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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 65:1 (2019) ► pp.96–113

An exploratory study of Chinese words and phrases

A survey based on corpus to observe Chinese-English translation methods and international usage variability

| Huazhong University of Science and Technology
| Huazhong University of Science and Technology

This research was carried out with two main purposes: to survey the methods necessary to translate Chinese words and phrases into English, and to investigate how frequently their English versions appear in twenty different countries or regions. The research was conducted through an analysis of data from Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China (English version), published by Foreign Languages Press. The results show that 401 Chinese words and phrases reflect seven specific translation methods. Moreover, their frequency of usage shows obvious differences across twenty different countries or regions based on the statistical analysis of the corpora. It is hoped that the Chinese-English (C-E) translation of political texts can benefit from these conclusions.

Keywords: Chinese words and phrases, political text, corpus, Chinese-English (C-E) translation, translation method, usage frequency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research background and questions
    • 2.1Research background
    • 2.2Research questions
  • 3.Research design
    • 3.1Data source
    • 3.2The corpora
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1C-E translation
      • 4.1.1Literal translation
      • 4.1.2Literal translation plus annotation
      • 4.1.3Free translation
      • 4.1.4Condensed translation
      • 4.1.5Transliteration, transliteration plus annotation, transliteration plus literal translation
    • 4.2International usage
  • 5.Conclusion and implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00080.lia
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