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Using Google Translate for Academic English Writing Instruction

Research Project

Project/Area Number 18K00656
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Review Section Basic Section 02080:English linguistics-related
Research InstitutionThe University of Aizu

Principal Investigator

Heo Younghyon  会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 上級准教授 (10631476)

Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) Perkins Jeremy  会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 上級准教授 (30725635)
Paik Incheon  会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 教授 (70336478)
Project Period (FY) 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2022)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,860,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥660,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
Fiscal Year 2018: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
KeywordsL2 writing / Machine translation / academic writing / Academic writing / Machine Translation / Machine-translated text / machine-translated text / keyword analysis / Google Translate / Academic English / Machine Learning
Outline of Final Research Achievements

There were three goals in this project. First, we investigated how well human readers can detect machine-translated text. We also performed a word analysis (n-gram analysis). Regarding the first goal, we found that the machine-translated text using Neural Machine Translation was so natural that human raters could not successfully detect them (51% accuracy). The results of the n-gram analysis showed that the top 50 most frequently used words were different between human-written and machine-translated texts, indicating some unique traits of each. Our second goal was to test whether machine learning can detect machine-translated texts. It was found that machine learning could detect machine-translated texts with high accuracy (accuracy rate 89% to 99%). The third goal was to create educational materials, and we were able to create materials teaching effective and appropriate use of Google Translate based on the results of our survey conducted on English instructors and our word analysis.

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Based on the result of our research (machine-translated writing being identifiable) and other studies, a system can be further developed and used to detect machine-translated writings (for L2 teaching). Also, we could instruct students how to use a machine translation tool to learn L2 writing.

Report

(6 results)
  • 2022 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report ( PDF )
  • 2021 Research-status Report
  • 2020 Research-status Report
  • 2019 Research-status Report
  • 2018 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (4 results)

All 2023 2019 2018

All Journal Article (1 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 1 results) Presentation (3 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 3 results)

  • [Journal Article] Discrimination between Machine-translated and L2 Human-written Text: Features Identified by English Teachers2019

    • Author(s)
      Younghyon Heo, Jeremy Perkins and Hyowon Song
    • Journal Title

      Proceedings of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

      Volume: 24 Pages: 92-93

    • Related Report
      2019 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] Instructing how to use Google Translate properly2023

    • Author(s)
      Younghyon Heo
    • Organizer
      The Korean Association of Language Sciences
    • Related Report
      2022 Annual Research Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] Discrimination between Machine-translated and L2 Human-written Text: Features Identified by English Teachers2019

    • Author(s)
      Younghyon Heo, Jeremy Perkins and Hyowon Song
    • Organizer
      Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
    • Related Report
      2019 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] Identification of Machine-Translated Texts Using Machine Learning2018

    • Author(s)
      Younghyon Heo, Jeremy Perkins and Incheon Paik
    • Organizer
      Discourse and Cognitive Linguistics Society: Spring Conference
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research

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Published: 2018-04-23   Modified: 2024-01-30  

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