The impact of machine translation on the development of info-mining and thematic competences in legal translation trainees: a focus on time and external resources

This study combines product- and process-oriented research methods and tools to observe whether and how the presence of pre-translated text affects translation quality and influences the translator’s research patterns. It is part of the LeMaTTT project, a simulated longitudinal empirical study exploring the impact of MT on info-mining and thematic competences in legal translation. Data were elicited through a translation task completed by a cohort of 110 final-year MA trainees with training in legal translation and basic MT literacy, and a cohort of 54 first-year MA trainees with no to very limited experience in specialised translation and post-editing. This paper provides a first analysis of selected process-related data concerning the allocation of time and the use of external resources throughout the translation or post-editing processes of 40 participants, 20 from each cohort. Preliminary results highlight some correlations between the use of time and external resources and both (a) the development of thematic and info-mining competences and (b) the specific type of task, i.e. whether from-scratch translation or post-editing.