Corpus-Based Translating Style Research of Three Translation Versions in Lun Yu

Abstract

Lun Yu is one of famous classic works in China even in the world and it has been translated by different languages in order to be conveniently and clearly read by different people all over the world. On the basis of its English translation versions, three famous translators are broadly accepted by readers who are Gu Hongming, James Legge and Arthur Wayley. This paper applies Antconc3.4.1w and SPSS software to compare and study characteristics of these three translators’ from perspectives of vocabulary, sentence and context by means of corpus study. Based on above data, Gu Hongming’s translating words are larger and more abundant in variety so his translating version is more closely related to the source text but translating versions of James Legge and Arthur Wayley are more colloquial and simple to readers so the readers are more acceptable to these two translators.