Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Perspectives toward Computer-aided Translation Tools and Machine Translation: A Case Study of Students of the English Department

Abstract

Computer-aided Translation (CAT) tools have attracted the attention of scholars who practice translation in various disciplines. The current study investigated undergraduate students’ Perspectives on CAT tools and Machine Translation (MT). More specifically, it investigates to what extent CAT tools improve productivity and translation quality. Finally, it also explores the other merits of using CAT tools. The present study used a qualitative analysis and semi-structured interviews to answer the research questions. The findings indicate that most of the students have a positive attitude toward using CAT tools. Furthermore, the findings show that lexical, syntactic, and special use of expressions as well as collocations and words that have cultural connotations were the most challenging that the students encountered when using MT. in addition. Improving productivity, enhancing quality, scalability, and connectivity are the four concepts mentioned by the subjects of the study as merits that made them use the CAT tool for translation other than using machine translation.