Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Machine Translation Impact on Language Learning

Project description

Machines break language barriers

An easy and fast way to translate a text is to have a machine do the job online - instantly. Machine translation (MT) systems use machine-learning technologies to translate hundreds of billions of words online daily. The EU-funded MTrill project will examine the impact of MT systems on the learning and processing of English as a second language. As regards language acquisition, the research will focus on language binding – the ability to combine single words properly in a sentence. The project will conduct a syntactic priming experiment. Here, participants will be tested on whether they produce the same syntactic structures that had been previously seen during an MT task.

Objective

The MTrill is a process-oriented research that aims at investigating how online freely available Machine Translation (MT) systems are impacting the acquisition and processing of English as a second language. The research will shed light on issues involving a central aspect of language acquisition: the so-called language binding, i.e. the ability to combine single words properly in a grammatical sentence in a second language. To pursue this goal, a syntactic priming experiment will be carried out in which participants will be tested as whether they produce the same syntactic structures that had been previously seen during a translation task using a MT. The project brings a brand-new methodological approach within MT process-oriented evaluation research and it goes beyond the existing state-of-the-art approaches since it will focus on translation processing complemented by product analysis (oral production). The project will be conducted under the supervision of Professor Andy Way and Doctor Monica Ward in the ADAPT Centre based in Dublin City university. A four-months secondment will be carried out in the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics (MPI) in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, in the Neurobiology of Language research group under the supervision of Professor Peter Hagoort. The knowledge acquired during the secondment will be consolidated in the return phase through implementation of the experiments carried out for this project as well as through teaching and co-supervision activities. Results of this research will be disseminated through conferences and journal paper publications and will be communicated to multiple audiences through articles published in non-academic magazines, blogs and social media. The fellowship will attract academic networking opportunities, skill-set improvements and a personal and professional transformative experience to the researcher since it will establish her as the new leading light in research of an interdisciplinary field.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 184 590,72
Address
Glasnevin
9 Dublin
Ireland

See on map

Region
Ireland Eastern and Midland Dublin
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 184 590,72
My booklet 0 0