Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, is reshaping translation practices by enabling dynamic human–AI interaction and placing new demands on users. However, less is known about how students develop the competencies required to critically and responsibly engage with GenAI in translation contexts. This study investigates students’ AI literacy through a multidimensional framework comprising knowledge, usage, evaluation, affect, and ethics. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining questionnaire data from 146 university students in Hong Kong with semi-structured interviews with 10 participants. Quantitative results indicate a generally positive but uneven AI literacy profile: students report high levels of usage, knowledge, and affect, relatively lower evaluation competence, and relatively low score of ethics dimension. Correlation analysis further reveals a clustered structure among knowledge, usage, evaluation, and affect, whereas ethics is weakly associated with all other dimensions. Qualitative findings further illuminate this imbalance. While students actively integrate ChatGPT into translation tasks and demonstrate strong emotional engagement, their evaluative practices are mediated by prompt design and prior knowledge. More critically, ethics emerges as the least internalized dimension, characterized by a gap between awareness and actual implementation in practice. This study contributes to AI literacy research by demonstrating its structurally uneven and partially decoupled nature in AI-mediated translation. It further reconceptualizes ethics as a structurally under-integrated dimension and highlights the interactional and input-dependent nature of evaluative competence.
Authors: Hao YIN, Jianwen LIU, Mengyao QI, Zeping HUANG
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,890
OpenAlex ID: W7213954479
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