Title: A Comparative Study of Human Translation and Machine Translation Post-editing in E-C Translation: Translation Speed, Quality and Translators’ Attitude

Abstract: With the help of keylogging and questionnaire, this paper compares two translation patterns, i.e. human translation and machine translation post-editing, in E-C translation in terms of productivity, quality and translators’ attitude. The following findings are revealed: (1) In E-C translation of technical text, machine translation post-editing can significantly decrease task time and improve translation speed. (2) Compared with human translation, machine translation post-editing produces translations with less errors. Thus, higher translation quality is permitted by using post-editing. Correlation is not found between translation speed and quality under both patterns, which means that translation quality can be affected by other factors beyond speed, for example translators’ translation competence and machine translation quality. (3) According to pre-questionnaire, participants show a mixed attitude towards post-editing, and its influence has been demonstrated in translation speed as well as in quality. Compared with those holding a neutral or negative attitude towards machine translation post-editing, participants maintaining a positive attitude perform better in terms of both translation speed and quality.

Keywords: machine translation post-editing, human translation, translation speed, quality, translators’ attitude

Authors: Xiangling Wang, Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China; Tingting Wang, Post-graduate Student, School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China.