Exploring the potential of DeepSeek through Chesterman’s translation model: A case study on GenAI-assisted translation of Yin and Yang terminologies

Recent studies on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM, hereinafter) focused on the translation of TCM terminology in the Chinese classic the Yellow Emperor 's Inner Canon. Nevertheless, considerable research was limited to Chinese-to-English translations. However, whether Generative AI (GenAI, hereinafter) could positively translate and retain the cultural connotations of TCM terms in other languages except for English was still a pending issue. Based on Chesterman's models of translation ethics, the present paper, therefore, aims to investigate whether DeepSeek, a GenAI model, conduces to rendering and reserving the cultural connotations of the Chinese terms Yin and Yang in The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor in Italian. Textual analys es of AI-assisted translations were adopted to evaluate the quality of the GenAI translations of Y in and Yang and investigate whether GenAI-assisted translations could reserve the cultural nuances of Yin and Yang. The research revealed that GenAI was unable to fully retain the cultural connotations of Yin and Yang, which called for post-editing refinements. The research highlighted the prospects of human-AI collaborations in the translations of TCM classics and cross-cultural communication.