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Open research questions in Translation Studies and Practices

114 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 3,738 Translation Studies and Practices papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • There remains a significant gap in understanding how different AI models identify and apply established translation techniques within Molina and Albir's comprehensive framework of 18 translation techniques.

    Evaluating Artificial Intelligence Tools In Identifying Translation Techniques In Literary Texts · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should focus on improving AI’s ability to understand cultural and contextual nuances while also exploring hybrid models that combine AI efficiency with human interpretative skills.

    Information Literacy and Critical Analysis in Translation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) · 2026 · DOI

  • This study started from a practical problem in game localization: many game texts are not translated as continuous narratives, but as separate strings. In a fragmented narrative game such as Elden Ring, an item description or a skill text may look short, yet it can be connected to character relations, faction history, place names, and recurring world-building terms. When such entries are translated without enough background information, large language models may still produce fluent Chinese, but the translation can lose important narrative links or use terms inconsistently. To respond to this problem, this study designed a context-enhanced prompting framework. Instead of relying only on general translation prompts, the framework retrieves related background information from a local semantic knowledge base and adds it to the translation prompt. The experiment compared Doubao, Gemini, and GPT-5.5 under four settings: baseline translation, prompt engineering, context enhancement, and the full method. The results show that prompt engineering alone is not always reliable. In some cases, role and style instructions help control the tone, but they do not necessarily give the model the missing background knowledge. By contrast, context enhancement produces clearer improvement in terminology-related metrics. The full method achieves the best overall results, especially in GTES and Term-F1, which suggests that retrieved context can help the model preserve game-specific terms and world-building references more effectively. The study also shows the value of GTES as a supplementary evaluation metric. BERTScore and BLEU-4 can reflect semantic similarity and surface overlap, but they are not designed specifically for terminology-heavy game texts. GTES focuses on whether important domain terms and world- building concepts are recalled in the translation, making it more suitable for evaluating fragmented game localization texts. There are still several limitations. The corpus is mainly taken from one game, so the framework should be tested on more genres and language pairs in future work. The current knowledge base is 144 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computing and Data Science DOI: 10.54254/2755-2721/2026.35240 also text-based, while actual game localization may require visual, audio, and scene-level information. In addition, the terminology glossary and knowledge base are manually organized, which limits scalability. Future research can explore automatic terminology extraction, entity relation recognition, knowledge graph construction, Top-k retrieval, reranking, and context compression. Human evaluation should also be included, because automatic metrics cannot fully judge style, readability, cultural adaptation, or player acceptance. Overall, this study suggests that retrieval-enhanced prompting is a practical way to reduce contextual loss in fragmented game text translation and can serve as a useful reference for intelligent computer-assisted game localization.

    A Study on Prompt Engineering Strategies and Context-Enhanced Translation for Video Game Localization · 2026 · DOI

  • The researchers recommend that universities should integrate English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses, particularly sports translation, into undergraduate translation curricula. The researchers recommend that translators emphasize the teaching of translation strategies for lexical non-equivalence, such as descriptive equivalence, paraphrasing, borrowing, cultural substitution, and functional equivalence. The relatively stronger performance at Taiz university in metaphorical expressions suggests that metaphor-focused instructional activities may enhance students' figurative translation competence. The high omission rate (17%) at Ibb university indicates the need for training in lexical retrieval strategies and context-based translation. At UST, students would benefit from exposure to authentic football discourse and bilingual sports glossaries.

    An Analytical Study of Lexical Challenges Encountered in Translating Selected Football Expressions by English Undergraduate Students at Yemeni Universities · 2026 · DOI

  • The continuing significance of the KJV in the development of English linguistic and cultural identity suggests that the study of translation-mediated normativity remains an open, dynamic, and contested field, in which the boundaries between transmission and innovation, reproduction and creativity, are themselves constantly subject to renegotiation.

    THE KING JAMES BIBLE AS NORM-MAKER: COSERIAN AND TRANSLATION THEORY PERSPECTIVES · 2026 · DOI

  • This year’s skill appreciation scores show mixed results. Approximately 30% are not accepting any interns at all, mostly because they are lacking the work or the resources to support interns.

