Translators’ perspectives on machine translation uses and impacts in the S wiss C onfederation: Navigating technological change in an institutional setting (2024)

Abstract: New language technologies are driving major changes in the language services of institutions worldwide, including the Swiss Confederation. Based on a definition of change management as a combination of adaptation measures at both the organisation and individual levels, this study used a survey to gather unprecedented quantitative data on the use and qualitative data on the perceptions of machine translation (MT) by federal in-house translators. The results show that more than half of the respondents use MT regularly and that translators are largely free to use it as they see fit. In terms of perceptions, they mostly anticipate negative evolutions along five dimensions: work processes, translators, translated texts, the future of their language services and job, and the place of translators within their institution and society. Their apprehensions concern MT per se, but even more the way it is seen and used within their organisation. However, positive perspectives regarding efficiency gains or usefulness of MT as a translation aid were also discussed. Building on these human factors is key to successful change management. Academic research has a contribution to make, and the coming together of translation and organisation studies offers promising avenues for further research.

## introduction recent, fast-paced technological developments in the language industry, notably the advent of neural machine translation, are imposing structural and organisational changes in the language services of companies and institutions worldwide. for example, the results of the elis 2024 survey indicate that more than 70% of translation departments in national and local agencies and almost all translation departments in international public agencies that participated in the survey have implemented or are implementing mt @xcite .p foot_0 p not surprisingly, this wave of change has also hit the swiss confederation @xcite . because switzerland is a multilingual country, the federal institutions rely on a network of language services (ls) within the government and parliament to communicate in the four national languages -german, french, italian and romansh -as well as in english. these ls employ a total of 481 staff members, including translators, heads of service, legal drafters, terminologists, language technology specialists, and trainees.p 1 f 2 initial, structured, large-scale attempts to integrate mt into the work processes of the swiss confederation started in 2019, when 130 deepl pro licenses were bought and a specific working group was formed to carry out a test phase. the working group produced an extensive report and a set of recommendations, concluding that mt can be a helpful tool, to be used according to the ----------------principle: "what you need for yourself, you can machine translate, what you need for others, you better give to a professional!" (arbeitsgruppe maschinelle @xcite ; see also the relevant press release: federal council, 2019). since then, all staff within the swiss confederation, including the ls, has had access to deepl pro. at the same time, a centre of expertise for language technologies (coelt)p 2 f 3 p was set up in november 2020. in addition to providing support and training on cat tools, mt, and other language technologies, it "keeps track of market developments and, with user involvement, initiates evaluation and procurement projects for appropriate technologies" (ibid.) in order to find the solutions that best meet the needs of the federal administration. in december 2023, after an invitation to tender, the federal chancellery confirmed that a new contract had been signed with deepl (see press @xcite . as the data collected in this study will show (see section 4.2), mt is used in very different ways within the ls and work processes are still being adapted to maximise its benefits. while studies exist on the use of mt within swiss corporate in-house language services (see, e.g., @xcite @xcite , no research has yet focused on the specific case of the swiss confederation. this is the thematic focus of swift, a year-long research project that aims to explore the profiles and needs of swiss federal translators in a rapidly changing technological landscape. it is based on a variety of methods, including the analysis of an ad hoc corpus of job announcements, a large-scale survey distributed among the ls of the swiss confederation and interviews mostly with translators and heads of service. this paper is part of the swift project and is based on the results of the survey. it aims to shed light, on the one hand, on how mt is currently being used within the ls. on the other hand, it will also attempt to investigate translators' perceptions of the impact of mt on their work. a further broad aim of the project is to produce preliminary findings that can serve as a basis for supporting a successful change management process. we echo here a common view in business and organisation studies of change ----------------3 see https://www.bk.admin.ch/bk/en/home/bk/organisation-derbundeskanzlei/zentrale-sprachdienste-sektionterminologie.html (last accessed 13.02.2024) management as an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of dimensions where change is necessary for an organisation to adapt and keep pace with external developments and demands @xcite . in line with @xcite , a distinction can be made between