You are cordially invited to the seminar: Can ChatGPT Speak the Language of Mental Health?
6-8pm 3 December, Undercroft 101
This seminar presents findings of a project conducted at the University of Canterbury by Dr Wei Teng (Chinese + Translation & Interpreting programmes, Global Cultural and Language Studies) and was funded through the Faculty of Arts Seed Funding. Join us to discover how linguistics, psychology, and community engagement come together to examine the promise and pitfalls of AI translation in mental health care.
Through the multidisciplinary lens of linguistics, psychology and community engagement and via consultations with Dr Amy Wang, Senior Clinical Psychologist, and Mr Josiah Jennings at ACTT, this project explores how well AI tools like ChatGPT can translate key mental health screening questionnaires—the Kessler-10 (K10) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)—into Mandarin for use in New Zealand. With mental health challenges rising sharply among Asian New Zealanders (from 44% in 2021 to 57% in 2025), ensuring accurate and culturally sensitive translations is vital.
Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the project tested whether ChatGPT can produce translations that are both linguistically natural and clinically sound—without community input. Results show that well-designed prompts can improve translation quality, but inconsistencies across different ChatGPT accounts raise questions about reliability in clinical settings.
Light snack provided – please register for catering purposes: https://events.humanitix.com/seminar-can-chatgpt-speak-the-language-of-mental-health
Please forward to postgraduates and others who may be interested.
