Abstract

Neural Machine Translation (NMT) has gained increasing popularity among EFL learners as a CALL tool to improve vocabulary, and many learners have reported its helpfulness for vocabulary learning. However, while there has been some evidence suggesting NMT’s facilitative role in improving learners’ writing on the lexical level, no study has examined whether vocabulary improvement made with the aid of NMT leads to any vocabulary retention when the tool is no longer in use. The present study employed a quasi-experimental design to examine the extent to which editing with NMT may lead to vocabulary improvement, immediate vocabulary retention and delayed vocabulary retention in the legal context and how the findings may vary by learners’ proficiency level. ANOVA results revealed that learners with higher proficiency achieved a similar level of immediate and delayed retention compared to their vocabulary improvement, while the benefits of NMT for learners with lower proficiency were significantly confined to vocabulary improvement and immediate vocabulary retention.

摘要

神经机器翻译 (NMT) 作为提高词汇量的 CALL 工具在 EFL 学习者中越来越受欢迎，许多学习者报告了它对词汇学习的帮助。然而，虽然有一些证据表明 NMT 在提高学习者词汇水平写作方面的促进作用，但还没有研究检查在 NMT 的帮助下进行的词汇改进是否会导致不再使用该工具时的任何词汇保留。本研究采用准实验设计来检验使用 NMT 进行编辑可能在多大程度上导致法律背景下的词汇改进、即时词汇保留和延迟词汇保留，以及研究结果如何因学习者的熟练程度而异。