Guest Editor:
José Yuste Frías (Universidade de Vigo)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the material, economic, professional, educational and epistemological conditions of translation practice. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, debates on linguistic automation have intensified, bringing renewed attention to its implications for professional practices, educational models, labour relations, authorship, responsibility and understandings of language and intercultural mediation. These developments form part of a longer history of interaction between translation and digital technologies, including translation memories, terminology databases, corpora, computer-assisted translation tools, neural machine translation and, more recently, large language models and generative AI systems. As Sofo (2023) discusses, machine translation should therefore be understood within the broader historical transformation of translation practices and conceptions of translation.
Paratranslation provides a framework for examining the textual, paratextual and sociocultural thresholds through which translations are produced, presented, circulated and received (Yuste Frías, 2026). Rather than positioning human translation in opposition to technology, this framework invites critical scrutiny of how technological systems and the institutions deploying them shape what is included, excluded or prioritised in translation workflows. Its empirical, sociological and discursive levels (Yuste Frías, 2022, 2024) offer complementary perspectives on formats, images, design, editorial practices, authorship, reception, ideology, agents and working conditions. Applied to AI-mediated translation, paratranslation can help investigate how these dimensions are recognised, transformed or overlooked. Yuste Frías (2023) and Schurster and Ferreiro-Vázquez (2025) raise concerns about the cultural situatedness of machine-produced translations and the potential reification of texts and translation practices. These concerns invite investigation into the conditions under which AI-mediated workflows preserve or weaken the relations through which translations acquire cultural meaning.
Questions of decision-making and responsibility are central to this discussion. González Pastor and Rico Pérez’s (2026) analysis of “translation without decision” invites reflection on how reading, interpretation and decision-making are redistributed when professionals work with machine-produced outputs. Their account highlights a potential asymmetry between the responsibility assigned to translators and their effective control over the sociotechnical processes shaping their work. This asymmetry raises questions about how responsibility can be fairly attributed when professionals have limited access to, or influence over, the systems they use. As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into translation workflows, it is therefore necessary to examine who can make which decisions, what information is available to support them, and who controls the infrastructures, data and parameters that shape both translation processes and their outcomes.
Translation involves more than the production of plausible linguistic sequences. It requires situated interpretation, negotiation and decisions informed by cultural, historical and affective knowledge. Eco’s (2008) account of conveying “almost the same thing” foregrounds the interpretive work and negotiation involved in translating. From a paratranslational perspective, this work also encompasses the relations between texts and the elements that frame their presentation and reception. Translators must assess explicit statements, implicit meanings, competing demands and the consequences of their choices within particular communicative situations. The value of this work cannot be assessed through linguistic output alone: it also concerns the contextual judgement, responsiveness and responsibility exercised throughout the translation assignment.
This understanding of translation resonates with Stiegler’s (2015) discussion of automation and the future of work. From this perspective, the implications of automation extend beyond labour displacement to include changes in the exercise and transmission of knowledge, judgement and practical abilities. In translation, these concerns invite examination of how the delegation of tasks to AI affects professional autonomy and opportunities to develop interpretive and decision-making skills. This special issue therefore invites discussion of a critical humanism in Translation Studies as a possible theoretical and pedagogical framework. Such a framework should remain open to scrutiny, including questions about its assumptions, its relationship with technological mediation and its capacity to account for the relational dimensions of translation.
Translator and interpreter education should address both the use of automated systems and the critical abilities needed to evaluate their role in specific contexts. These include interpreting texts and paratexts, assessing machine-produced outputs, recognising the limits of available information, exercising ethical judgement and explaining translation decisions. In dialogue with Jiménez-Crespo’s (2025) discussion of human-centredness, a paratranslational approach can help students examine how technologies affect the people involved in producing and receiving translations. The educational challenge is to integrate technological competence with professional autonomy, creativity and ethical responsibility, while considering translation’s cultural and political implications for linguistic diversity, cultural plurality and intellectual freedom.
The debate addressed by this special issue calls for moving beyond a binary opposition between technophilic enthusiasm and technophobic rejection. Buzelin’s (2024) research on the career trajectories, practices and perceptions of translators working in publishing highlights the diversity of professional relationships with technology. These relationships need to be understood in their specific historical, geographical and institutional contexts. The relevant questions therefore concern not simply whether translators use technology, but when, under what conditions, for which purposes and within which power relations they do so. A paratranslational perspective can contribute to this discussion by examining how platforms, interfaces, institutional discourses and professional arrangements shape technological choices and their consequences for translators’ agency.
