A Corpus study of early English translations of Cao Xueqin’s Hongloumeng
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Meng Ji
Abstract
This paper investigates the stylistic profiles of the early English translations of Cao Xueqin’s masterwork Hongloumeng (The Story of the Stone or Dream of the Red Chamber 1791), by Bowra (1868–70), Joly (1892–3), and Giles (1885). Through a detailed comparison of early English translations of the Chinese novel, this paper demonstrates how a set of bivariate statistics, commonly used for the comparison of corpora, can be applied in translation studies. Our corpus study uncovered a number of textual phenomena that have been rarely discussed before. We found that while the use of functional expressions such as conjunctions and genitives is significantly higher in Bowra’s earlier translation than in Joly’s later version, the use of determiners is more frequent in Joly’s translation when compared to his predecessor’s work. A closer look at such contrastive textual patterns led to the identification of an important feature of Joly’s later translation, i.e. an enhanced use of English idiomatic expressions and phrases in his attempt at developing an idiosyncratic style of his own.
Abstract
This paper investigates the stylistic profiles of the early English translations of Cao Xueqin’s masterwork Hongloumeng (The Story of the Stone or Dream of the Red Chamber 1791), by Bowra (1868–70), Joly (1892–3), and Giles (1885). Through a detailed comparison of early English translations of the Chinese novel, this paper demonstrates how a set of bivariate statistics, commonly used for the comparison of corpora, can be applied in translation studies. Our corpus study uncovered a number of textual phenomena that have been rarely discussed before. We found that while the use of functional expressions such as conjunctions and genitives is significantly higher in Bowra’s earlier translation than in Joly’s later version, the use of determiners is more frequent in Joly’s translation when compared to his predecessor’s work. A closer look at such contrastive textual patterns led to the identification of an important feature of Joly’s later translation, i.e. an enhanced use of English idiomatic expressions and phrases in his attempt at developing an idiosyncratic style of his own.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
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Part I. Theoretical exploration
- Explicit and tacit 3
- Regression analysis in translation studies 35
- Hypothesis testing in corpus-based literary translation studies 53
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Part II. Essential corpus statistics
- Compiling a Norwegian-Spanish parallel corpus 75
- Describing a translational corpus 115
- Clustering a translational corpus 149
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Part III. Quantitative exploration of literary translation
- A Corpus study of early English translations of Cao Xueqin’s Hongloumeng 177
- Determining translation invariant characteristics of James Joyce’s Dubliners 209
- The great mystery of the (almost) invisible translator 231
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Part IV. Quantitative exploration of translation lexis
- Translation and scientific terminology 251
- The games translators play 275
- Multivariate analyses of affix productivity in translated English 301
- Lexical lectometry in corpus-based translation studies 325
- Appendices 347
- Index 357
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
-
Part I. Theoretical exploration
- Explicit and tacit 3
- Regression analysis in translation studies 35
- Hypothesis testing in corpus-based literary translation studies 53
-
Part II. Essential corpus statistics
- Compiling a Norwegian-Spanish parallel corpus 75
- Describing a translational corpus 115
- Clustering a translational corpus 149
-
Part III. Quantitative exploration of literary translation
- A Corpus study of early English translations of Cao Xueqin’s Hongloumeng 177
- Determining translation invariant characteristics of James Joyce’s Dubliners 209
- The great mystery of the (almost) invisible translator 231
-
Part IV. Quantitative exploration of translation lexis
- Translation and scientific terminology 251
- The games translators play 275
- Multivariate analyses of affix productivity in translated English 301
- Lexical lectometry in corpus-based translation studies 325
- Appendices 347
- Index 357
