It's the belles infidèles all over again": Uses and perceptions of machine translation among legal translation lecturers in Spain

Abstract

This article is framed within the field of legal translation education. It explores, from the perspective of lecturers, the impact of machine translation and post-editing on teaching methodology, the constraints and possibilities of MT in the legal translation classroom, and the beliefs of lecturers in the face of market demands and the search for employability. Applying qualitative research premises, the article gathers the beliefs and perceptions of Spanish legal translation lecturers (n=7) through semi-structured interviews. The results show that there is little inclination to incorporate MT in the planning and teaching methodology of lecturers due to the nature and characteristics of legal translation. However, in general terms, there is no great resistance or rejection of MT, but rather it is perceived as something inevitable.