Adequacy and cultural transfer in the translation of public history podcasts: A didactic proposal with machine translation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2026.e107920Keywords:
Podcasts, Relevance Theory, Skopos Theory, machine translation, promptsAbstract
Within the framework of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, the translator must calculate the mutual cognitive environment between the author and the recipient to ensure that the message is culturally accessible. Cultural adaptation of informative content often requires interlinguistic descriptive use that prioritizes functional adequacy over content equivalence. These concepts are applied to the Italian-Spanish translation of the public history podcast titled Matronae, within the framework of a didactic proposal designed for students with a C level of translation competence. The study methodology incorporates instrumental sub-competence through a comparative analysis between human translation and outputs generated by machine translation (DeepL) and generative artificial intelligence (Gemini), employing two distinct prompts in the latter: one for standard translation and another for guided cultural adaptation. The exercise mobilizes the linguistic, extra-linguistic, instrumental, and strategic sub-competencies of the PACTE model in an integrated manner. Results demonstrate that human strategic intervention is necessary to calculate the target reader's background knowledge and adapt socio-pragmatic content. The integration of theory and technology in the classroom enables students to achieve the required communicative relevance within the new reception context.
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