Sustainability and Influence of Machine Translation: Perceptions and Attitudes of Translation Instructors and Learners in Hong Kong

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

The introduction section would read much better if the research problem and the importance thereof is clearly established in the introduction.
The introduction section would read well if it explains without any ambiguity why there was a need for this research, what research gap(s) it addresses, and how it contributes to the body of knowledge. In addition, it could explain the benefits of the study to the research and how and why the research advances knowledge in the field. I was not able to see the ‘big picture’ importance and place of the study which they were expecting to see in the introduction section.

The literature review is deficient in its addressal of the research gap and research model. the literature review does not clearly present a substantial argument to support the importance of the research study.

Improve the discussion section to better ascertain what is unique / novel about your findings
Explain in detail how the article contributes to new knowledge in the domain. Evidence from published research studies should be tied into the new contributions in the discussion section.
The findings should be discussed with reference to the theoretical framework used.
Integrate previous work which was discussed and critiqued in the literature review and discussion sections, with the findings and tone of the study and bring out what was done in this study which addressed some of the shortcomings of those studies.

Author Response

See attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read your paper with interest and benefit. I agree that the topic you address is great relevance for both academics and practitioners. I found that what you present your core them "sustainability" to be treated too lightly though. I suggest that you first define sustainability for the context of machine translation, and that you keep interpreting your very insightful observations within such a framework of sustainability. At the moment, you leave this work entirely to the readers. 

I would also like to encourage you to continue this research and to engage in larger qualitative surveys.  

Author Response

See attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Review of “ Sustainability and the Influence of Machine Translation: Perceptions and Attitudes by Translation Instructors and Learners in Hong Kong”

The study presented in this manuscript is exploratory in nature and investigates learners’ and instructors’ knowledge of machine translation(MT), experience in MT use, perceived MT quality, ethics of MT use and the perceived relationship between MT and translation training, in order to figure out the usefulness of MT in translation competence acquisition and the necessity of MT training. The authors conducted surveys and semi-structured interviews.

Major comments:

1. The major findings are quite expected: The MT is useful for increasing efficiency in translating and learning vocabularies, but over-dependency could negatively affect students’ learning of translation skills. However, the study is important and informs translation trainers and trainees of the usefulness of MT as well as its drawbacks.
2. The authors elaborate the definition of MT literacy (page 19) and indicates how human translators and MT can co-exist to increase efficiency while maintaining accuracy and pragmatic appropriateness, which is useful.
3. I am not very sure if the word “sustainability” is used appropriately in this manuscript, as in “[t]he sustainability of MT in translation training” in the last line of the abstract. The word “sustainability is usually about how to maintain and support some entities, policies or phenomena whose existence in a given environment is in danger. MT has been improving and its use has been increasing. The problem that authors are seeing with MT is trainslation trainees’ overreliance on it when they work on assignments outside of classes. If it is about the use of MT outside of classes, instructors do not have much control over it: Instructors may be able to sense it when their students overused MT outside of the classroom, but they cannot prove it. Thus, the use of MT outside of class is not in danger of existence. On the other hand, MT may be replacing many human translators even if human translators are still needed for reviewing and editing the translations made through MT. So, in global contexts, the “sustainability” of human translators is an issue. Accordingly, I think the manuscrip will be much clearer if the word “sustainability” is changed in this manuscript.  
4. The survey and inerview results are useful for presenting a problem about MT in the context of translation training. However, the discussion sections can include the authors’ suggestions on how to effectively prevent students from misusing MT. It is difficult to prevent translation trainees from using MT outside of classrooms, but there must be a creative way to make them use MT while learning translation techniques.

Minor comments:

1. All survey questions that were actually used should be listed in Appendices.
2. The captions for Table 1 and Table 2 are exactly the same: “Demographic information of the learner group in the survey.” There should be a difference between them. In addition, the period at the end of it is not needed because it is not a sentence.
3. In Figure 1, I see (a), (b), and (c), to mean “Undergraduate students,” “Postgraduate students,” and “Instructors”. The phrases are so short, so using these phrases as they are or using “UG,” “PG,” and “Instructurs” rather than (a), (b), and (c) are more reader-friendly. The same applies to other figures.
4. In Figure 3, exactly the same set of reasons are used for “UG”, “PG,” and “instructors”. Combining all and using different color for these three groups will be much easier to see for readers. The same applies to Figure 11.
5. After “Figure 10”, there is an error message.
6. Page 15, second line: There is an error message.

Author Response

See attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf