A Corpus-based Study Of Translator’s Style

This study is based on a self-built corpus of three translations of "Повестипокойного Ивана Петровича Белкина",and mainly adopts the corpus method to study the translator’s style characteristics of the three translators(Feng Chun,Ligang and Xiao Shan).The paper is divided into two aspects: linguistic and non-linguistic.Among them,the linguistic aspect include lexical level,sentence level and discourse level;the nonlinguistic features include paratextual level and translation strategies.This paper is divided into four chapters,of which: Chapter 1 is the introduction,which introduces the purpose and significance of the study,the research object,the research overview,the research tools and methods,and the main research contents.Chapter 2 introduces the process of corpus creation and the use of corpus tools.Chapter 3 is the focus of this paper,which quantitatively analyzes various translator style indicators of the three translations at the lexical,sentence,and discourse levels,among which the lexical level research indicators include standardized type/token ratio,lexical density,Chinese characteristic words,and the r-coloured words.The indicators of sentence-level research include average segment length,sentence translation correspondence ratio,sentence fragmentation,and special Chinese sentence patterns;the indicators of discourse level research include degree of formal conformity and referential cohesive devices.After quantitative analysis,it is found that multiple indicators at the language feature level can jointly support the same conclusion:translations of Feng and Li show similar translator style,i.e.,they tend to use domestication strategy and are closer to the native Chinese style overall,while Xiao’s translations show different translator style,i.e.,they tend to use foreignization strategy and are closer to the source language style overall.Chapter 4 examines the translator style characteristics of the three translators at the level of two non-linguistic features,namely,paratextuality and translation strategies.Among them,the paratextual level includes the study of preface,annotation,and inscription;the study at the translation strategy level is mainly conducted from the perspective of culturally loaded words.The final conclusion of this chapter is consistent with the findings of the quantitative study,which found that Feng and Li show similar translator styles,with more obvious domestication strategies and more inclined to the style of the native Chinese,while Xiao’s translator style is closer to the source language style.Finally,Chapter 5 contains the concluding remarks,including "Conclusion" and "Problems and Prospects".The "Conclusion" section shows the translator style characteristics of the three translators in terms of linguistic and non-linguistic features;the "Problems and Prospects" section reflects on and looks forward to this study in terms of research materials,research methods,and analysis dimensions.In the "Problems and Prospects" section,we conclude that there is a need to build a larger corpus,expand the quantitative indexes of translator style,and discover new dimensions of translator style research by drawing on theories and methods from other related disciplines.