Critical language barriers: Understanding the role of online translation tools in high-stakes professional sectors

像谷歌Translate这样的在线机器翻译工具广泛可用并且非常受欢迎。这些工具在社会和伦理上也很复杂。一方面，它们支持语言多样性，增加了获取信息的途径。另一方面，这些工具可能不准确，因此它们具有固有的风险。然而，这种技术的低成本和便利性非常吸引人，所以机器翻译现在甚至在高风险的环境中也存在。官方报告显示，这些工具被用来采访难民、与病人沟通，以及获得警方搜查的同意。在这些情况下使用该技术可能产生的负面后果各不相同，从信息安全威胁到操作不当或司法不公。迄今为止，大多数以人为中心的机器翻译研究都忽视了这些潜在的严重影响，而倾向于关注该技术如何在语言服务或学术环境中使用。该项目将有助于解决日益增长的研究需求，重点关注非语言学家和非学生使用机器翻译克服语言障碍的情况。该项目的目的是提高对机器翻译在高风险专业领域的社会影响的理解，以期形成指导和公共政策。机器翻译的使用将被置于更广泛的理论传统的背景下，涉及跨文化数字伦理、技术调解和技术的社会建构。该项目将借鉴这些框架中的相关概念，并解决两个经验性问题。第一个问题将探讨在高风险环境中工作的专业人士如何描述机器翻译及其使用。律师、医生、警察、公务员和一系列其他专业人士将提供他们如何处理工作中的语言障碍以及他们认为机器翻译的挑战和机遇的重要描述。第二个问题将考察机器翻译用于同步（即现场）伦理对话的含义。它将探索与技术交互的多模态方法（例如，语音到文本和文本到语音转换）及其对通信和对话者的影响。分析将询问机器翻译如何改变对翻译（书面）和口译（口头）的理解，并探索这两个领域之间的交汇点。这些方法包括定量和定性两方面的方法，将在抽样策略和研究设计方面为翻译研究开辟新的领域。英国特许语言学家协会是该项目的合作伙伴。特许语言学家协会是一个拥有7000多名成员的皇家特许机构，它将担任即将成立的跨党派现代语言议会小组的秘书处。它的使命是促进语言和语言技能在公众利益中的价值。我们的伙伴关系将在实现该项目的目标方面发挥重要作用。我们将共同努力，共同生产产出，并将项目成果传达给议会、智库、政府机构和工会等决策和有影响力的机构。该项目的产出包括开放数据集、一份政策咨询报告以及一本关于机器翻译在教育和语言行业用例设置之外的伦理影响的书。机器翻译是一种具有巨大潜力的工具。我们这个项目的最终目的是帮助实现这一潜力，丰富跨文化交流，促进社会公正，保护个人的信息权利，这些都需要对这项技术在社会中所扮演的角色有一个基于证据的理解。

Online machine translation tools like Google Translate are widely available and hugely popular. These tools are also socially and ethically complex. On the one hand, they support linguistic diversity and increase access to information. On the other, these tools can be inaccurate, so they are inherently risky. The low cost and convenience of this technology are nevertheless highly appealing, so machine translation is now present even in high-stakes contexts. Official reports show that these tools are used to interview refugees, to communicate with patients, and to obtain consent for police searches. The possible negative consequences of using the technology in these situations can vary from information security threats to malpractice or miscarriages of justice. Most human-centred machine translation research to date has overlooked these potentially serious implications and tended to focus on how the technology is used in language services or in academic settings. This project will help to address a growing need for research focused on situations where non-linguists and non-students use machine translation to overcome a language barrier. The project's aim is to improve the understanding of machine translation's social implications in high-stakes professional sectors with a view to shaping guidance and public policy. Machine translation use will be situated in the context of broader theoretical traditions involving intercultural digital ethics, technological mediation, and the social construction of technology. The project will draw on relevant concepts from these frameworks and address two empirical questions. The first question will explore how professionals who work in high-stakes environments characterise machine translation and its use. Lawyers, doctors, police officers, civil servants and a range of other professionals will provide important accounts of how they deal with language barriers in their work and of what they see as the challenges and opportunities of machine translation. The second question will examine the implications of machine translation use for synchronous (i.e., live) ethically charged conversations. It will explore multimodal methods of interacting with the technology (e.g., with speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversions) and their effects on the communication and the interlocutors. The analysis will interrogate how machine translation can change the understanding of translation (written) and interpreting (spoken) and explore points of convergence between these two fields. The methods include both quantitative and qualitative techniques, and will break new ground in translation studies in terms of sampling strategy and research design. The UK's Chartered Institute of Linguists is a Partner on the project. A Royal Charter body of over 7,000 members, the Chartered Institute of Linguists will act as the incoming secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages. Its mission is to promote the value of languages and language skills in the public interest. Our partnership will play an important role in achieving the project's aim. Together, we will work to co-produce outputs and communicate the project's results to policy making and influencing bodies including Parliament, think tanks, government agencies, and trade unions. The project's outputs include open datasets, a policy advisory report as well as a book on ethical implications of machine translation beyond use-case settings in education and the language industry.Machine translation is a tool with significant potential. Our intention with the project is ultimately to help this potential to be realised in ways that enrich cross-cultural communication, promote social justice, and protect individuals' right to information, which all require an evidence-based understanding of the role this technology plays in society.