The Attitudes of Technical Translators in Turkiye Towards Post-Editing

Abstract

Today, the translation industry is moving towards a new dimension with the effect of technological developments. One extension of these developments is the artificial intelligence-based machine translation. This innovation, especially with the concept of post-editing, has completely changed the traditional understanding of translation and offered translators new roles such as posteditors. This study aims to examine the attitudes of technical translators in Turkey towards post-editing with an approach based on sociology of translation. In this regard, "habitus" and "interest", the key concepts of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, constitute the theoretical framework of the study. The reason technical translators are chosen as the research object is that machine translation offers very successful outputs in technical translation. The study concludes that technical translators in Turkey have a positive attitude towards post-editing as they are satisfied with the economic gains they have obtained from the field and have succeeded in adapting to the changing system with their habitus suitable for the needs of the field. Data collection was carried out using a questionnaire consisting of 13 open-ended questions. Since the study was conducted with a group of 10 participants from 3 different companies, additional empirical studies are required to support the findings.