There seems to be a kind of mythologising surrounding GenAI, mainly due to its newfound omnipresence in the translation field; its use being embraced by translation service providers, while also promoted within university curricula. Such endeavours are regarded with both skepticism and praise, given GenAI's efficiency in providing solutions. Consequently, GenAI acts as a key factor in altering the approach of the translation process.
The paper aims to explore these alterations via the theoretical lens of habitus, seen as a system “of durable, transposable dispositions” (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 53) shaping the translating subjects’ behaviour and self-perception within the translation field (Simeoni, 1998). It examines the way in which consecutive market-driven pressure and institutional adoption of GenAI reshape habitus through an ethical and political approach (Koskinen & Pokorn, 2021). It also perceives translation as an inherently political act.
The research questions to be answered are: how the translating subjects’ habitus is reshaped in the age of GenAI, what are its ethical consequences and their impact on emerging translators as political and professional actors and, finally, what is their stance towards its embedding in professional praxis.
Thus, theoretical analysis, its application within translation studies, and critical approaches regarding the ethics and socio-technology of GenAI (Bender et al., 2021) were combined with mixed-format (Likert-scale, multiple-choice, open-ended) qualitative questionnaires handed to MA students of Science of Translation at the Ionian University (academic cohorts 2024-2026), focusing on their professional background, stance towards GenAI, and perception of the altering of the translation praxis.
Most importantly, the article serves as a call to all translators for a more apt approach that exceeds adapting one’s habitus to survive co-existing with GenAI; opting to underline the importance and indispensability of the human factor in translation praxis.
Kostas Polychronidis is a translator and MA student of Science of Translation at the Ionian University. He translates from and to English, French, Japanese and Greek. His main interests concern intersemiotic and multimodal translation, translation theory and visual art, with a special focus on translating from Japanese to Greek. He has also delved into the dynamics of indirect translation, an area explored in his undergraduate thesis, which examined the translation of haiku poetry from Japanese to Greek; consequently, leading to his inclination towards the way in which distinct cultural aesthetics are preserved and/or transformed across linguistic boundaries. He is currently working on his master’s dissertation, which examines the construction of Japanese identity within the contemporary Greek translating praxis and indirect translation, in juxtaposition to American normalization.
Katerina Stogiou is a translator and an MA student of Science of Translation at the Ionian University. She also received her BA degree from the Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting at the Ionian University. She translates from English, and German into Greek and vice versa. Her interests include the analysis of political discourse through a translation scholarly lens, sociolinguistics, fine arts, audiovisual translation, and accessibility in the Arts. She is currently working on her master's dissertation, which combines audio description and the filmography of Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.
Panajotis Xhebraj was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and raised in Tirana, Albania. He is a translator and MA student of Science of Translation at the Ionian University. His bilingual and curiosity-inclined upbringing has led him to affiliate himself with literature, literary and translation theory, Balkan linguistics, language philosophy, semiotics and folklore. This delving has resulted in shifting his focus onto the cultural and political turn within translation studies, a trait also reflected in his master’s dissertation, which examines literary translation as a political act through the case of the Albanian translation of W. Shakespeare’s "Hamlet". He translates from and to Albanian, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Greek. He also writes his own prose, poetry and essays.
Serena Vandorou is a translator and MA Student of “Science of Translation” at the Ionian University. They translate from English, French and Italian to Greek and vice versa. Their main interests include: intersemiotic and multimodal translation, the intersection of translation theory and music, and visual art. They have delved into libretto translation focusing on operatic works of Ionian Music School composers, and they are currently exploring multimodality in the translation of Kefalonian folk music from Greek to English.
