Machine Translation in the Teaching and Learning of Chinese as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Due to its rapid development and increasing availability, machine translation is now being used by an increasing number of teachers and students to facilitate their teaching and learning of second languages. This has provoked heated debate over the role of machine translation in second language education among L2 educators. This chapter sets out to provide an analytical overview of the existing body of research on this topic. It is revealed that the controversy and complexity regarding the use of MT for language education are two-fold. First of all, significant differences reside between L2 educators and L2 learners in their general attitudes to, perceived usefulness of, and actual uses of machine translation. Furthermore, among L2 teachers and L2 students respectively, the views, understandings, and uses of machine translation are also divergent.