Using machine translator as a pedagogical resource in English for specific purposes courses in the academic context / O uso do tradutor automático como recurso pedagógico na aula de inglês para propósitos específicos no contexto acadêmico

Débora Borsatti; Adriana Blanco Riess

doi:10.17851/2237-2083.29.2.829-858

Using machine translator as a pedagogical resource in English for specific purposes courses in the academic context / O uso do tradutor automático como recurso pedagógico na aula de inglês para propósitos específicos no contexto acadêmico

Débora Borsatti, Adriana Blanco Riess

Abstract

Abstract: This paper presents a proposal for pedagogical use of MT in English for Specific Purpose (ESP) courses, aiming at investigating the efficiency of this technology as a support for reading scientific texts in English as a FL. The theoretical approach is on ESP, reading and comprehension and a proposal to use MT in ESP courses, aiming to understand the processing of MT and how this knowledge can raise benefits on reading comprehension for academic purposes. In addition, we discussed corpus linguistics and its relation to language teaching as well as its role in MT. The analysis shows that, due to the hybrid system that utilizes the rule-based system and the corpus-based system, Google Translate produces relatively understandable and readable texts. Despite its evident limitations, the tool can provide linguistic awareness when pedagogically explored by ESP teachers in academic context.

Keywords: Machine Translation; pedagogical tool; reading; English for Specific Purposes.

Resumo: Este artigo apresenta uma proposta de uso pedagógico de tradução pela Máquina (MT) em cursos de inglês para fins específicos (ESP), com o objetivo de investigar a eficiência dessa tecnologia como suporte para a leitura de textos científicos em inglês como L2/ LE. A abordagem teórica é sobre ESP, leitura e compreensão e uma proposta de uso de MT em cursos de ESP, com o objetivo de entender o processamento da MT e como esse conhecimento pode trazer benefícios na compreensão da leitura para fins acadêmicos. Também, discute-se a linguística de corpus e sua relação tanto com o ensino de línguas quanto seu papel na MT. Por fim, a partir da análise que se faz, devido ao sistema híbrido que utiliza o sistema baseado em regras com o sistema baseado em corpus, o Google Translate produz textos relativamente compreensíveis e legíveis. Apesar de suas limitações evidentes, essa tecnologia pode fornecer consciência linguística quando explorada pedagogicamente pelos professores de ESP no contexto acadêmico

Palavras-chave: Tradutor Automático; ferramenta pedagógica; leitura; Inglês para Propósitos Específicos.

Keywords

Machine Translation; pedagogical tool; reading; English for Specific Purposes; Tradutor Automático; ferramenta pedagógica; leitura; Inglês para Propósitos Específicos.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/2237-2083.29.2.829-858