Inquiry into students' familiarity with computer-assisted translation tools

Abstract

Acquiring knowledge of computer-assisted translation (CAT) technology is the basic requirement not only for translation students but also for professional translators to have good use of CAT tools. This study aimed to investigate the degree of M.A. translation students’ familiarity with CAT tools used to support CAT-related activities included in the translator’s workstation. To do so, a questionnaire consisting of 16 questions was prepared for data collection based on translation activities proposed by Fulford and Granell-Zafar. This includes document production activities, business management activities and translation creation activities. As the results indicated, the M.A. translation students were mainly familiar with general-purpose applications, such as word processing software and machine translations, and rarely with specific-purpose software, namely web publishing software and accounting packages. They also were in full agreement with the effectiveness of CAT tools in their productivity and efficiency.

Keywords: Computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools, machine-aided translation, technology;