Consonances and dissonances in the Chinese translation of Ariel by José Enrique Rodó

The sonnet is a relatively old form of poetry that originated in Italy and was later introduced to England. Shakespeare’s sonnets are a type of sonnet composed of rhyme, pentameter and iambic pentameter, which occupy an important place in the world’s poetry and literature and have been translated in various ways in China. Chinese translators have gone through various explorations on the way to translate Shakespeare’s sonnets and have tried many different translation methods. However, when we look back at previous translation studies, most of them analysed the translations from the perspectives of meter, style, and rhetoric, but few of them analysed the translations in perspective of contemporary Chinese poetry translation theory, for reveal the extent to which different translators reproduced the aesthetic characteristics of the sonnets. Xu Yuanchong’s translation theory system has inherited the essence of traditional Chinese translation thought, among which the principle of “three beauties” takes “beauty” as the principle of pursuit, which breaks the traditional “faithfulness-centered” translation idea and concentrates on the aesthetic requirements of contemporary poetry translation. The two Chinese translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets, namely Tu An and Dai Liuling’s translation, have different identities and reproduce the beauty of the original poem to different degrees. Under the guidance of the translation principle of “three beauties”, this thesis compares and analyses the two translations, and studies the aesthetic reproduction of “sense, sound and form” by the two translators, aiming to enlighten the translators in the process of poetry translation and to inspire the cause of Chinese poetry translation.

This study systematically compares four prominent Chinese translations of Plato’s Republic against two authoritative English benchmark translations, addressing a critical gap in existing Platonic scholarship: the lack of objective comparative analysis of its diverse Chinese versions. Using a three-tiered computational stylistic framework comprising macro-stylistic positioning, micro-level syntactic and lexical features, and cognitive-linguistic profiling via LIWC categories, we analyzed a purpose-built parallel corpus of 935,861 tokens. The corpus comprises four influential Chinese translations (Gu Shouguan 2010, Guo Binhe 1986, He Xiangdi 2021, Xie Shanyuan 2016) and two English benchmarks (Allan Bloom 1968, C. D. C. Reeve 2004). Significant stylistic divergences emerged among the Chinese versions and in contrast to the English texts. Chinese translations consistently exhibit a pronounced tendency toward explicitation, marked by significantly higher frequencies of cognitive process words (13.7%–16.4% vs. 11.2%–12.7% in English versions, d = −1.75, p < .001) and elevated frequencies of logical connectives, particularly result and contrast markers. Notable variations in syntactic complexity were also found, ranging from Guo Binhe’s concise style (17.985 tokens per sentence) to Gu Shouguan’s elaborate style (27.419 tokens per sentence), with substantial variation among Chinese translations (η 2 = 0.18–0.48). These findings underscore that the Chinese Republic translations are not mere linguistic variants but unique intellectual projects shaped by deliberate interpretive strategies and cultural contexts, highlighting translation’s active role in philosophical re-creation and re-localization.

Gone with the Wind is an American novel, that has been popular since its publication. Its related translations and studies in China have been constantly emerging. However, most comparative studies have focused on a small number of Chinese translations and narrow research directions. This paper focuses on the perspective of the translator's subjectivity, in combination with specific historical and cultural contexts, conducting a comparative study of three representative Chinese translations by Fu Donghua, Chen Liangting, and Zhu Youruo. The paper analyzes the three translations from the aspects of creative treason and cultural translation theory. Through the analysis of the translator behavior of Chinese local translators, it is beneficial to demonstrate a more Chinese-characterized translator's subjectivity.

This article is devoted to the artistic features of Chinese poetic translations of Krylov's fables. Unlike traditional Chinese prose fables, Krylov's fables were written in verse, few people know about this in China. Since the first translations of Krylov's fables were made in prose by translators Lin Lezhi, Ren Tingxu, Meng Hai and Wu Yan until the 1980s. The situation changed in 1983 thanks to the wonderful translations of Gu Yu and He Shiin, who creatively translated Krylov's fables in Chinese verse. The author chooses one of the most popular Krylov's fables in China, "The Dragonfly and the Ant", analyzes its translation features of good translations by Gu Yu, He Shiying, Zhu Xiansheng and Qiu Jingjuan, tries to sum up the corresponding methods of translating Krylov's fable creativity. The purpose of the study is to identify specific approaches to the translation of Krylov's fables from the point of view of Chinese versification. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the article studies and compares different Chinese poetic translations of Krylov's fable. When analyzing Chinese translations and versification, a comparative approach, methods of analysis, interpretation and generalization are applied. As a result, it was revealed that more and more Chinese translators preferred to translate poems in verse in recent years. In the process of translation, they used stop-pause theory to convey the Russian syllabic verse, solving questions about stress, foot, etc. The material of the article can be used when studying the reception of Krylov's fables abroad, especially their translation in China.

