Challenges of machine translation application to teaching ESP to construction students

Abstract

The article deals with problems of translation teaching, namely machine translation for ESP students. The study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of machine and human translation of construction terminology, identify causes of errors, provide recommendations for improving quality of students’ translation via post-editing as well as developing their interdisciplinary skills using CAT tools. The main research methods include comparative and contrastive analysis as well as the quantitative method. The research material is presented by tittles of construction students’ qualification papers translated from Ukrainian into English. Quality of machine translation is affected by peculiarities of construction terminology due to harmonization of terms according to Eurocodes. The authors prove that application of software to translating construction texts without further proofreading or post-editing by students themselves entails errors including distortion of terminology and, consequently, meaning. There are presented reasons for lexical errors caused by peculiarities of translating multicomponent terms, discrepancies in translating prepositions. The article is intended for a wide range of specialists interested in translating construction texts and teaching ESP. Based on the results obtained, the authors develop recommendations for translating construction texts by using machine translation accompanied by students’ post-editing.