“All those in favour will please say yea”: Understanding the Factors Behind Machine Translation Adoption at the Canadian Parliament

A user study by researchers including Jeniffer Leal-Wyss, Delaney Lothian, Gabriel Bernier-Colborne, Rebecca Knowles, and Michel Simard, presented at the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation in June 2026, found that translators at the Canadian Parliament use a neural machine translation system as an optional postediting tool, with adoption influenced by both human and technical factors. The study advocates for a user-centred approach to integrating machine translation into professional workflows.

“All those in favour will please say yea”: Understanding the Factors Behind Machine Translation Adoption at the Canadian Parliament https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36.pdf Jeniffer Leal-Wyss /people/jeniffer-leal-wyss/unverified/ , Delaney Lothian /people/delaney-lothian/unverified/ , Gabriel Bernier-Colborne /people/gabriel-bernier-colborne/unverified/ , Rebecca Knowles /people/rebecca-knowles/ , Michel Simard /people/michel-simard/ Abstract Translators at the Canadian Parliament currently have access to a neural machine translation system as an optional tool integrated into their translation environment, whose output they can use for postediting rather than translating from scratch ; this provides a valuable opportunity to study the dynamics of MT adoption in professional settings. We report on a user study that investigates how and why translators choose to interact with this tool. Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined both human and technical factors that influence the adoption or non-adoption of the system. Drawing on our findings, we advocate for a user-centred approach to MT integration within professional translation workflows.- Anthology ID: - 2026.eamt-1.36 - Volume: Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation Volume 1 /volumes/2026.eamt-1/ - Month: - June - Year: - 2026 - Address: - Tilburg, The Netherlands - Editors: Dimitar Shterionov /people/dimitar-shterionov/unverified/ , Eva Vanmassenhove /people/eva-vanmassenhove/ , Mirella De Sisto /people/mirella-de-sisto/unverified/ , Fred Blain /people/frederic-blain/ , Javad Pourmostafa Roshan Sharami /people/javad-pourmostafa-roshan-sharami/ , Lisa Lepp /people/lisa-lepp/unverified/ , Chiara Manna /people/chiara-manna/unverified/ , Argentina Anna Rescigno /people/argentina-anna-rescigno/ , Alina Karakanta /people/alina-karakanta/unverified/ , Ayla Rigouts Terryn /people/ayla-rigouts-terryn/ , Manuel Lardelli /people/manuel-lardelli/ , Natalia Resende /people/natalia-resende/unverified/ , Elena Murgolo /people/elena-murgolo/unverified/ , Janiça Hackenbuchner /people/janica-hackenbuchner/ , Anna Zaretskaya /people/anna-zaretskaya/unverified/ , Miquel Esplà-Gomis /people/miquel-espla-gomis/unverified/ , Thierry Etchegoyhen /people/thierry-etchegoyhen/unverified/ , Dagmar Gromann /people/dagmar-gromann/ , Rachel Bawden /people/rachel-bawden/ , Barry Haddow /people/barry-haddow/unverified/ , Sara Szoc /people/sara-szoc/unverified/ , Mikel Forcada /people/mikel-l-forcada/ , Helena Moniz /people/helena-moniz/ - Venue: EAMT /venues/eamt/ - SIG: - Publisher: - European Association for Machine Translation - Note: - Pages: - 562–587 - Language: - URL: https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36/ https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36/ - DOI: - Cite ACL : - Jeniffer Leal-Wyss, Delaney Lothian, Gabriel Bernier-Colborne, Rebecca Knowles, and Michel Simard. 2026. “All those in favour will please say yea”: Understanding the Factors Behind Machine Translation Adoption at the Canadian Parliament https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36/ . In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation Volume 1 , pages 562–587, Tilburg, The Netherlands. European Association for Machine Translation. - Cite Informal : “All those in favour will please say yea”: Understanding the Factors Behind Machine Translation Adoption at the Canadian Parliament https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36/ Leal-Wyss et al., EAMT 2026 - PDF: https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36.pdf https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.36.pdf