{"title":"Automated translation and pragmatic force","authors":"R. Valdeón","doi":"10.1075/babel.00328.val","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00328.val","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article discusses the challenges that the rendering of the pragmatic implications of texts into a target\u0000 language posed for human translators and, by extension, for automated translation. It starts by discussing the importance of\u0000 pragmatics, focusing on two concepts that have received much attention on the part of pragmaticians as well as translation\u0000 scholars, namely implicatures and politeness. It moves to on to present some of the most notable publications on the interface\u0000 between pragmatics and machine translation. These illustrate that the interest in the pragmatic value of language has not\u0000 succeeded in advancing the integration of pragmatics into automated translation. Drawing on Kesckes and House, the last section\u0000 discusses two concepts to be considered regarding the role of pragmatics in intercultural mediation.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75174107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of van Crevel & Klein (2019): Chinese Poetry and Translation: Rights and Wrongs","authors":"Sum Wong","doi":"10.1075/babel.23035.won","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.23035.won","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73346186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The creativity and limitations of AI neural machine translation","authors":"Kaibao Hu, Xiaoqian Li","doi":"10.1075/babel.00331.hu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00331.hu","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines the performance of the neural machine translation system DeepL in translating Shakespeare’s\u0000 plays Coriolanus and The Merchant of Venice. The aim here is to explore the strengths and\u0000 limitations of an AI-based English-Chinese translation of literary texts. Adopting a corpus-based approach, the study investigates\u0000 the accuracy and fluency rates, the linguistic features, and the use of various methods of translation in the Chinese translations\u0000 of Shakespeare’s plays conducted via DeepL. It compares these to the translations by Liang Shiqiu, a well-known Chinese\u0000 translator. The study finds that DeepL performs well in translating these works, with an accuracy and fluency rate of above 80% in\u0000 sampled texts, showing the potential of the use of neural machine translation in translating literary texts across distant\u0000 languages. Our research further reveals that the DeepL translations exhibit a certain degree of creativity in their use of\u0000 translation methods such as addition, explicitation, conversion and shift of perspective, and in the use of Chinese sentence-final\u0000 modal particles, as well as Chinese modal verbs. On the other hand, the system appears to be limited in that a certain amount of\u0000 translation errors are present, including literal translations.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90728992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethical issues for literary translation in the Era of artificial intelligence","authors":"Li Bo","doi":"10.1075/babel.00334.li","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00334.li","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Technological advancement has brought changes to many professions across the world. Furthermore, it has triggered\u0000 a discussion about ethical issues. Machine Translation (MT) or Computer-Aided Translation (CAT)\u0000 has vastly increased work efficiency and technology-related ethical issues are gaining academic attention these days. However, the\u0000 discussion of ethical issues for literary translation against the backdrop of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is limited. After a\u0000 quick review of the stages of MT, this paper will delve into literary translation’s emerging ethical issues, for example, the\u0000 literary translator’s professional identity and copyright. Copyright ethics is an indispensable part of AI-enabled literary\u0000 translation since training data and participatory NMT involve copyright issues. This study revealed that technological advancement\u0000 will facilitate literary translation. However, no direct evidence exists that machine translation will replace human translators.\u0000 Given the new working mode of “multi-players” or participatory translation, ethical issues arising from the human and machine\u0000 interaction merit further academic inquiry.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"17 7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78473446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Hubscher-Davidson & Lehr (2023): The Psychology of Translation: An Interdisciplinary Approach","authors":"Tao Wang, Shuxian Song","doi":"10.1075/babel.23043.wan","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.23043.wan","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80136656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Walter Benjamin as translator as John Henry","authors":"D. Robinson","doi":"10.1075/babel.00329.rob","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00329.rob","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article invokes John Henry’s fatal competition with the rock-driving machine, a legendary exemplar of resistance to automation, as a speculative analogue of Walter Benjamin’s 1923 essay “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” read as a metaphysical attempt to develop a workable alternative to the kind of mechanizable translating he hated. Benjamin’s practical work with Baudelaire and Proust and the others is read tentatively as the forerunners to machine translation eighty-plus years later – working with the meanings of individual words in sentential chunks, striving to organize them along the lines of statistical usage in the target language, and incrementally learning with each translation job to assimilate actual reproductions of sentential meaning more and more accurately to statistical usage. “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” by contrast, read as his anti-MT manifesto, opens up to a somatic phenomenology of felt (super)human life.