A comparison between AI translation and human translation under the framework of functional equivalence theory: a case study of A Tale of Two Cities
功能对等理论下的AI翻译与人译对比——以《双城记》为例

摘要

本文以功能对等理论为框架，对比《双城记》的不同AI译本与宋兆霖人工译本，探究二者实现功能对等的差异。结果显示，AI译本在词汇、句法对等的多数案例中准确性较高；但在特定文化语境词汇及篇章翻译中，因未融合文化内涵与上下文逻辑，词汇语境适配不足、表达生硬，难达理想文学效果。据此建议，AI翻译需强化文化语料库与语境算法，文学翻译可采用AI初译与人工润色相结合的模式，以平衡效率与质量。

Abstract

This study takes the Functional Equivalence Theory as its framework, comparing different AI translations of A Tale of Two Cities with Song Zhaolin’s version to explore the differences in their achievement of functional equivalence. The results show that AI translations exhibit high accuracy in most cases of lexical and syntactic equivalence; however, in the translation of vocabulary in specific cultural contexts and textual translation, due to the failure to integrate cultural connotations and contextual logic, the vocabulary lacks contextual adaptability, the expression is rigid, and it is difficult to achieve the ideal literary effect. Based on this, it is suggested that AI translation needs to strengthen the construction of cultural corpora and contextual algorithms, and the model combining AI preliminary translation with human proofreading can be adopted in literary translation to balance efficiency and quality.