@inproceedings{savoldi-etal-2025-translation,
title = "Translation in the Hands of Many: Centering Lay Users in Machine Translation Interactions",
author = "Savoldi, Beatrice and
Ramponi, Alan and
Negri, Matteo and
Bentivogli, Luisa",
editor = "Christodoulopoulos, Christos and
Chakraborty, Tanmoy and
Rose, Carolyn and
Peng, Violet",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
month = nov,
year = "2025",
address = "Suzhou, China",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-main.700/",
pages = "13887--13900",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-332-6",
abstract = "Converging societal and technical factors have transformed language technologies into user-facing applications used by the general public across languages. Machine Translation (MT) has become a global tool, with cross-lingual services now also supported by dialogue systems powered by multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs). Widespread accessibility has extended MT{'}s reach to a vast base of *lay users*, many with little to no expertise in the languages or the technology itself. And yet, the understanding of MT consumed by such a diverse group of users{---}their needs, experiences, and interactions with multilingual systems{---}remains limited. In our position paper, we first trace the evolution of MT user profiles, focusing on non-experts and how their engagement with technology may shift with the rise of LLMs. Building on an interdisciplinary body of work, we identify three factors{---}usability, trust, and literacy{---}that are central to shaping user interactions and must be addressed to align MT with user needs. By examining these dimensions, we provide insights to guide the progress of more user-centered MT."
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<abstract>Converging societal and technical factors have transformed language technologies into user-facing applications used by the general public across languages. Machine Translation (MT) has become a global tool, with cross-lingual services now also supported by dialogue systems powered by multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs). Widespread accessibility has extended MT’s reach to a vast base of *lay users*, many with little to no expertise in the languages or the technology itself. And yet, the understanding of MT consumed by such a diverse group of users—their needs, experiences, and interactions with multilingual systems—remains limited. In our position paper, we first trace the evolution of MT user profiles, focusing on non-experts and how their engagement with technology may shift with the rise of LLMs. Building on an interdisciplinary body of work, we identify three factors—usability, trust, and literacy—that are central to shaping user interactions and must be addressed to align MT with user needs. By examining these dimensions, we provide insights to guide the progress of more user-centered MT.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Translation in the Hands of Many: Centering Lay Users in Machine Translation Interactions
%A Savoldi, Beatrice
%A Ramponi, Alan
%A Negri, Matteo
%A Bentivogli, Luisa
%Y Christodoulopoulos, Christos
%Y Chakraborty, Tanmoy
%Y Rose, Carolyn
%Y Peng, Violet
%S Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
%D 2025
%8 November
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Suzhou, China
%@ 979-8-89176-332-6
%F savoldi-etal-2025-translation
%X Converging societal and technical factors have transformed language technologies into user-facing applications used by the general public across languages. Machine Translation (MT) has become a global tool, with cross-lingual services now also supported by dialogue systems powered by multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs). Widespread accessibility has extended MT’s reach to a vast base of *lay users*, many with little to no expertise in the languages or the technology itself. And yet, the understanding of MT consumed by such a diverse group of users—their needs, experiences, and interactions with multilingual systems—remains limited. In our position paper, we first trace the evolution of MT user profiles, focusing on non-experts and how their engagement with technology may shift with the rise of LLMs. Building on an interdisciplinary body of work, we identify three factors—usability, trust, and literacy—that are central to shaping user interactions and must be addressed to align MT with user needs. By examining these dimensions, we provide insights to guide the progress of more user-centered MT.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-main.700/
%P 13887-13900
Markdown (Informal)
[Translation in the Hands of Many: Centering Lay Users in Machine Translation Interactions](https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-main.700/) (Savoldi et al., EMNLP 2025)
ACL