The Future of Education

In light of the recent advancements and the revolutionary impact of artificial based tools in the field of Higher Education, translator trainers and educators alike must now consider the skills required of future translation professionals, as well as the pedagogical methodologies that will help enhance and adapt students’ learning outcomes in response to this new landscape. 

This exploratory study investigates the potential of AI-based resources in addressing translation challenges in both translation and EFL classrooms, with a focus on culture-specific items related to food. Culinary practices and the preservation of food traditions are profoundly intertwined with the essence of human culture. As such, this study seeks to investigate the translatability and inherent challenges of rendering such cultural references, aiming to assess how effectively nuanced meanings can be effectively conveyed through translation. 

The study compares the application of the same pedagogical strategies across two distinct student groups: one comprising undergraduates specialising in Translation and the other consisting of students enrolled in a Social and Cultural Communication Studies undergraduate program. In both Higher Education settings, students were tasked with translating texts related to food and culturally-specific culinary items. They then integrated AI into the translation and recreation process, facilitating a comparative analysis of outcomes across the two groups.

The assessment of students' perceptions regarding the use of AI in practical translation tasks, their responses to the format of these activities, and the significance they attributed to their creative skills was conducted through the administration of questionnaire and open-ended questions.

The study highlighted not only the limitations of the AI in the translation and EFL classrooms, but also demonstrated that a deeper student understanding of these limitations, coupled with the intricacies of the translations process, enhances their ability to critically reflect on and envision how AI and human translation can effectively coexist in the future.

Keywords: HEI, translator training, collaborative activities, AI and language teaching

REFERENCES

Bowker, L. (2002). Computer-Aided Translation Technology. A Practical. Introduction. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press

Bowker, L. (2023). De-mystifying Translation: Introducing Translation to Non-translators (1st ed.). Routledge

O’Brien, S. (2002). Translation as human-computer interaction. Translation Spaces, Volume I, Issue I, January 2012, p.101-122

Pym, A. (2014). Exploring Translation Theories (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315857633

Zwischenberger Cornelia (2022) Online collaborative translation: its ethical, social, and conceptual conditions and consequences, Perspectives, 30:1, 1-18.