Abstract:
The advent of Generative AI has fundamentally disrupted the translation landscape, compelling us to reimagine the future of translation research, industry practices, and translator education. This talk proposes a dual framework for understanding translation in the GenAI era, distinguishing between scholarship and craftsmanship as complementary yet distinct domains of inquiry and practice.

On the scholarship front, I examine GenAI-Assisted Translation (Gen-Translation) through multiple lenses: linguistic, computational, and social. This scholarly approach provides the theoretical foundation for understanding how GenAI transforms not just translation processes, but our conceptualization of translation itself. The craftsmanship dimension addresses the practical pursuit, operating across micro and macro linguistic levels. This practical focus extends to various contemporary techniques, all aimed at identifying and rectifying translation errors while enhancing overall translation quality.

By integrating these two perspectives, this presentation offers a roadmap for translation studies, translation industry, and translator training. The talk will conclude with concrete recommendations for curricula development, industry-academia collaboration, and the cultivation of hybrid competencies that position human translators as indispensable orchestrators in the GenAI-enhanced translation ecosystem.

Biography:

Dr. Dechao Li is professor of Department of Language Science and Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He also serves as the chief editor of Translation Quarterly, a journal published by the Hong Kong Translation society. His main research areas include corpuses-based translation studies, empirical approaches to translation process research, history of translation in the late Qing and early Republican periods and PBL and translator/interpreter training. He has published over 70 articles in journals both published home and abroad. Among his most recent works was the Technology and Interpreting: Navigating the Digital Age (co-edited with AKF Cheung, K Liu, R Moratto) published by Routledge in 2025.