Mobile Translation Experience

Abstract

After closely examining the experiences of mobile translation in which people engage with translation on mobile platforms in the contexts of healthcare, crowdsourcing, and machine and translator training, the authors have identified a tightly intertwined relationship between mobile translation and machine translation. They have also found that the technological side is more dynamic than the user side in the case of mobile translation and machine translation, which may lead to a gradual reduction of people learning foreign languages and a possible loss of professional translators and language specialists. When it comes to contextual and textual translation, however, human translators currently outperform mobile or machine translators. Although human contribution will be determined by translation scenarios or specific translation tasks, the human-mobile/machine interaction in translation deserves further studies. It is imperative to compare mobile use and experience in human-mobile interaction related to translation in different cultures or countries so as to locate similarities and differences. Furthermore, it is also expected from the editor that further studies should focus on mapping, measuring, and modeling those identified similarities and differences.