    Review of Fernández-Parra (2026): Terminology Management for Translators · 2026 · DOI

  • This study addresses the gap in the literature surrounding China's diplomatic communication by taking a functional approach that considers the implications of literal translation of proverbs as well as emphasizes the complexity of translating Chinese diplomatic discourse particularly the proverbs due to the cultural and historical characteristics embodied in them.

    Translating Chinese Proverbs in Diplomatic Discourse: A Political Equivalence Approach · 2026 · DOI

  • Though computer-assisted translation (CAT) has gained increasing popularity, profiling the realities of its uses is still under-explored in some contexts.

    Professional translators' use of CAT tools in Saudi Arabia: usability perceptions, realities and difficulties · 2026 · DOI

  • AMATEUR ONLINE TRANSLATION: FANFICTION TRANSLATION (BASED ON A SAMPLE OF POLISH TRANSLATIONS FROM ENGLISH PUBLISHED ON THE AO3 PLATFORM)Translating fanfiction is a notably understudied phenomenon that plays a significant role in fan communities, enabling fans who lack proficiency in English to access fanworks created by an international and multicultural community.

    Amatorskie tłumaczenie online · 2026 · DOI

  • Abstract In spite of the multi- and plurilingualism, the antiquity of the practice on the continent, the role of literary translation in particular moments of social change and the increasing institutionalization of translation studies on the continent, the immense potential of African contexts, especially sub-Saharan and Afrodiasporic contexts, for translation studies remains to be more fully explored and better represented in international debates on translation studies.

    Why do literary translation studies in African contexts matter? · 2026 · DOI

  • The findings of this SR point to the need for a comprehensive rethinking of how English–Arabic and Arabic–English translation is taught, practiced, and assessed. The recurring error patterns across metaphorical, lexical, syntactic, and technical domains suggest that translation competence must be developed through targeted, systematic, and evidence-based instructional approaches. Therefore, this study recommends the following: • Translation programs should prioritize the development of deep lexical knowledge in both languages. Instruction must move beyond surface-level vocabulary lists toward: semantic networks and word families, domain-specific terminology (legal, medical, scientific, cultural), polysemy training, including one-to-many and many-to-one mappings, contextualized vocabulary learning rather than isolated word memorization. Students should be trained to identify semantic shades of meaning and select equivalents appropriate to domain, register, and context. • Given the high difficulty of idioms, metaphors, kinship expressions, color symbolism, numeral-based expressions, and culturally embedded phrases, translation pedagogy should include: explicit teaching of metaphorical mapping across languages, contrastive analysis of figurative systems in Arabic and English, exposure to authentic idiomatic expressions in diverse genres, and practice in identifying fixed expressions and avoiding literal translation. Students should learn to treat idioms and metaphors as holistic units rather than compositional structures. • The dominance of literal translation and avoidance indicates weak inferencing abilities.

    A Self Systematic Review of Translation Error Studies (2000–2025): The Case of Students’ Errors in English–Arabic and Arabic–English Translation · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should investigate whether ethical guidelines (OECD, UNESCO, EU AI Act) are being operationalized differently across jurisdictions and languages, and how this variation affects MT transparency.

    Transparency and Accountability in Machine Translation: Are New Ethical Norms Emerging in the Age of AI? · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper addresses gender bias in MT (citing Rescigno & Monti, 2023) but does not systematically examine how other forms of bias (cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic) intersect with transparency and accountability issues.

    Transparency and Accountability in Machine Translation: Are New Ethical Norms Emerging in the Age of AI? · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper relies on document analysis and thematic coding of policy documents without empirical validation of whether these ethical norms are actually being implemented in practice by MT developers and organizations.

    Transparency and Accountability in Machine Translation: Are New Ethical Norms Emerging in the Age of AI? · 2026 · DOI

  • C-3PO's limited agency remains constrained by programming and narrative necessity, and the paper does not fully explore how real-world AI translation systems could develop comparable cultural mediation capabilities.

