Dr. Pengfei Wang, Professor

School of Foreign Languages, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China

Biography

Dr. Pengfei Wang is a professor in the School of Foreign Languages at Southwest Jiaotong University, China. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Sichuan University, an M.A. in American Studies from Beijing Normal University, and a B.A. in English and American Literature from Sichuan International Studies University. A former visiting scholar at the University of Ottawa, Canada, his research spans comparative literature and cross-cultural studies, translation studies, and area and country studies. He is currently an Executive Council Member of the Chinese Society for the Study of A Dream of Red Mansions, an Executive Council Member of the Association for Canadian Studies in China, and a Council Member of the Chinese Society for the Study of Overseas Sinology. He is the author or translator of over twenty books and has published more than eighty academic articles in both Chinese and international journals.

Topic

Theoretical Reflection and Paradigm Reconstruction Type Cultural Cross-linguistic Communication in the AI Era: Translation, Algorithms and the Politics of Meaning

Abstract

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology is profoundly reshaping the underlying logic of cross-linguistic cultural communication. Machine translation and large language models have eliminated language barriers with unprecedented efficiency, transforming the cross-linguistic flow of text from a "rare professional practice" into a "daily technical operation". However, the improvement in efficiency does not equate to the faithful transmission of meaning—on the contrary, while AI eliminates language barriers, it also creates more subtle and systemic cultural misinterpretations. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of both comparative literature and translation studies, this paper interrogates three central concerns regarding cultural cross-linguistic communication in the age of AI: the nature and function of translation, the inherent biases and limitations of algorithmic mediation, and the politics of meaning embedded in technological systems. This paper argues that the intercultural communication of culture in the AI era cannot stop at celebrating translation efficiency, but must directly confront the deep tension between technological logic and humanistic logic. How to safeguard the richness of "meaning" and the diversity of culture in the algorithmic era, and how to reconstruct the subjectivity of translation as a cross-cultural reconstruction of meaning through technological empowerment, are unavoidable academic propositions placed before us.