Technological Innovation Put to the Service of Language Learning, Translation and Interpreting: Insights from Academic and Professional Contexts

In Chapter 5, by Olga Torres-Hostench, Integrating machine translation literacy skills in language learning, the author proposes recommendations and ideas for integrating machine translation into foreign language classes for all levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The proposals are inspired by the MultitraiNMT Erasmus+ project “Machine Translation for Multilingual Citizens”, in which the project partners developed a book and activities on machine translation for translators and language learners.

The sixth chapter, entitled Translating against the norm: Why is translation into L2 still frowned upon?, defies the tenet of translating into one’s native language. The author, Teresa Pataco, describes a collaborative translation project, where she was the main translator, together with two co-workers from the Polytechnic Institute of Porto who assumed the roles of “reviser” and “proofreader”. In addition to the resulting translation products, this project was also used as the methodological basis for the work plan established for two interns, who completed a curricular internship of 186 hours at the School of Hotel Management and Tourism, P. Porto in 2021.

Pedagogical course design is a concern shared by several contributors to this volume. In Chapter 7, DIY resources for specialised translation: A three-step multimodal methodology, Sílvia Araújo and Micaela Aguiar propose a multimodal methodology for the creation of specialised translation resources, which involves the pre-translation, translation and post-translation stages. This methodology, which was implemented in a Master’s degree course, was designed to equip translators with the knowledge to create their own specialised resources, but also to reuse those resources for different purposes.

In a similar vein, Ana Elina Martínez-Insua proposes the use of technology as an aid to the process of teaching-learning English as a foreign language to future translators/interpreters in Chapter 8, titled Does technology aid engagement? Pandemics and the design of EFL courses for future translators/interpreters. The author postulates that technology, in addition to opening the pathways to knowledge, can enhance students’ motivation and engagement with their own learning, helping them to learn how to learn.

The tenth chapter, Spanish comparative constructional idioms and their English and French counterparts. A corpus based study, proposes the study of phraseological comparisons under the notion of constructional idioms, that is, as form meaning pairings endowed with a global pragmatic meaning. Adopting a parallel corpus-based study, the author, Pedro Ivorra Ordines, aims to shed light on constructional counterparts of comparative constructional idioms of the field of ugliness and stupidity.

Predrag Oreški, Vladimir Legac and Krunoslav Mikulan conducted an experiment with university students at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb, Croatia, who used Duolingo to learn French as a completely new language in a mini-course. In Chapter 11, entitled Relationship between students’ interest in foreign language learning and their achievement in learning a foreign language with a mobile learning application, the authors evaluated the students’ performance using a self-built test and asked them about their experience in a questionnaire. While participants generally acknowledged the potential of Duolingo, prospective teachers of English as a foreign language were less confident in the efficiency of the app than prospective teachers of core subjects.

Also adopting an experimental approach, Milagros Torrado Cespón and Sidoní López Pérez present the results of a questionnaire on error awareness in English as a foreign language in Chapter 12, Are you aware of your errors when writing online? Pre-service EFL primary school teachers’ English proficiency tested. The questionnaire was administered to 94 online elementary school students, and the results suggest that most of them are aware of their errors, but also that they have doubts and turn to different online resources for clarification. In view of the findings, the authors contend that teachers need to provide resources to clarify doubts taking into account sustained attention in the virtual environment.

Eloy Rodríguez González, Muhammad Ahmed Saeed, Sabine Braun, Elena Davitti and Tomasz Korybski are the authors of Chapter 14, Reimagining the remote simultaneous interpreting interface to improve support for interpreters. Relying on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, the authors set out to investigate two aspects of remote simultaneous interpreting platforms with the aim of supporting interpreters working in this modality: the design of the interpreter interface and the integration of a voice recognition tool in the interface.

The fifteenth chapter, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for accessibility at international conferences, attempts to demonstrate that ASR technology can facilitate communication with the deaf and ensure the accessibility of content through captioning. Author Alessandro Gregori examines ASR data from an FAO conference database on the impact of climate change, while implementing a statistical evaluation strategy based on the Named Entity Recognition (NER) model.

Last but not least, Chapter 16, by Elena Ruiz-Cortés, stems from the belief that the language industry requires experts who are capable of providing new services. In this chapter, titled Using human translators’ skills to bridge the digital communication divide between migrants and public services through an accessibility assessment: Outsmarting machines, the author describes a type of service that translators in today’s language industry can provide, thanks to their training – one that machines would not be able to provide.

As the reader will have gathered from this brief overview, the present volume offers a wealth of research in the fields of technology-enhanced language teaching, translation and interpreting. Therefore, it is the editors’ firm belief that the diversity of topics covered by authors from different backgrounds will make for an enriching and comprehensive work that is bound to bring valuable insight to anyone who ventures into these chapters.

The Editors,

Óscar Ferreiro-Vázquez

(University of Vigo, Spain)

Ana Correia

(University of Minho, Portugal)

Sílvia Araújo

(University of Minho, Portugal)