Abstract:

Although not as discussed as other forms of artificial intelligence, machine translation (MT) has made significant progress in the last decade and has become a commonly used technology. However, its use raises various questions for higher education and transnational higher education (TNHE), particularly as THNE providers instruct students in a non-native language. Such medium of instruction education not only aims to develop students' language abilities; it also promises a certain level of language competency for degree holders—two propositions that student MT usage can be seen to undermine. To better understand the use of MT in TNHE, we interviewed twenty-one students and twelve instructors from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in mainland China, where English is the language of instruction and overwhelmingly not the students' native language. We asked students and instructors from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the School of Sciences, about their usage of MT, their thoughts about its reliability and consequences, and the extent to which using it for university study could be seen as ethical. Our interviews revealed that students almost universally use MT for reading, writing, and even listening to course content, though the extent and frequency of which they do so varies significantly depending on their language ability and course level. Students generally considered MT as being helpful to their comprehension of course material and their English language development, though they acknowledged that using MT for translating entire texts (whether when reading or writing) could be detrimental. Surprisingly, this view overlapped with instructors' views, as did the observation that using MT was not categorically unethical. Aware of the continued issues with the quality of MT output, both students and instructors recognized the need for guidance on the beneficial and ethical use of MT. Yet almost no students at the university had received such instruction, and none of the instructors interviewed provided it, indicating an important area for potential training. This research contributes to studies of MT use in language instruction and English for Academic Purposes courses in traditional universities by adding the perspective of its use in content courses in TNHE.

Keywords:

Machine translation, transnational higher education, ethics, language ability.