Digitalisation can reorganise translation work through task fragmentation, geographical redistribution and changes in the visibility and valuation of human labour. Hurot et al. (2024) call for critical examination of AI in publishing, questioning promotional discourses that privilege productivity while overlooking professional and cultural consequences. Transparency is also central to the statements issued by the Association pour la promotion de la traduction littéraire (ATLAS, 2024) and the Société française des traducteurs (SFT, 2024). These statements raise questions about readers’ access to information concerning how translations are produced, the recognition of translators’ contributions and the distribution of the value created through their work. From a paratranslational perspective, disclosures, credits, labels and other forms of editorial presentation are relevant objects of study because they frame reception and readers’ expectations. Their analysis can connect questions of authorship and accountability with working conditions, remuneration, quality, linguistic diversity, intellectual property and environmental impacts.
Building on these concerns, this special issue of Cadernos de Tradução seeks to examine how paratranslation can contribute to the study of AI-mediated translation and interpreting. Particular attention will be given to the elements and practices that frame the production, circulation and reception of translated texts. Relevant objects include covers, typography, images, sound, metadata, credits, interfaces and promotional materials, as well as the editorial and institutional decisions governing their treatment. Contributions may investigate what happens when such elements are preserved, transformed, omitted or separated from verbal content in AI-mediated workflows. The aim is to establish how these changes affect the interpretation, presentation and cultural positioning of translations in specific contexts. The relations between transtextuality, transmediality and paratranslation also offer avenues for examining how AI-mediated practices reshape connections across texts, media and their paratextual thresholds (Yuste Frías & Ferreiro Vázquez, 2025).
Paratranslation also offers a perspective from which to question how professional value is defined in discussions of automation. If translators’ contributions are assessed primarily in terms of the speed or volume of linguistic output, interpretive, relational and editorial work may become less visible. A broader account considers how translators read, contextualise, negotiate, decide and participate in presenting translations to particular audiences. This perspective invites research into how AI redistributes these activities, which agents gain or lose influence, and how professional contributions are recognised and remunerated. It also opens space to examine resistance, adaptation and negotiation without assuming that the consequences of AI are uniform across sectors, institutions or working arrangements.
We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions that engage with one or more of the empirical, sociological and discursive levels of paratranslation (Yuste Frías, 2022) to investigate AI-mediated translation and interpreting. Relevant fields include audiovisual translation, videogame localisation, literary translation, publishing, accessibility and interpreting in social contexts. Contributions on interpreting may explore how paratranslation helps explain the treatment of non-verbal and contextual cues in AI-mediated encounters, including the relations discussed by Bourgoin Vergondy (2026). Other potential objects include digital interfaces, platforms, visual and sound paratexts, metadata, promotional content, instructions and prompts, provided that their relationship with paratranslation is theoretically articulated. Across these areas, we encourage research on the human and technological agents, institutional practices and discursive mechanisms that shape production, circulation, interpretation and reception.
Key questions
We propose the following key questions to foster contributions to this special issue within the specified themes of paratextuality in AI translation:
- How do AI interfaces, prompts, training datasets, evaluation practices and post-editing reshape the textual and paratextual thresholds of translation?
- How do AI-mediated translation processes preserve, transform or omit the paratextual relations through which translations are presented and received as cultural objects?
- How does human intervention in the textual and paratextual dimensions of AI-generated translations reconfigure translators’ agency, professional status and ethical responsibility?
- How can translator and interpreter education integrate critical AI literacy with the ability to interpret, negotiate and take responsibility for textual and paratextual decisions?
- How are decisions concerning covers, text–image relations, translators’ notes and cultural contextualization distributed among translators, AI systems, publishers and platforms, and who is accountable to readers?
- How does AI mediation affect access to non-verbal and contextual cues in public service interpreting, and what are the implications for participants’ agency and communicative access?
- How can paratranslational approaches inform debates on humanism, relational agency and technological mediation in translation, particularly concerning linguistic diversity, cultural plurality and intellectual freedom?
We encourage authors to consider these questions as a general framework for their research, while also welcoming diverse perspectives that expand these areas of interest.
Themes and topics
Considering the key questions above, we welcome theoretical and empirical studies that explore the following themes and topics related to Paratranslation and AI:
- Prompt engineering and the framing of textual and paratextual decisions in AI-mediated translation
- Critical paratranslational approaches to AI systems, infrastructures and discourses
- Paratranslational perspectives on AI interfaces, platforms and human–machine interaction
- Paratextual dimensions of AI-assisted revision, proofreading and post-editing
- Transdisciplinary approaches to paratranslation in AI-mediated translation practices
- AI-assisted literary translation: paratexts, editorial mediation and reception
- Authorship, responsibility and ethics in AI-mediated paratranslational practices
- Relation between transtextuality, transmediality, paratranslation, and AI
- Paratextual and non-verbal dimensions of AI-mediated interpreting in social contexts
- Paratranslational perspectives of AI, reification and translator agency
Submission guidelines
To propose a manuscript, first send an abstract to the guest editor: jyuste@uvigo.gal. We will accept proposals in English.