    The Translator Image in Film: A Case Study of C-3PO · 2026 · DOI

  • Linguistic and translation errors in bilingual LLs are attributed to DIY (Do It Yourself), complex, long, or technical source phrases, cultural and linguistic mismatch, lack of standardized glossaries, lack of standardization of equivalents and transliterated forms, and low translator training.

    Pan Arab Linguistic and Translation Errors and Strategies in Bilingual Linguistic Landscapes · 2025 · DOI

  • Since review platforms make reviews available to users in different languages translated by MT, the quality of MT output should be studied from the point of view of the text’s adaptation to the requirements of a specific audience and market, following the principles elaborated in localization studies.

    Machine translation of tourism reviews · 2025 · DOI

  • Since 2017, the Tomsk Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church has been implementing a project that involves translating the Gospels of the New Testament into the Middle Chulym Turkic language, one of the critically endangered Turkic languages that remains insufficiently studied and described.

    Russian Words in a Middle Chulym Translation of the Gospel of Mark · 2025 · DOI

  • TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES AS RESEARCH TOOLS FOR POLISH SIXTEENTH-CENTURY TRANSLATIONS OF NARRATIVE PROSE FROM GERMANIn this paper I review the findings of translation scholars on translation strategies and techniques, as there is no consensus among translation theorists on the scope of these terms.

    Techniki i strategie tłumaczeniowe jako narzędzia badania polskich szesnastowiecznych przekładów prozy fabularnej z języka niemieckiego · 2025 · DOI

  • Furthermore, the study creates the conditions for additional research into the consequences of translation in various fields, underlining the need for healthcare professionals to collaborate closely with translators to promote clear communication and enhance health literacy across varied cultural backgrounds.

    THE TRANSLATOR’S ROLE IN CULTURAL CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION · 2025 · DOI

  • From the use of intertextuality, recognized as a potential postmodern attri- bute within the realm of Esterházy’s prose, it is abundantly clear that a coherent examination of its interplay with the actual challenges posed by guest texts in the translation process is warranted.

    The Reception of Péter Esterházy’s Helping Verbs of the Heart from the Perspective of Translatability and Readability · 2024 · DOI

  • The scope of the research is limited to the above-mentioned book, where we seek to correct some mistakes that the translator may make when encountering some terms of religious, cultural and historical background in the context of their use, the research also aims to highlight the relationship between Acculturation and the localization of knowledge in translation, which requires avoiding the use of wrong phrases when the text is subject to a specific time and space.

    The Translation of " The Russian Biography of Emir Abdelkader from The Desert to The State" Between Acculturation and Localization of Knowledge · 2024 · DOI

  • Andreea Srmaiu completes successfully the PhD research focused on the translation of legal texts in Romania (see Cozma 2006, Zaharia 2011, Jumanca 2013, Reiss 2013, Iancu-Matei 2018, Neagu 2019) and brings added value to it through the originality of her approach, since the concept of translatability had not been investigated in depth in Romania, nor had it been associated with legal texts for the Romanian-English language pair.

    SĂRMAȘIU ANDREEA. 2024. Investigating the Translatability of Legal Texts: Designing Effective Transfer Strategies for Legal Translations. Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană. ISBN:978-606-37-2160-1. 182p. · 2024 · DOI

  • The study concludes that AI technology emerges as a true competitor with human translators, and their interactive potentials need to be further explored in poetry translation.

    Translating classical Arabic verse: human translation vs. AI large language models (Gemini and ChatGPT) · 2024 · DOI

  • As a result of the interview, some conditions provided to translators while working in sports clubs, not much known information until now about the first entry of interpreters into the profession, types of contracts in the profession, financial gain, professionalism of this sector, professional association, advantages/disadvantages of the profession and social rights of translators have been revealed.

    An Overview of Football Interpreting in Turkey: A Sample of Interview Analysis · 2023 · DOI

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114 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 3,738 Translation Studies and Practices papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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