A Translation Research for an Excerpt of “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” Based on Bilingual Parallel Corpus

1.Introduction

As a interdisciplinary field， corpus translation studies is still probing in its development. Professor Hu Kaibao explained the implications and formula to research in this field. Professor Wang Kefei summarized the fruits of researches abroad.Li Zequan and others utilized the theory into the research of translators styles. Few research has been carried in literature translation， especially in Chinese martial arts fiction.

In this paper， research will focus on one excerpt from Jin Yongs “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” （《射雕英雄传》）and its latest published English translation version by Anna Holmwood，“A Hero Born： Volume I of The Condor Heroes”published by MacLehose Press in 2018， which has been a hit in western countries and a controversial version in domestic translation critical field. A bilingual parallel corpus was established， based on the excerpt depicting the Six Freaks（Jiang Nan Liu Guai） combating with Mei Chaofeng.

Ⅱ.The Analysis on Text Formation

1.Type/Token Ratio and Mean Length.ΙAs is seen in this chart， the tokens of this text is 2，039， and the types is 702. The type/token ratio （TTR） is 34.43. The standardized TTR is 42.95 （1000）， which means the words used by the translator is moderately rich. The mean word length is 4.16， which means the level of the word is clarity and not obscure. Most words are no longer than 4 letters. These features are all friendly for the promotion of the translation version.

2.Vocabulary Difficulty Level.

Processed by Antwordprofiler， the difficulty level of the English translation version is clearly presented. Over half of the types fall into the first level， and nearly 75% of types and 83% of tokens fall into the first and second level. These figures shows the version is suitable for common people to read. This means the readability of this version is excellent.

Ⅲ.The S-T Text Comparison Based on Bilingual Parallel Corpus

1. The Translation of “Chivalrous” Words（1） “Zhijian”（只見）.The frequency of “Zhijian”（只见） in this excerpt is 10 times， occupying 0.43%， a figure quite high compared with other special words. Search it in Paraconc. We can see the word is always omitted when translating into Chinese.（2） “Diren”（敌人）.“Diren”（敌人） is a theme word in a combat. In this excerpt， there is no “enemy”. Instead， the word is replaced by “Mei”， “her” or omitted. Apparently， in the combat， the author mainly narrate in the chivalrous persons point of view， regarding Mei as the “enemy”， an explicit way of translation. This process is involved with manifestation， narrowing the meanings of the non-mandatory syntactic components to manifest its connotation accurately.

2. The Analysis of the Image of the Main Character. The colligations of “Mei” are mostly verbs， which represents that Mei Chaofeng was in full mobility in this excerpt. The verbs are those with compulsory meanings and violent power， like “thrust”， “rip”， etc. The verbs are also characterized by martial arts actions， like “kick”， “leap”and so on. These verbs illustrate a image that Mei is a violent and powerful killer obsessed with homicide.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

From this research， we can reach to the following conclusion：1.The vocabulary levels of a translation version should be in basic difficulty.2.Certain translation skills like transfer of part of speech， the manifestation of word meanings should be flexibly applied.3.The style of translation can be achieved in using various words.4.The shape of the characters can be completed by using different words of various styles， decided mostly by the collocations. Proper use of figure of speech can polish the translation.

參考文献：

[1]胡开宝.语料库翻译学：内涵与意义[J].外国语（上海外国语大学学报），2012，35（05）：59-70.

【作者简介】周经华（1997-），女，汉族，山西临汾人，东北林业大学，本科，研究方向：外国语言文学。

【基金项目】东北林业大学大学生省级创新训练计划项目资助 201910225323 。