Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing

Although some studies have discussed the role of machine translation (MT) systems in legal texts, very few have addressed the Spanish–Chinese language pair. This article compares the outputs of Spanish legal texts of different genres translated into Chinese using various MT systems such as DeepL Tr...

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Main Author: Hongxia Feng
Format: Article
Language:Aragonese
Published: Escola d'Administració Pública de Catalunya 2025-06-01
Series:Revista de Llengua i Dret - Journal of Language and Law
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistes.eapc.gencat.cat/index.php/rld/article/view/4368
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author Hongxia Feng
author_facet Hongxia Feng
author_sort Hongxia Feng
collection DOAJ
description Although some studies have discussed the role of machine translation (MT) systems in legal texts, very few have addressed the Spanish–Chinese language pair. This article compares the outputs of Spanish legal texts of different genres translated into Chinese using various MT systems such as DeepL Translator, Google Translator, GPT-4, Baidu Translator, Youdao Translator, and Tencent Translator. The aim is to identify whether there is a quality difference between Chinese domestic and non-domestic MT systems and to investigate whether MT raw outputs for legal texts across different genres exhibit distinct types of translation error. Three types of Spanish legal text were selected for analysis: an administrative approval authorisation, a maritime judgement, and a legislative text. The target texts produced by the six MT systems were evaluated using automated metrics as well as human evaluations focusing on adequacy and fluency. Additionally, the present paper follows the framework of the Dynamic Quality Framework (DQF) and the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) typology for MT, as proposed by Lommel and Melby (2018), to categorise and analyse different error types. Based on this analysis, translation strategies for post-editing (PE) are proposed.
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spelling doaj-art-ba81f69f28544ec8b6d4e1ec9502a4ee2025-08-20T02:07:24ZargEscola d'Administració Pública de CatalunyaRevista de Llengua i Dret - Journal of Language and Law0212-50562013-14532025-06-018310.58992/rld.i83.2025.4368Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editingHongxia Feng Although some studies have discussed the role of machine translation (MT) systems in legal texts, very few have addressed the Spanish–Chinese language pair. This article compares the outputs of Spanish legal texts of different genres translated into Chinese using various MT systems such as DeepL Translator, Google Translator, GPT-4, Baidu Translator, Youdao Translator, and Tencent Translator. The aim is to identify whether there is a quality difference between Chinese domestic and non-domestic MT systems and to investigate whether MT raw outputs for legal texts across different genres exhibit distinct types of translation error. Three types of Spanish legal text were selected for analysis: an administrative approval authorisation, a maritime judgement, and a legislative text. The target texts produced by the six MT systems were evaluated using automated metrics as well as human evaluations focusing on adequacy and fluency. Additionally, the present paper follows the framework of the Dynamic Quality Framework (DQF) and the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) typology for MT, as proposed by Lommel and Melby (2018), to categorise and analyse different error types. Based on this analysis, translation strategies for post-editing (PE) are proposed. https://revistes.eapc.gencat.cat/index.php/rld/article/view/4368machine translationlegal translationlegal genresSpanish–Chinese translationpost-editing
spellingShingle Hongxia Feng
Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
Revista de Llengua i Dret - Journal of Language and Law
machine translation
legal translation
legal genres
Spanish–Chinese translation
post-editing
title Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
title_full Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
title_fullStr Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
title_full_unstemmed Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
title_short Machine translation outputs in Spanish–Chinese legal translation: comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs. non-domestic systems, error analysis and implications for post-editing
title_sort machine translation outputs in spanish chinese legal translation comparisons of different legal genres and domestic vs non domestic systems error analysis and implications for post editing
topic machine translation
legal translation
legal genres
Spanish–Chinese translation
post-editing
url https://revistes.eapc.gencat.cat/index.php/rld/article/view/4368
work_keys_str_mv AT hongxiafeng machinetranslationoutputsinspanishchineselegaltranslationcomparisonsofdifferentlegalgenresanddomesticvsnondomesticsystemserroranalysisandimplicationsforpostediting