ChatGPT Recognition and the Translation of Colonial Nuances in the Innocents Abroad

Abstract

This thesis assesses ChatGPT version 4o capacity to recognize and translate the colonial nuances in selected excerpts from the source text (ST) The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. While previous studies proved the powerful translation performance of ChatGPT, some studies found that it includes some linguistic and cultural bias. This research adopts the qualitative analysis of the translation results for ChatGPT translation outputs in response to the various methods and contents of prompting (zero-shot prompting, textual-contextualizing prompting, and scaffolding prompting). The postcolonial approach to translation, and its most well-known strategies of neutralization, foregrounding, penetration, and subversion, are adopted as the study's main framework. The study concludes that the scaffolding- prompts, which provide the necessary guidance to the machine, produce translations that are more responsive to colonial tropes and misrepresentations of the sensitive contexts than other types of forms including the zero-shot prompt, and the textually-contextualizing prompt.