The Social Life of a Translation Model

Authors

  • Irene Navarro School of Communication and Society Author
  • Noah Mensah Open Language Infrastructure Lab Author

Keywords:

machine translation, institutions, sociotechnical systems

Abstract

Translation systems move through institutions long before their outputs reach end users. Drawing on observations from publishing and public-service workflows, this article describes how procurement, review practices, terminology policies, and local expertise collectively determine what a model becomes in practice.

Published

2025-10-15