 2016.Google Scholar
Kuria, Winfred
2015 “Swahili the First African Language on Microsoft Translator.” Nation 21 October 2015.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno
1996 “On Actor-Network Theory: A Few Clarifications.” Soziale Welt 47 (4):369–381.Google Scholar
Läubli, Samuel, and David Orrego-Carmona
2017 “When Google Translate is Better than Some Human Colleagues, those People Are no Longer Colleagues.” In Proceedings of the 39th Conference Translating and the Computer, London, UK, 16–17 November, 59–69.Google Scholar
LETA
2016 “Riga to Host Annual Conference of European Association for Machine Translation at End-May.” Latvia National News Agency 6 April 2016.Google Scholar
Ma, Alexandra
2015 “Google Translate’s Mobile App Just Got Even More Magical.” Huffington Post 29 July 2015.Google Scholar
Mokken, R. J.
1971 A Theory and Procedure of Scale Analysis: With Applications in Political Research. The Hague: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Moorkens, Joss, and Sharon O’Brien
2015 “Post-Editing Evaluations: Trade-Offs Between Novice and Professional Participants.” In Proceedings of European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) 2015, Antalya, edited by İlknur Durgar El-Kahlout, Mehmed Özkan, Felipe Sánchez-Martínez, Gema Ramírez-Sánchez, Fred Hollowood, and Andy Way, 75–81.Google Scholar
Morrison, Sean
2016 “Teenager ‘Dragged From Pizza Restaurant, Raped and Stabbed’ and Then Used Google Translate to Report Crime.” Mirror Online 22 November 2016.Google Scholar
Muscavage, Nick
2019 “Franklin Cop Uses Google Translate to Talk to Chinese Theft Victim.” Courier News 18 February 2019.Google Scholar
Neuman, Russell, Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Crigler
1992 Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nikkei Weekly
1993 “Automatic Translation Approaching Reality: Some Success Achieved, but Systems Still Have Serious Limitations.” Nikkei Weekly 22 February 1993.Google Scholar
Nurminen, Mary
2018 “Machine Translation in Everyday Life: What Makes FAUT MT Workable?” TAUS eLearning Blogs 29 March 2019 Accessed 3 March 2020, https://​blog​.taus​.net​/elearning​/machine​-translation​-in​-everyday​-life​-what​-makes​-faut​-mt​-workable
Parsons, Jeff
2016 “Google Translate Now ‘As Good As a Human’ – Could It Save You on Holiday?” Mirror 30 September 2016.Google Scholar
[ p. 117 ]
Randall, Liam
2018 “Wrexham Council Staff Told to Stop Using Google Translate because of Complaints over Welsh Language Errors.” The Leader 20 December 2018.Google Scholar
Rossi, Caroline, and Jean-Pierre Chevrot
2019 “Uses and Perceptions of Machine Translation at the European Commission.” JosTrans. The Journal of Specialised Translation 31: 177–200.Google Scholar
Saxena, Jaya
2015 “Google Translate Hilariously Messed up the Invite for This Regional Festival.” The Daily Dot 3 November 2015.Google Scholar
Schuck, Andreas R. T., and Claes H. de Vreese
2006 “Between Risk and Opportunity: News Framing and its Effects on Public Support for EU Enlargement.” 21 (1): 5–32. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 “Reversed Mobilization in Referendum Campaigns: How Positive News Framing Can Mobilize the Skeptics.” 14 (1): 40–66. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sear, Laura
2018 “Egg-Streme Sports: Norway’s Olympic Squad Accidentally Orders 15,000 Eggs After Asking Google Translate How to Say 1,500 in Korean.” Daily Mail Online 8 February 2018.Google Scholar
Semetko, H. A., and P. M. Valkenburg
2000 “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News.” 50 (2): 93–109. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stachova, Olga
2019 “Are We Using Google Translate Responsibly?” Hamilton Spectator 1 January 2019.Google Scholar
Stapleton, Paul
2019 “How Google Translate May Disrupt English Classes, and Every Other Subject, in Hong Kong Schools.” South China Morning Post 16 January 2019.Google Scholar
Stochl, Jan, Peter Jones, and Tim Croudace
2012 “Mokken Scale Analysis of Mental Health and Well-Being Questionnaire Item Responses: A Non-Parametric IRT Method in Empirical Research for Applied Health Researchers.” BMC Medical Research Methodology 12: 74. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Aaron
2018 “Microsoft’s Chinese-English Translation System Achieves Human Parity.” Computer Weekly, Accessed 5 September 2019, https://​www​.computerweekly​.com​/news​/252436868​/Microsofts​-Chinese​-English​-translation​-system​-achieves​-human​-parity
Thomson Reuters
2020 Westlaw. Thomson Reuters, Accessed 26 June 2019. https://​intl​.westlaw​.com/
Titcomb, James
2016 “Google Translate Now Lets You Chat to Anyone in a Foreign Language.” Telegraph Online 12 May 2016.Google Scholar
Toral, Antonio, Sheila Castilho, Ke Hu, and Andy Way
2018 “Attaining the Unattainable? Reassessing Claims of Human Parity in Neural Machine Translation.” In Proceedings of the Third Conference on Machine Translation (WMT), 113–123. Association for Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar
Tsukayama, Hayley
2015 “Google Translate Will Let You Read Signs, in Real Time, With Your Phone Camera.” WashingtonPost.com 14 January 2015.Google Scholar
Turner, Karen
2016 “Google Translate Is About to Become Really Accurate.” Daily Herald 4 October 2016.Google Scholar
[ p. 118 ]
Vieira, Lucas N.
2020 “Automation Anxiety and Translators.” Translation Studies 13(1):1–21. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vieira, Lucas N., and Elisa Alonso
2020 “Translating Perceptions and Managing Expectations: An Analysis of Management and Production Perspectives on Machine Translation.” Perspectives 28(2): 163–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vieira, Lucas N., Elisa Alonso, and Lindsay Bywood
2019 “Introduction: Post-editing in Practice – Process, Product and Networks.” JosTrans. The Journal of Specialised Translation 31: 2–13.Google Scholar
Williams, Lawrence
2006 “Web-Based Machine Translation as A Tool for Promoting Electronic Literacy and Language Awareness.” Foreign Language Annals 39 (4):565–578. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wooten, Adam
2010 “International Business: Machine Translation Can Bring Blunders, Successes in International Business.” Deseret Morning News 19 November 2010.Google Scholar
2011 “International Business: Google Translate Has Great Uses, Disastrous Misuses.” Deseret Morning News 22 April 2011.Google Scholar
Wu, Yonghui, Mike Schuster, Zhifeng Chen, Quoc V. Le, Mohammad Norouzi, Wolfgang Macherey, Maxim Krikun, Yuan Cao, Qin Gao, Klaus Macherey, Jeff Klingner, Apurva Shah, Melvin Johnson, Xiaobing Liu, Łukasz Kaiser, Stephan Gouws, Yoshikiyo Kato, Taku Kudo, Hideto Kazawa, Keith Stevens, George Kurian, Nishant Patil, Wei Wang, Cliff Young, Jason Smith, Jason Riesa, Alex Rudnick, Oriol Vinyals, Greg Corrado, Macduff Hughes, and Jeffrey Dean
2016 “Google’s Neural Machine Translation System: Bridging the Gap between Human and Machine Translation.” Accessed 3 March 2020, http://​arxiv​.org​/abs​/1609​.08144