DE LA CULTURE DU GOÛT AU TRANSFERT DU SENS : LES EXPRESSIONS IDIOMATIQUES GASTRONOMIQUES DANS LA TRADUCTION FRANÇAIS-ROUMAIN ASSISTÉE PAR L’INTELLIGENCE ARTIFICIELLE
FROM THE CULTURE OF TASTE TO THE CONVEYING OF MEANING: GASTRONOMIC IDIOMS IN FRENCH-ROMANIAN TRANSLATION ASSISTED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the linguistic and cultural challenges involved in the translation of gastronomic idiomatic expressions from French into Romanian in the context of artificial intelligence–assisted translation. Gastronomic idioms constitute a particularly complex category of phraseological units, as they are characterized by semantic non-compositionality, syntactic fixity, and strong cultural anchoring. Far from referring solely to food or culinary practices, these expressions convey symbolic meanings, collective representations, and pragmatic values specific to a given linguistic community.The study adopts a contrastive and traductological perspective, combining theoretical insights from phraseology and cultural translation studies with an empirical analysis of translations generated by several widely used AI-based systems (such as Google Translate, DeepL, and Microsoft 365 Copilot). Particular attention is paid to cases where no direct idiomatic equivalent exists in Romanian, which often leads to literal translations, semantic opacity, or the neutralization of metaphorical imagery. Conversely, idioms with well-established functional equivalents in Romanian are more successfully rendered, especially when they are frequent and well represented in training corpora.The analysis highlights the limits of current AI systems in dealing with culturally marked figurative language, as these technologies primarily rely on statistical correlations rather than contextual and experiential understanding. While neural machine translation has significantly improved fluency and grammatical accuracy, it still struggles to ensure pragmatic equivalence and cultural adequacy in the case of idiomatic expressions.The article argues that AI should be viewed as a complementary tool rather than an autonomous solution in idiomatic translation. The human translator remains essential as a cultural mediator, responsible for identifying idioms, evaluating machine-generated outputs, and selecting appropriate strategies such as idiomatic equivalence, reformulation, or explicitation. Ultimately, the translation of gastronomic idioms illustrates the enduring centrality of human expertise in the transfer of meaning across languages and cultures.

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