In this paper, after researching the natural language processing model, we use the knowledge representation technology to construct a knowledge base and use the sequence comparison algorithm to compare the sequences of Chinese and English translations, analyze the similarities and differences between the two sequences, and analyze the entropy of information between English and Chinese translations through the probabilistic theory and mathematical statistics method. On this basis, we analyze the differences between Chinese and English translations in terms of lexical dimension, syntactic dimension and articulation dimension and explore the differences in lexical richness and thematic concentration between Chinese and English based on “entropy”. The results show that Chinese is significantly higher than English translations in terms of language output length, sentence complexity, subordinate structure and phrase structure (p<0.001), and Chinese is significantly higher than English translations in terms of articulation (p<0.05). This paper provides an important reference value for studying the differences in stylistic features in Chinese-English translation.

Corpora for Chinese and English translation teaching online has attracted much attention in recent time. As a valuable resource for translators and translator training, the general monolingual corpora are readily available, such as BCC and CCL in Chinese and BNC and COCA in English. This article focuses on the benefits of using such monolingual corpora as BCC and COCA in English and Chinese translation and establishes a preliminary corpus-assisted teaching model for translation. Drawing on the given examples, the authors argue that the monolingual corpora-assisted framework for translation teaching will particularly enhance students’ self-learning abilities and thus improve the training of translation students via online teaching.

We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing.

This paper analyzed the translations of three English Christmas carols of Silent Night, Away In A Manger, and The First Noel, as the most popular carols that have been translated into many languages, adopted from the hymnal book by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The English versions were compared with their Chinese and Indonesian translations. The analysis was performed by classifying the stanzas individually based on Guerra (2012) fifteen translation strategies. Identification of equivalence as the most common strategy in the Chinese translation could be because of numerous “unnatural” English expressions in Chinese language and culture, whereas for the Indonesian translation, omission was the most common strategy, which helped to retain completeness, or the overall meaning of the stanzas, or completeness. Omission was also used to leave out redundant or insensible information throughout the translated carols in both languages and contributed to successful maintenance the original rhythm and rhyme in the translation of the three carols. Findings of this study could be further validated by analysing more Christmas carols in Chinese and Indonesian Languages, and other languages. Researchers could also look precisely into the cultural elements that could potentially affect this type of translation.

This paper analyses and compares the systemic functional features of the Sanskrit original text and the Chinese and English translations of the Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra, focusing on the ideational components that are manifest on the strata of discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. Results show that there are both expected equivalence and significant differences among the Sanskrit original text and the two translated texts. The accounts for the equivalence and differences are twofold (on two hierarchies): in terms of instantiation, the translators go along different re-instantiation routes in finding corresponding potentials between the source text and their respective target texts; in terms of individuation, the English and Chinese translators’ personal and social identity has an immediate influence on their respective reproductions of the text.

Exploring the common complexities and challenges of translating poetry from English into Chinese is one of the most pressing topics within contemporary Chinese and Western translation studies. This study aims to present the translation history of works by Emily Dickinson, examine the related research in China, and to analyse the translation potential of transferring three characteristics of the original work: hermeticism, intertextuality and prosody. The study is based on a comparative-literary analysis of Emily Dickinson’s translations of four verses, namely 1725, 31, 258, 269 and the translations of the contemporary Chinese translator Jiang Feng. The study found that Jiang Feng’s Chinese translation exhibits eight main features: 1) syntactic modification; 2) addition; 3) replacement of specific words with those that are broader in semantic sense; 4) compliance with punctuation similarity rules; 5) omission; 6) presence of translator’s notes; 7) transmission of the key idea, but partial neglect of form and rhyme; 8) replacement of words with cultural indicators that are inherent to the Chinese language. This study provides sinologist translators with further potential for research.

A Study on Chinese Subtitle Translation Aspects of Conversation Implications in Korean Dramas - Focusing on the Drama “Misaeng”

This study attempts to shed light on how missionaries marginalized the role played by local Koreans engaged in the translation of an evangelical tract, The Peep of Day (1833), into Korean by comparing the English source text with its Chinese and Korean translations. The subjects of comparison for this exercise were the translators’ choice of words from the source text for adaptation, addition and omission. This analysis revealed: 1) That the Chinese translation was the source text for Korean version; 2) Chinese translators were more active in acculturating the tract by adapting, omitting or adding to the source text; and 3) Korean translators were for the most part faithful to the Chinese version. In addition to this comparative analysis, research on the translators themselves has been included in this paper to trace how Protestant Christianity was trans-mitted to Korea and the dynamics of early missionary work.

