A Comparative Study on the English Translation of The Sight of Father’s Back from the Perspective of Human-Machine Translation

Abstract

Zhu Ziqing’s The Sight of Father’s Back is a classic work of modern Chinese lyrical prose. With plain and delicate language and implicit profound emotions, it boasts both literary aesthetic value and traditional cultural connotations. This paper takes Zhang Peiji’s human translation(HT), alongside machine translations produced by DeepL(NMT) and DeepSeek(LLM) as research objects. It conducts a comparative analysis of the differences, strengths and limitations of human and machine translation in the translation of literary prose across four dimensions: lexical richness, sentence structure, emotional expression and cultural value transmission. The study finds that machine translation possesses practical advantages such as semantic accuracy, standard grammar, translation efficiency and regular sentence structure, and is capable of meeting basic information transmission needs. However, it has obvious shortcomings in terms of literary aesthetics, empathy for implicit emotions, and the in-depth interpretation of cultural connotations. Human translation, relying on literary perception, emotional empathy and cultural interpretation, can better restore the lyrical characteristics and cultural essence of lyrical prose. Based on the findings, this paper puts forward corresponding implications for prose translation practice, human‑machine collaborative translation models, machine translation optimization, and the communication of Chinese culture, so as to provide references for the English translation practice of Chinese lyrical prose and the overseas communication of Chinese culture.