UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES, LITERATURE AND CULTURE

AN EXAMINATION OF THE CHALLENGES OF USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE IN

BY
VITALIS NDLELA

REG NO R188322R
1.0 Area of investigation
This study is on translation of documents. Translation focuses mainly on the rendition of
written source language text into the target language text. This study is AN EXAMINATION
OF THE CHALLENGES OF USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE IN TRANSLATING
ENGLISH TO NDEBELE TEXT as a translation tool in the field of translation within
Zimbabwean. LINGUA INC will be used as the main case study. It is located in Harare Joina
City Building. In this organisation the researcher will be looking at IsiNdebele language. The
researcher will make references to other language services such as Translation Pro, and
Tolika. Com to have a balanced overview of the effects of google translate as a tool used by
language facilitators in translation. Google translate is a provided service to translate different
written texts from one language to another. It can translate not only a word, but also a phrase
or a section of a text.

Google translate is a free service instantly translates words, phrases between English and
other languages. According to Kaen (2020:3), GT is operated under a computer system that
searches and matches the input language in the forms of texts, media, speech, images, and
real-time video, with the output language available in millions of a second. Stymne, (2011) in
Vidhayasai, Keyuravong and Bunsom (2015:5) notes that google Translate detects patterns in
documents that have already been translated by human translators. It makes intelligent
guesses as to what an appropriate translation should be. It is based on training statistical
models from large corpora of human translations. Many documents from different language
services demand one to use google translate in translation but the researcher chose LINGUA
INC for the research purposes. This research uses a Comparative data analysis as a way of
analysing the effectiveness of google translate in translation documents into Zimbabwean
languages.

1.1 Statement of the problem

Even though google translate is free, fast, quick and convenient there are many problems we
encounter on using it, but Google translate is not ideal for confidential documents, it cannot
provide a perfectly accurate translation, there is no proofreading, it requires internet
connection to use it, and it have got certain drawbacks, it produces translation that contain
significant grammatical errors, it does not have a system to correct for translation errors and
finally the quality of the translation depend on the language pair. It is believed that
identifying and examining such kinds of effects would help the researcher in proposing
pedagogical strategies which are likely to be followed by all language services to transcend
such challenges. The strategies are crucial in facilitating the translation process.

1.2 Objectives

This study aims to:

1. Analyse the effects of google translate in the translation industry by language mediators.

2. Find out ways of transcending the cons of google translator in translation by language
mediators.

1.3 Research questions.

1. what are the effects of google translate in the process of translation in Zimbabwe.

2. What are ways and strategies of transcending the cons of google translator in translation
process.

1.4 Justification of the study

This study is an examination of the challenges of using google translate in translating English
to Ndebele text faced when translating. It is therefore, the purpose of this research is to
suggest some strategies to help Zimbabwean translators for the purposes of promoting
transparent translations. This research will propose pedagogical tools or other strategies that
may hopefully assist or be applied by modern translators to overcome translation intricacies.
The reason why the researcher is choosing LINGUA INC is to create a context which is
designed to fulfil the requirements for this research. Translation is at its formative stage and it
is about to be a discipline and a profession recognised in Zimbabwe, this research will be
useful to translation and interpretation students. The students might benefit from the study’s
insights on the strategies which they might use in the process of facilitating communication
within the translation process.
There are many translation documents which poses a number of challenges in translation
which require ways to make the translated message understandable to the target audience.
These ways necessitate a mutual understanding of the translated text to another language by
using ways such as borrowing, use of dictionary and paraphrasing some specific terms into
the target language. This justifies the importance of this research study as the researcher is
not aware of any written articles or material which presents the challenges of using google
translate in the Zimbabwean contexts and the specific methods which are required by modern
translators to transcend such challenges.

1.5 Methodology

The data for this research was collected at LINGUA INC in Harare. This research site was
chosen because the researcher had been attached to this organisation for BA Honours in
Translation and Interpretation Studies in 2021 as a translator, thus it was easy to go back to
collect data from a familiar place thereby increasing the feasibility of the study. The
researcher will use qualitative method because it consists of analysing observed documents
within the organisation. Wray, Trott, and Bloomer (1998) cited in Lebese (2013), the method
entails a presentation and analysis of the collected data and is usually stated in words. The
collected data is presented and explored through the use of words and present the experiences
of the research participants. In translation and Interpreting this method shows how the
language shape human views of reality, truth and knowledge. Thus, the researcher observed
the translated documents to have an appreciation of the challenges faced in the process of
translation.

