Bridging Cultures: A Contrastive Study of Human and AI Translation of Literary Texts, Normal People as a Case Study
Date
2025-06-01
Authors
Nariman Mazaraa
Mahmoud Abdel Fattah
Mahmoud Abdel Fattah - Ismail
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Deanship of Research - Al-Quds University
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant concern for human translators in recent years as it has permeated every field, including translation. AI translation is a process based on complex deep learning algorithms that allow AI to continue evolving. Consequently, the need to test AI limitations in translation has become more prominent. This research examines the capabilities of AI in literary translation, a genre that has long been considered the most demanding. The study tests and analyzes human and neural machine translation (ChatGPT4 and DeepL) of tense and culturally specific items in the Irish context by comparing AI translations of excerpts from "Normal People" by Sally Rooney with those translated by Mustafa Ban’ami in the Arabic version of the novel entitled " أناس عاديون ". The research paper found that despite AI's ability to learn and adapt, it struggled to convey a natural flow in the target language and stumbled when encountering culturally specific items and conveying the Arabic narrative and its linguistic features, such as tenses. This paper aims to contribute to the current discourse regarding AI’s role in literary translation, highlighting the pros and cons of human and AI translations, while also advocating for the use of Neural Machine Translation as a tool to enhance human translation rather than oppose it.