The role of the translator as an agent in translator-translation engine interaction in the machine translation process

Machine translation is currently used in the translation of all text types. The interaction between the translator and the translation engine in the machine translation process raises an issue regarding who is responsible for the resulting text. To overcome this problem, this study aims to raise awareness among translators and translator candidates about taking responsibility by making necessary interventions through pre- and post-editing processes. This study analyses the development process of translation technologies based on machine translation. The adaptation of the Agency Theory, an economic theory, to translation is discussed. In this context, the pre- and post-editing processes to be applied by the translator to take responsibility are explained in detail. The skills and competencies the translator should possess during the machine translation process are defined. Furthermore, the problem of agency between the human translator and the translation engine has been closely analyzed. The data needed for this study were collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was used as the data analysis method. The data obtained from semi-structured interviews with 10 translators actively working in the market and having at least three years of experience were evaluated by applying thematic analysis. As a result of the study, it was found that translators still use computer-assisted translation tools as the main tools and machine translation engines as supportive tools. Translators acknowledge that translation technologies provide significant advantages but criticise their misuse and legal and ethical aspects. In conclusion, it has been shown that machine translation needs to be complemented with a human touch, terminological knowledge, and expertise; that the human translator is primarily responsible for the translated text through his/her interventions; and that with neural machine translation, the role of translators has evolved into a kind of 'linguistic expertise' including post-editing and proofreading.