DECIPHERING METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES DURING MACHINE TRANSLATION POST-EDITING PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY OF AN INDONESIAN EFL LEARNER

Abstrak

The shift of paradigm from a machine translation (MT)-centred orientation to a human-centred orientation has increased the popularity of Machine Translation Post-editing (MTPE) practices in the last few years. As a result, a growing body of research has accentuated MTPE as a central investigative issue. Unfortunately, probing how an EFL learner employed metacognitive strategies during Machine Translation Post-editing (MTPE) practices remains underdeveloped, particularly in the Indonesian EFL context. Hence, this study aimed to fill the gap. A 24–year–old female learner of the English Education Department of a state university in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia was recruited as a participant in this scrutiny. To uphold ethical issues, the participant's name was made anonymous, namely Angel (pseudonym). Grounded in a descriptive case study, the present inquiry was intended to decipher how an EFL learner employed metacognitive strategies during MTPE practices. The data were audiovisual recordings of the think-aloud activities, transcript of TAP results and the input event loggings. These data were collected through Zoom-mediated Think Aloud Protocols (TAP). The data were analysed with Arndt’s categories of ESL writing strategies encompassing planning, global planning, rehearsing, repeating, re-reading, and questioning (Arndt, 1987; Mu, 2005). The findings reported that there were the predominant patterns represented by Angel's MTPE practices, namely the learner’s metacognitive strategies during MTPE practices in English-Indonesian output (rereading, questioning, editing, repeating, and planning). Pedagogically speaking, training learners to understand the underpinning concepts and practical use of MTPE encourages them to value the existence of an MT-centred task to a human-centred one in translating practices. Additionally, guiding learners to possess conceptual and procedural knowledge of how to undertake MTPE practices enables them to apply grammatically, syntactically, semantically and pragmatically correct translations, accurate punctuation, proper key terminology, culturally acceptable contents, added or omitted information, and acceptable formatting styles.