Abstract
This research investigates the reception of English and French translations of Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels through sentiment analysis --- a text mining technique which helps uncover readers’ opinions of these translated literary works from their online reviews. The findings show that almost all of the published English/French versions of Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels are well received by readers in both languages in terms of fictional details like “character”, “plot” and “narratives”, despite there are some minor complains. These findings lead us to reflect on the current literary position of Wuxia translations in the English and French-speaking countries, where translated Wuxia works positioning as “Chinese literary classics” may partly help facilitate further reception of this type of traditional Chinese literature in the West.
Highlights
1 With rich cultural characteristics, unique authorial styles and narratives, Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels have attracted a large number of interested readers in the Greater China
This research investigates the reception of English and French translations of Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels through sentiment analysis --- a text mining technique which helps uncover readers’ opinions of these translated literary works from their online reviews
This study shows that readers of Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels in English and French are largely satisfied with the translations in terms of such fictional details like characters, plots and narratives, despite there are some minor dissatisfactions with some of these fictional features
Summary
1 With rich cultural characteristics, unique authorial styles and narratives, Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels have attracted a large number of interested readers in the Greater China. Wuxia, one of the representatives of Chinese culture, has gone international and spread widely to English/French-speaking countries through translation. The two French translations of Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels include La Légende du héros chasseur d “aigles translated by Jiann-yuh Wang in 2004 and Le Justicier et l”aigle mythique translated by Weidong Xie in 2013. These English and French translations, widely acclaimed since their debut, have provided us with insights into how to disseminate Chinese literature in the Western world better. When it comes to reception of translated Chinese literature, readers’ reviews can be regarded as a proper indicator, because book reviews made by readers on some book promotion websites or professional forums can illustrate the popularity and even survival of a (translated) literary work
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