The purpose of qualitative research is not to verify a causal relationship by falsifying a non-
relationship hypothesis. Instead, it recognises the multifaceted interpretations of human
experience, and the relation within social and cultural systems. The focus of qualitative
research is on understanding how people make sense of their world, by exploiting different
aspects and different expressions and it provides both the researchers and the participants
with a discovering experience. According to Ngosolo (2019 citesin Silverman (2010:6), who
observes that “‘voice’ and ‘subjectivity’ show how an interest in subjectivity and the
authenticity of human experience is a strong feature of qualitative research.” Therefore, the
researcher chose this qualitative method to use in the study as it is concerned with a quality of
information and it focuses on the direct experiences of human beings as meaning-making
agents in their everyday lives. It also provides insights into the setting of a problem,
generating ideas and hypothesis than the Quantitative method which is concerned with trying
to quantify things and it also look to quantify the data and generalise results from a sample of
the population of interest. Therefor the following qualitative methods were used in collecting
data.

1.6.1 Observation

Observation is one of the most important research methods in social sciences and at the same
time one of the most diverse. According to Kawazi (2019) in Ndlovu (2013:265), observation
varies according to the researcher’s interests and in some instances a researcher will have
little, or no, interaction with those that he or she is observing. Gorman and Clayton (2005:
40) define observation studies as those that “involve the systematic recording of observable
phenomena or behaviour in a natural setting”. The researcher used the Observation research
method because it is a complex research method which requires the researcher to play a
number of roles and to use a number of techniques, including his five senses, to collect data.
In the current research, the researcher intends to conduct observations in translated
documents through non-participatory and complete observations. The researcher chose
unstructured observational technique because the main study is an examination of the
challenges of using google translate in translating English to Ndebele text. Unstructured
observational technique will allow the researcher to observe how translators encounter
challenges in using google translate in translating English documents to Ndebele text.
Undisclosed observation is a covert observational study whereby participants are not fully
aware that they are being observed. In order to carry out undisclosed observations the
researcher got access of the translated documents for editing and thus when the researcher
noted that the core workers were basing on google translate.

1.6.2 Desk Research

The researcher used secondary research from published and unpublished scholarly works
both in print and electronic form and documentary analysis of Lingua Inc documents. There
are many articles and books that have been written about translation and interpretation that
will assist the researcher in coming up with a better understanding of strategies which can be
used to transcend translation challenges during the course of translation as a balanced
observation, argument and conclusion. The researcher chose this method because documents
are easy to access.

1.7 Theoretical Framework

The Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) is an approach which will be used to guide a
theoretical framework of this study. According to the DTS framework, translation practices
are observational facts and phenomena which have actual existence in the world irrespective
of any prior theoretical consideration (Lebese, 2013:4). Lebese further states that it is
“because translation and interpreting are observational facts, descriptive translation theorists
do not prescribe how translations ought to be done, but rather they observe how translations
are done”. In line with Lebese’s framework, this study will analyse the challenges of using
google translate in translating English to Ndebele texts. This will be done through analysing
documents that are translated in Lingua Inc in Harare. This Descriptive Translation Studies
will help give insight into the challenges faced by translators when executing their tasks.

Lebese (2013) quoted Kruger and Wallmach (1997) who alluded that, “DTS is a descriptive
approach that emerged in early eighties when translation studies moved away from normative
and prescriptive approaches to translation, which were used to evaluate translation as good or
bad, according to a fixed theory of what constitutes equivalence between two texts. That is,
translation and interpretations are studied within cultural environment in order to understand
how they function in that environment.

The DTS will be used in this research study because it gives the researcher room to analyse
court interpretations within court room setup. The researcher chose this DTS because it takes
into account the socio-cultural environments of translators and interpreters which is
environment where Ndebele and Shona language are mainly spoken.

1.8 Literature review

Google translate is one machine translators who which can translate from one language to
another, for example English to Zulu. Munday (2001:5) defines google translate as the
changing of an original text written in the original verbal language into a written text in a
different verbal language. From the above explanation Munday said that the translation was
to replace the original text to another text and not changing the topic or content. According to
Sheppard (2011) he mentioned that the strong point of Google Translate is that it is free of
charge compared to the high expenses needed to pay for human translators. Sheppard only
considers the expenses and not the accuracy of the translations.

Stymne, (2011) in Vidhayasai, Keyuravong and Bunsom (2015:5) notes that google Translate
detects patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators. It
makes intelligent guesses as to what an appropriate translation should be. It is based on
training statistical models from large corpora of human translations. Google translate is a free
service instantly translates words, phrases between English and other languages.

This chapter focused on the area of investigation of this study, objectives, research
methodology, theoretical framework and literature review. The next chapter is a more in-
depth literature view, focusing on the important concepts informing this study.

Your literature review section needs more sources. Otherwise it is a good start. You can
implement the changes and move on to chapter 2. Make sure you work on your chapter 3
during the coming vacation such that when the semester begins you will be only writing
chapter 4 and polishing up everything. Please acknowledge all sources, I can tell there is
some plagiarism in many instances, please note that you won’t be allowed to submit if you
plagiarism check exceeds 9%.