Gender Issues in Machine Translation

Along with the growing need for intercultural and translingual communication in an increasingly globalized world, machine translation (MT) becomes more and more important both in assisting language professionals in their daily work and in helping non-professionals understand and create texts in foreign languages. Based on the frequent assumption that it is machine translation's aim to replace human translators, which it is not – or at least, should not be, machine translation systems are often considered to be inefficient and accused of not living up to the promises they make. However, if you regard these programs as communication aids or translation tools rather than as a substitute for a human translator, you will find that their value is often vastly underestimated.