Image Culture in a Fictional Text: Challenges to the Honesty of Professional Translation

The translation situation is a combination of the need to accurately convey the original message of its author embedded in the text with the freedom to interpret this message in the context of the language and culture of translation. The set of expressive means of each language implies a certain degree of alternative use of them, which makes it possible to choose the best option to achieve a more accurate understanding of the author’s message, taking into account the specifics of both the original language and the target language. Artificial intelligence (AI), which is increasingly and more often used also for the needs of translation from a foreign language, does not always capture the subtleties of contextual translation tasks. In the situation of professional translation, knowledge of a specific vocabulary inherent in a certain area of special knowledge is not enough – after all, deep knowledge of the translation issues is also necessary. When it comes to the honesty of professional translation of fiction texts, AI is more inclined to circumvent the problem than to solve it. For example, the question of understanding the personalities of the characters of a work of art, their emotions, motivations, etc. is acute. The author’s depiction of these characters often includes indirect characteristics, as well as irony, which sometimes forces us to understand certain characteristics in the exact opposite way. The article analyzes the strengths and limitations of the analytical and hermeneutic approaches to performing tasks of translating visual images. The authors of this article pay special attention to the analysis of the ecological approach in the theory of perception and the significance of its use in forming the culture of visual images, which provides an important methodological basis for successful professional translation of the linguistic expression of visual images. Therefore, the use of AI in translation from a foreign language should be accompanied by an expert assessment by a person who is a specialized professional translator