Meaning-Making Process and Error Dynamics in ChatGPT-Mediated Translation

Iulia Mihalache, María-José Varela Salinas


Abstract
This study examines errors in a ChatGPT-mediated translation of a German economic text on inflation into Spanish, post-edited by 20 translation students. The analysis classifies 132 annotated instances by error origin (ChatGPT-generated versus student-introduced during post-editing) and by lin-guistic category. Results show that termi-nology is the highest-risk domain across the entire workflow (34.1%), followed by tense/aspect (15.2%) and style (13.6%). ChatGPT-related errors account for 50.8% of all instances, while student-introduced errors through over-editing represent 21.2%. A further 28.0% reflect acceptable alterna-tive reformulations. Students tend to trust fluent machine output even when it con-tains subtle semantic distortions, yet they also over-edit segments that are already ac-ceptable. The findings highlight three di-dactic priorities: developing LLM-based MT literacy, strengthening decision-making strategies in post-editing, and fostering gen-re- and domain-sensitive editing compe-tence. Implications for translator training and structured post-editing protocols are discussed.
Anthology ID:
2026.eamt-1.40
Volume:
Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1)
Month:
June
Year:
2026
Address:
Tilburg, The Netherlands
Editors:
Dimitar Shterionov, Eva Vanmassenhove, Mirella De Sisto, Fred Blain, Javad Pourmostafa Roshan Sharami, Lisa Lepp, Chiara Manna, Argentina Anna Rescigno, Alina Karakanta, Ayla Rigouts Terryn, Manuel Lardelli, Natalia Resende, Elena Murgolo, Janiça Hackenbuchner, Anna Zaretskaya, Miquel Esplà-Gomis, Thierry Etchegoyhen, Dagmar Gromann, Rachel Bawden, Barry Haddow, Sara Szoc, Mikel Forcada, Helena Moniz
Venue:
EAMT
SIG:
Publisher:
European Association for Machine Translation
Note:
Pages:
634–648
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.40/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Iulia Mihalache and María-José Varela Salinas. 2026. Meaning-Making Process and Error Dynamics in ChatGPT-Mediated Translation. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1), pages 634–648, Tilburg, The Netherlands. European Association for Machine Translation.
Cite (Informal):
Meaning-Making Process and Error Dynamics in ChatGPT-Mediated Translation (Mihalache & Salinas, EAMT 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.40.pdf