Papers › Examining Covert Gender Bias: A Case Study in Turkish and English Machine Translation Models

Examining Covert Gender Bias: A Case Study in Turkish and English Machine Translation Models

23 Aug 2021INLG (ACL) 2021 8arXiv:2108.10379archive 2025-07-28

Chloe Ciora, Nur Iren, Malihe Alikhani

As Machine Translation (MT) has become increasingly more powerful, accessible, and widespread, the potential for the perpetuation of bias has grown alongside its advances. While overt indicators of bias have been studied in machine translation, we argue that covert biases expose a problem that is further entrenched. Through the use of the gender-neutral language Turkish and the gendered language English, we examine cases of both overt and covert gender bias in MT models. Specifically, we introduce a method to investigate asymmetrical gender markings. We also assess bias in the attribution of personhood and examine occupational and personality stereotypes through overt bias indicators in MT models. Our work explores a deeper layer of bias in MT models and demonstrates the continued need for language-specific, interdisciplinary methodology in MT model development.

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