Undermining Aesthetics: Poetry Between the Shortcomings of Metaphrase and the Inadequacies of Machine Translation

Poetry analysis remains far beyond the current machine processing capabilities, or those translators adopting a simple verbum-pro-verbo direct translation technique. Both instances would be disastrous, since poetry is, and remains, a creative human product that combines intuition, sense, and perception. Any literal rendering, or worse, a mechanical treatment of poetic elements, would damage the human mechanism inherent in this type of text. Software such as Google Translate accurately retrieves synonyms and variances of word types, yet, the problem that persists is the diction process that preserves the esthetic value of the source text in question. Whatever the efforts exerted in artificial intelligence (AI)-supported rendering of texts into other languages, poetry remains an exceptional case. In the same vein, Dryden’s metaphrase remains an unconventional translation technique when associated with poetic text. This paper addresses the esthetics of poetry that are endangered by either metaphrase, or, worse, by AI-supported tools, and investigates the esthetic loss resultant from using Google Translate with poetry. Sample excerpts of poetic works by prominent English and Arabic poets are highlighted, projecting the stylistic and esthetic breakdown of the original works when rendered by either metaphrase or AI tools.

Background/purpose – This paper addresses challenges inherent in poetry translation, particularly via computational analysis or word-for-word substitution, and proposes a Poet-Assisted Machine Translation (PAMT) to mitigate inadequacies of machine rendering esthetic texts.

Materials/methods – Literature review, exploring the requirements of poetry translation, highlighting sample from three different poetry translation methods; machine translation, metaphrase, and free translation.

Results – PAMT is the only way out.

Conclusion – Metaphrase, as well as machine translation, must be avoided in cases where the special esthetic qualities of a source text, such as in poetic verse, are intended to be maintained.

Keywords: poetry, aesthetics, artificial intelligence, machine translation, metaphrase

References

Arnold, D., Balkan, L., Humphreys, R. L., Meijer, S., & Sadler, L. (1994). Machine Translation: An Introductory Guide. NCC Blackwell.

Brooks, D. (2008). Dryden and Juvenal’s First Satire. Sydney Studies in English, 5(1979), 60-83. https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/view/355

Crisostomo, M. M., Bernarte, R. P., & Ambaget, S. C. (2022). Cross-Cultural Translation Studies in the Context of Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Response. European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences: Proceedings, 11(4s), 187-198. https://european-science.com/eojnss_proc/article/view/6709

Frost, W. (1969). Dryden and the Art of Translation. Archon.

Hutchins, J. (1995). Machine Translation: A Brief History. In E. F. K. Koerner & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Concise history of the language sciences: From the Sumerians to the cognitivists (pp. 431-445). Pergamon Press.

Kadhim, K. A., Habeeb, L. S., Sapar, A. A., Hussin, Z., Ridhuan, M. M., & Abdullah, T. L. (2013). An Evaluation of Online Machine Translation of Arabic into English. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 12(2), 39-50. http://www.tojet.net/articles/v12i2/1224.pdf

Kaifang, F., & Chunlei, W. (2023). Translation Studies in the Era of AI: Characteristics, Fields and Significance. (4), 58-67. https://doi.org/10.32996/ijtis.2023.3.4.7x

Klarer, M. (1999). An Introduction to Literary Studies. Routledge.

Koehn, P. (2012). Simulating Human Judgment in Machine Translation Evaluation Campaigns. In Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation (pp. 179-184). International Speech Communication Association.

Sloman, J. (1985). The Poetics of Translation: Beyond Metaphrase, Paraphrase, and Imitation. In A. McWhir (Ed.), Dryden: The Poetics of Translation (pp. 3-25). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487574697-003.

Soysal, F. (2023). Enhancing Translation Studies with Artificial Intelligence (AI): Challenges, Opportunities, and Proposals. Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University International Journal of Philology and Translation Studies, 5(2), 177-191. https://doi.org/10.55036/ufced.1402649

Specia, L., Hajlaoui, N., Hallett, C., & Azizet, W. (2011). Predicting Machine Translation Adequacy. In Proceedings of Machine Translation Summit XIII (pp. 513-520). Asia-Pacific Association for Machine Translation (AAMT).

Announcement

UNIBULLETIN News!

► New issue coming soon! (Volume 13 Issue 2, 2024)

► Call for Papers

UNIBULLETIN is calling for submissions. Authors are invited to submit papers from the all fields of the Education (General) and Social Sciences (General) in the international context. All submissions should be presented only in English.