Ding Xilin's Chinese Translation of The Man of Destiny: Reading Shaw through IBM Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing Platform

Abstract

abstract:This article examines Ding Xilin's (丁西林) (1893–1974) Chinese translation of The Man of Destiny by making use of artificial intelligence and machine learning functionalities on IBM Cloud Computing Platforms to decipher Ding's cultural translation. While an untrained model of IBM Natural Language Understanding reveals Ding's using the translation to criticize imperialism, a trained machine learning model using IBM Watson Knowledge Studio shows the qualities of the Shavian Great Man. The IBM artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms, drawing attention to words and the semantic relations between them, uncover a subtle relationship between Ding Xilin's Chinese translation and the personality cult around China's Great Man, Mao Zedong (1893–1976), around the time of Ding's translation. The artificial intelligence platforms show that there may be subtle connections between Shaw's play and the most dominant figure in China at the time of the translation.