Fidelity Revisited: Translation Ethics and Theoretical Innovation in the Digital Intelligent Era

With profound changes in translation practice in the era of digital intelligence, contemporary research on translation ethics has infused new theoretical connotations into the principle of fidelity, enabling it to go beyond the standard of linguistic equivalence. With a critical perspective, translation ethics interrogates fidelity, reconstructs it with new conceptual resources, and expands its theoretical trajectory from a principle of fidelity to an ethics of fidelity. This ethics of fidelity adopts pluralistic standards, emphasizes the translator’s presence, responds to the digital age, and prioritizes professional ethics education. It demands that translators respect cultural differences, exercise their subjectivity, and seek dynamic equilibrium among linguistic meaning, cultural value, and social responsibility. The technological intervention in the era of digital intelligence further highlights the urgency of ethical considerations. The ethics of fidelity expands the academic scope of translation studies, highlighting the essential nature of translation as an ethical practice and its contemporary significance.