Artificial Intelligence and Human Translation in English–Kurdish Literary Translation: A Comparative Study of The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry's

Abstract

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced translation practices, providing fast and readily available translation solutions across various language pairs. Despite these advancements, translating literary texts remains a major challenge, as literary language is deeply rooted in cultural, stylistic, and emotional meanings that often transcend literal equivalence. This study examines the comparative performance of AI and human translation in translating O. Henry's short story " The Gift of the Magi" from English into Kurdish. It aims to investigate how both approaches translate culturally specific expressions, idiomatic language, figurative language, and stylistic features while preserving the literary, stylistic, and cultural characteristics of the original text. Drawing on Lawrence Venuti's (2018) theory of domestication and foreignization, the study explores the translation strategies employed by both AI and human translators and evaluates their effectiveness in achieving linguistic accuracy, cultural equivalence and stylistic fidelity. This research adopts a comparative qualitative design, systematically comparing selected passages from the original English text with AI-generated and human-generated Kurdish translations. The analysis shows that AI-generated translations are effective in producing grammatically accurate and semantically coherent translations; however, they often struggle to convey subtle cultural nuances, emotional depth, symbolism, and the author's distinctive literary style. In contrast, human translations demonstrate greater flexibility in interpreting context, adapting culturally relevant expressions, and preserving the aesthetic and communicative functions of the original text through a balanced application of domestication and foreignization strategies. The study concludes that while AI has become a valuable tool for supporting literary translation, it cannot fully replace human translators, whose cultural awareness, creativity, and interpretive judgment remain essential for producing high-quality literary translations from English into Kurdish.