Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on how the lack of shared understanding among different parties of what translation (by machine or human) is can lead to ethical issues in translation-mediated communication, and how it can be addressed by constructing meta-language for translation.

Paper long abstract:

Translation—by human or machine—has grown in status in Japan. Many schools have started to recognize the necessity of professional training for translators. Neural machine translation recently caused a social sensation, and natural language scientists are working on further technical advancement. Translation theorists are defining translation norms and developing competence lists required for better training and practice.

Despite these efforts by various players, translation practice as a whole has not advanced as much as expected because the developments have not been fully integrated with one another. One fundamental problem is that the concept of translation has not been shared among the different players. This has already led to social problems, including ethical issues. For instance, a local government's misuse of machine translation in a 2019 typhoon disaster resulted in the communication of false information. While the root cause seems to have been ignorance on the part of the machine translation users, there is a much deeper problem—the concept of translation itself not being shared. This discord also causes issues around translation copyrighting and fair pricing for human translators, problems now recognized as ethical and moral issues.

Against this backdrop, the author has been engaged in research to establish a conceptual platform that facilitates communication among stakeholders through a shared translation process model. We also define meta-language for describing the model. In this paper, the author explores the status of the current project as well as collaboration among stakeholders in translation practice in Japan.

Note:

The project: JSPS research project "Developing a translation process model and constructing an integrated translation environment through detailed descriptions of translation norms and competences."