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"132 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78970253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Vidal Claramonte (2023): Translating Borrowed Tongues. The Verbal Quest of Ilan Stavans","authors":"Núria Molines-Galarza","doi":"10.1075/babel.23047.gal","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.23047.gal","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73405091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neural machine translation and human translation","authors":"Anfeng Sheng, Yankun Kong","doi":"10.1075/babel.00332.she","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00332.she","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000By comparing the Chinese, English and French versions of “Exhortations of Learning” and “On Building a Human Community with a Shared Future,” translated by human translators and the neural machine translation systems respectively, this essay finds out that human translators have addressed the political and ideological factors more tactfully while the working mechanism of the neural machine translation system lacks the formers’ judgment, consideration, flexibility and subjectivity. Moreover, unlike human translators, the neural machine system is not capable of activities such as summarizing the source texts, making comments or annotating. But on the other hand, the neural machine translation system has the advantages of its own. Not affected by bias like human translators, it could perform the translation faster and with a rather objective stance. All in all, there is still a long way to go before it can reveal the political and ideological factors in ways as human translators can achieve.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88742166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Defending the last bastion","authors":"Hongtao Wang","doi":"10.1075/babel.00330.wan","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00330.wan","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Growing interest has been noted in applying AI-powered machine translation (MT) to literary translation, hailed as\u0000 the last bastion of human translation. Despite achieving considerable progress in this field, research has either ignored or\u0000 underestimated the particularity, complexity, and cultural significance of literary translation, which can be examined from a\u0000 sociological approach. Drawing on the sociological theories of Bourdieu, Latour, Callon, and Baudrillard, the present paper\u0000 analyses the innate nature of literary translation and highlights three fundamental issues that need to be addressed in applying\u0000 MT to literary texts. First, the poetics of literary translation is built on human translators’ long-acquired habitus, thus, in\u0000 the case of MT, an algorithm comparable to the creative human habitus must be derived if MT aspires to take on the role of the\u0000 human translator. Second, literary translation constitutes a dynamic network connected by various human and non-human actors, thus\u0000 the aspects not included in the interlingual transference of MT should be compensated through more effective interactions between\u0000 the machine and other actors. Third, the cultural-ethical issues related to MT should be thoroughly examined because the present\u0000 MT of literary texts is a machine simulation of the psychological human translation, which undermines both the meaning generation\u0000 of literary translation and the knowledge accumulation of cultural production. Therefore, literary translation must be handled by\u0000 qualified human translators until we can undoubtedly ensure that MT can be effectively and safely applied to literary texts.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88838171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The untranslatability of Literaturnost revisited in the era of artificial intelligence","authors":"H. Lei","doi":"10.1075/babel.00333.han","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00333.han","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper revisits Roman Jakobson’s literaturnost within the framework of modern poetics and in light of the challenge posed by artificial intelligence to human literary translation. It is argued that literary translation is, in essence, more of a project of code transposition and meaning generation than of message transmission. Furthermore, it is noted that although algorithms can process certain literary devices, they are currently unable to process the polysystemic relations that constitute an artwork’s literaturnost. Consequently, it is emphasized that meaning transferal, meaning generation, and the revolt against meaning will continue to pose barriers for future machine translation even in the long term.","PeriodicalId":44441,"journal":{"name":"Babel-Revue Internationale De La Traduction-International Journal of Translation","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81796066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}