macro change management, which is defined as a "[p]rocess or initiative for changes of organizational directions, strategies, structures, processes, or capabilities" and micro change management, which deals with "[t]actics or guidelines for managing intervention implementation process and human factors". therefore, a successful organisational change cannot occur unless it is embraced at individual and team levels (on individual, team and organisation change, see also @xcite . with regards to the specific case of technological change within the ls of the swiss confederation, apart from anecdotal reports, such as mjölsnes's (2021) essay on the threat of mt to swiss multilingualism from his perspective as a translator at the federal chancellery, the point of view of the actors involved has not yet been the subject of academic studies, although it is a crucial element in empowering individuals and organisations to navigate change. ## related research mt and translation technology have been objects of enquiry in institutional translation research for more than a decade. a number of large "translating institutions" @xcite have been settings for this research, including various bodies of the european union and united nations and especially the european commission's directorate-general for translation (dg translation). this is unsurprising considering dg translation's active role in the development and promotion of its mt system etranslation within and beyond the commission @xcite . recent studies have also started to shed light on the potential usefulness of mt in smaller institutional contexts with "lesser-used language varieties" such as the bilingual german-italian south tyrolean administration @xcite . it is worth remembering that in institutional contexts mt may not be deployed as a tool for translators alone and may also function to provide public access or allow gisting by members of the institution's administration (see e.g. @xcite . in addition, it is important to note that some institutions contract significant amounts of translation to external services (svoboda and sosoni, 2023). as a result, mt is usually not examined in isolation in institutional studies and is more frequently seen in its broader environment of other technologies, processes, and workflows. in particular, authors remind us of the importance of teamwork and the cooperation of professionals to produce translations collaboratively in these institutional environments (ilja, 2023) and describe contexts in which mt co-exists with other tools that offer translation memories, terminology and background research, quality assurance, and style guiding all in one environment @xcite . early studies of institutional mt use examined the social context of the deployment of mt. they discussed the social and economic constraints and explicit investment decisions that led institutions to turn to mt @xcite and examined ways in which the translators' needs, competences, and well-being factored in their (non-)adoption of mt in their work @xcite . they considered translators' emotional responses to change and acceptance of new technologies @xcite and addressed perceptions of mt and ways in which fear, a sense of threat, and underlying knowledge of mt influenced its perceived usefulness and actual use among institutional translators @xcite . many studies were interested in issues of human agency and empowerment in the deployment and adoption of @xcite @xcite , with some recommending the explicit involvement of translators in technological development and change processes @xcite . more recent studies have focused on institutional translators' knowledge, skills, competences, and the training that is needed for them to work effectively in increasingly technologised environments. broadly, they are concerned with determining an ideal profile for contemporary institutional translators and discovering the place that mt literacy and technological skills occupy in this profile @xcite . authors argue that technological innovation and a need to develop new competence profiles is nothing new and is inevitable @xcite . however, it is suggested that the evolution of mt from statistical to neural ma-chine translation has been particularly impactful on the work of translators in large institutions @xcite . knowledge, skills, and competences that have been highlighted as particularly important to institutional translators include critical awareness and general mt literacy, the technological competence and thematic knowledge that allow translators to implement mt appropriately, and flexibility and openness to change @xcite @xcite . authors point to changing role descriptions, dedicated training initiatives to prepare staff for greater role of technology, and newly established user groups and institutional structures as evidence for these new demands @xcite @xcite . several authors also suggest that a necessary institutional and individual response to these new competence requirements is an increasingly important role for continuing professional development among translators in these institutions @xcite @xcite . furthermore, authors argue that evolutions in technology and competence profiles go hand-inhand with broader translation process and workflow change and must be accounted for @xcite . change management at institutions should benefit from careful planning, sensitive communication, and expert guidance (svoboda and sosoni, 2023) and could involve a role for academia to support training @xcite . overall, making sure that institutional translators