Machine translation, language learning and the ‘knowledge economy’: from economic discourses to education in action

This chapter focuses on the integration of machine translation (MT) into language learning for digital communication in today’s assumed ‘knowledge economy’. It begins by exploring the latter notion in relation to translation as a language service that is experiencing unprecedented automation and further commodification through recent advances in MT. It claims that, although the global MT market may substantially contribute to the global economy, little is known about the extent of its economic benefits in other market economies or, more importantly, its (in)tangible effects for knowledge acquisition and production in other areas. Furthermore, the adoption of MT technology for non-economic benefits is expected to continue growing in other usage areas owing to powerful accessibility to free online machine translation. The literature shows that language learning is one such area, but that users’ lack of adequate MT knowledge poses significant challenges to its full exploitation for language acquisition and production. The authors report on a pilot study that shows that MT can nevertheless improve second language written production, despite said knowledge gap. They conclude that education can play a critical role in bridging this gap and in surpassing the ‘economizing’ logic found in contemporary industry translation.