In the Wake of the Cultural Revolution:Chinese Translations of Hard Times (1978) and Great Expectations (1979) Minghui Li (bio) The Cultural Revolution in China (1966–1976) represented a major and defining era in the nation’s history: the political, economic and social impact on the population was huge. In the immediate aftermath of this painful period, a search for new ideas and points of orientation began, an impetus that called on the nation to look back before looking forward. In the three decades following the Cultural Revolution, the novels of Charles Dickens enjoyed a remarkable reaffirmation of the place they had formerly held in the country’s cultural life since the early twentieth century. It is of particular significance that the first two translations of his works to be published after “the storm” were Hard Times and Great Expectations.1 The titles themselves appeared to speak to the wounded Chinese soul, although nothing was said directly on this subject in the individual forewards that accompanied the publication of each novel at the time. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, the attitude to Dickens had been one of enthusiasm, a predictable response given the author’s critical portrayal of capitalist society. Equally unsurprising, the artistic value of his fiction had received less scrutiny. After 1976, however, Dickens’s work was seen to present broader opportunities for the publishing houses. As the Chinese authorities tried to distance themselves from the Cultural Revolution, the novels of the English author offered the chance to consider humanism as opposed to realism, individualism as opposed to collectivism; at the same time, the translation and publication of several of his works was considered [End Page 300] to be an important task for publishers. Evidence of this is that the following were published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House: Hard Times (1978), translated by Quan Zenggu (全增嘏) and Hu Wenshu (胡文淑); Great Expectations (1979), translated by Wang Keyi (王科一); Bleak House (1979), translated by Huang Bangjie (黄邦杰), Chen Shaoheng (陈少衡) and Zhang Zimo (张自谋); The Pickwick Papers (1979) translated by Jiang Tianzuo (蒋天佐), although Pickwick had been first published in 1947; David Copperfield (1980) translated by Zhang Guruo (张谷若); and A Tale of Two Cities (1989), translated by Zhang Liang (张玲) and Zhang Yang (张扬). But the two most important novels were, without doubt, Hard Times and Great Expectations. For such politically charged but also versatile works, the challenge for any translator was going to be great. While Hard Times had already been translated during the 1920s, the publication of Great Expectations in 1979 was an important literary event marking the first Chinese translation of the novel. The linguistic challenges of the two novels, as well as their critical treatment of capitalist values, suggest that these two works held particular significance for Chinese literary and translation history. The timing of the publication in 1978 and 1979 during a period of drastic social, political and cultural upheaval lent even more impact to their reception in China. For these reasons, any study of the global significance of Hard Times and Great Expectations must take into account their literary, political and socio-cultural contribution to intellectual life in China. Before considering the specific translations, let me comment briefly on the previous history of Chinese translations of Dickens, not least since he was one of the earliest European-American writers introduced into China. Dickens was also one of the most translated foreign writers in Chinese translation history. Following the first group of translations – Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Dombey and Son, introduced by Lin Shu to China between 1907 and 1909, interest in his works increased. The only real interruption occurred between 1966 and 1976. Both before and after the Cultural Revolution, Dickens was highly regarded as an outstanding critical realist in China, whose novels, literary critics agreed, illuminated various aspects of humanistic thought. To coincide with the 125th anniversary of his birth, a Chinese journal titled Translation devoted a special issue to Dickens in 1937, presenting three articles about his work to Chinese readers. Written by a Soviet critic, the first was entitled “迭更斯论—为人道而战的现实主义大师” (“The Realist Master of Humanism”).2 The author’s objective was to present [End Page 301] Dickens to Chinese readers as an...

China and Russia have completely different cultural backgrounds, historical traditions and ways of thinking, which makes it difficult to directly correspond or accurately convey many culturally unique concepts, customs and expressions during the translation process. For example, some idioms, sayings or cultural symbols may have completely different meanings or no equivalents in the two cultures. Therefore, there are problems such as poor verification resulting in the consistency verification of Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus. In order to solve this problem, this paper designs a consistency verification method for Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus based on CNN-BiGRU. Through the part-of-speech correspondence of the Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus, it is represented by vectors, the feature weights of the Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus are calculated, the collocation information between the feature items is determined, and the maximum likelihood of the features is calculated using data smoothing technology. The rules are adjusted to extract the characteristics of the Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus. Preprocess the key feature source documents of each Chinese and Russian traditional culture external publicity translation text corpus, determine the source documents and their corresponding key features of the traditional culture external publicity translation text corpus, and use TF-IDF and IDF to calculate the key feature sources of the corpus. Based on the rarity of document data, the BERT model is introduced as an encoder to determine the key features of the Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus, integrating the CNN-BiGRU algorithm to design a consistency verification algorithm for Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus. Set up the convolution layer, weight sharing layer, pooling layer, and BiGRU verification layer to build a CNN-BiGRU model to achieve consistency verification of the Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus. Experimental results show that this method can improve the consistency verification effect of Chinese and Russian traditional cultural external publicity translation text corpus.

In recent years, with the acceleration of globalization and the exchange and integration between different cultures, translation has played an increasingly crucial role as an important cross-cultural communication tool. As an important field, Chinese Western translation involves the mutual transformation and cultural exchange between Chinese and Western languages, and has significant theoretical and practical value. This paper aims to conduct a comparative study of Chinese and Western translation studies, explore the differences and similarities in theoretical viewpoints and methods between the two, in order to deepen the theoretical understanding and practical application of Chinese and Western translation studies. In the historical development of Chinese and Western translation studies, Chinese translation studies has accumulated rich experience and achievements in translation theory and practice with its long history and unique traditions. Western translation studies, with its systematic and theoretical characteristics, have formed various important translation theory schools and methodologies. The exchange and influence of Chinese and Western translation studies have promoted the integration and mutual reference of theories, providing important ideological support for the development of Chinese and Western translation practice.