can improve, adapt, and prepare for new tasks as technologies evolve is key (ilja, 2023). ## discussion and conclusions this paper provides an overview of the use and perception of mt within the ls of the swiss confederation. the data on use showed that mt is currently only one of the technologies federal translators resort to in their daily work. overall, it turns out that each translator is largely free to use, or not use, mt as they see fit. mt seems to be rather seen as a tool, which is used extensively only for urgent, low-risk documents, and as a suggestion in the other cases. the data on how mt and its impact are perceived within the ls revealed a variety of views and experiences. for example, some respondents anticipate or are experiencing increasing pressure on productivity, while others see mt as a ----------------13 original quote in german: "im alltag aber auch kampf gegen die autorenschaft, die vermehrt entgegen der richtlinien ohne übersetzungs-, terminologie-oder post-editing-kenntnisse eigenübersetzungen erstellt". 14 original quote in french: "dépréciation de la traduction par les donneurs d'ouvrage. les traducteurs/trices sont vu/e/s comme de secrétaires bilingues utiles pour éliminer les grosses fautes que pourrait faire l'outil de traduction automatique". way of channelling their time and energy into more important tasks. in contrast to the elis 2024 survey, in which the number of positive and negative opinions about mt expressed by public and private language departments was virtually equal (elis, 2024: 24), respondents to our survey tended to report more frequently and in greater detail on their negative perspectives, fears, resistance factors or unmet needs, which can provide rich insights into what can be done to promote successful change. this study, of course, only provides a snapshot of the current use and perceptions of mt. tracking these aspects over time may prove useful to shed light on the evolving role of mt and related needs perceived by federal translators. as emphasised in the introduction, focusing on human factors is key to steering any organisational change process, thus leveraging the positive views of the actors involved and taking measures to mitigate the negative ones. on the one hand, this makes it possible to design functional work processes in which technology is at the service of the translators. on the other hand, it ensures that individuals find meaning and satisfaction in their work and are therefore willing to embrace the necessary change @xcite . in this respect, two key elements that emerge from the literature, i.e. training @xcite and the involvement of translators in change processes @xcite , seem to be a reality in the surveyed context. continuing professional development provides translators with the competences needed to successfully use new technologies and develop a critical awareness of them (ilja 2023). the survey data suggest that such training is currently being offered. this finding is in line with the results of the elis 2024 survey, where technology emerges as the most frequent training topic in language departments of both public agencies and private companies @xcite . this trend can only be encouraged. along the same lines, the mission of the recently established coelt to select new technologies by involving users in the evaluation process is undoubtedly very positive. however, promoting change at the individual level is only one side of the coin and needs to go hand in hand with organisational and strategic change (see e.g. @xcite . some of the problems identified by respondents do not concern mt per se, but rather the way it is integrated, seen and used in the institutional network. this concerns, in particular, issues of volumes and deadlines, as well as the needs to raise awareness among text authors of the work carried out by the ls and the added value they can bring, so as to strengthen the spirit of partnership. this is one of the aspects that are currently being explored in more detail in the swift project thorough in-depth interviews with representatives of various federal ls. dialogue between universities and institutions can certainly contribute to effective change. in addition to cooperation in the training of translators @xcite , institutions can benefit from research projects that use different research methods and disciplinary lenses. for example, further explorations of theories and approaches to change management may be a promising avenue for further research. the foundations have been laid for collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas between organisation studies and translation studies @xcite . not only translation studies can support the current linguistic turn in organisational studies @xcite ), but they can also find in organisation studies a source of rich approaches to contextualise micro-aspects of investigation concerning translation @xcite . in this light, studying the role of new language technologies from an organisational perspective can ultimately enable institutions to keep pace with technological developments and leverage them to fulfil their mission (as laid down in article 7 of the languages act)p 1 4 f foot_9 p of providing citizens with high-quality multilingual texts. acknowledgements and data availability statement: this research was funded by the swiss national science foundation (snsf) through the postdoc.mobility funding mechanism (grant number p500ph_217700). the full questionnaire and responses will be made available in open access at the end of the project.