Proposals must include:
- Provisional title
- Author(s) name(s), affiliation, email address, and Orcid
- Abstract (between 250-500 words, excluding references) containing information about the research topic, theoretical framework, and methodology, in addition to the research rationale and relevance to the field
- Five keywords
- List of preliminary references (following APA 7 guidelines)
After approval, authors must provide the full version of the manuscript following the journal’s template.
- Manuscripts must be up to 10 000 words, excluding references.
Considering the referees’ reports, the guest editor will also read the accepted manuscripts and suggests improvements, if necessary.
Deadline
Abstracts should be submitted by January 15th, 2027
Authors will be notified of acceptance by February 15th, 2027
Full manuscripts should be submitted by June 1st, 2027
Peer-review reports submitted to authors by September 30th, 2027
Final manuscript submission, December 30th, 2027
Publication of the special issue: February-March, 2028
Contact Information
For more information about the special issue, please contact the guest editor directly at the following email addresses: jyuste@uvigo.gal.
References
ATLAS – Association pour la promotion de la traduction littéraire. (2024). IA et traduction littéraire : Les traductrices et traducteurs exigent la transparence. https://atlas-citl.org/publication/tribune-ia/
Bourgoin Vergondy, E. C. (2026). Traduire et interpréter en milieu social : Un parcours théorique pour comprendre et un exposé pratique pour réfléchir. Peter Lang.
Buzelin, H. (2024). Trajectoires, pratiques et perceptions : Des traductrices d’édition se prononcent sur l’automatisation. Palimpsestes, 38. https://doi.org/10.4000/12sp9
Eco, U. (2008). Decir casi lo mismo (H. Lozano Millares, Trans.). Debolsillo.
González Pastor, D., & Rico Pérez, C. (2026). Traducción sin decisión: La inteligencia artificial y la ilusión de la responsabilidad humana. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, 18, 7–56. https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2026.18.01
Hurot, L., Sfez, S., & Van Effenterre, M. (2024). La traduction d’édition face à l’IA : La réflexion s’impose. Traduire, 250, 70–82. https://doi.org/10.4000/123tv
Jiménez-Crespo, M. A. (2025). Human-centeredness in translation: Advancing translation studies in a human-centered AI era. InContext: Studies in Translation and Interculturalism, 5(1), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.54754/incontext.v5i1.132
Schurster, K., & Ferreiro-Vázquez, Ó. (2025). Traducción y paratraducción 4.0: Análisis sobre la reificación en el mundo de la inteligencia artificial. Cadernos de Tradução, 45, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2025.e102146
SFT – Société française des traducteurs. (2024, July 17). Prise de position de la Société française des traducteurs sur l’intelligence artificielle. https://www.sft.fr/global/gene/link.php?doc_id=546&fg=1
Sofo, G. (2023). La traduction à l’ère numérique : Histoire, évolution et perspectives de la rencontre entre la traduction et l’intelligence artificielle. In N. Froeliger, C. Larsonneur, & G. Sofo (Eds.), Traduction humaine et traitement automatique des langues : Vers un nouveau consensus ? (pp. 17–32). Edizioni Ca’ Foscari.
Stiegler, B. (2015). La société automatique. L’avenir du travail. Fayard.
Yuste Frías, J. (2022). Teoría de la paratraducción. In J. Yuste Frías & X. M. Garrido Vilariño (Eds.), Traducción & paratraducción I: Líneas de investigación (pp. 29–64). Peter Lang.
Yuste Frías, J. (2023). Traducir texto y paratraducir imagen entre la cultura del libro y la cultura de las pantallas. Cadernos de Tradução, 43(1), 1–46. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2023.e95405
Yuste Frías, J. (2024). Práctica de la paratraducción I: El nivel empírico o paratraductivo. In M. A. de Matos & K. Schurster (Eds.), Traducción y paratraducción: Manipulaciones ideológicas y culturales (pp. 5–26). De Gruyter.
Yuste Frías, J. (2026). Paratraduction. In A. Nouss, M. Vrinat-Nikolov, & L. Waltier (Eds.), Abécédaire critique du traduire (pp. 205–210). Presses universitaires de Provence.
Yuste Frías, J., & Ferreiro Vázquez, Ó. (2025). Transtextualidad, transmedialidad y paratraducción. Íkala, 30(2), Article e358654. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.358654
