Gender, Era, and Style: A Corpus-Based Comparison of Lexical Diversity and Syntactic Complexity in Four English Translations of Rickshaw Boy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70088/31bj7014Keywords:
translation studies, corpus linguistics, gender, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, translator styleAbstract
This study investigates the interplay of translator gender, historical era, and translational style through a systematic corpus-based comparison of four English translations of Lao She's seminal novel Rickshaw Boy (also known as Camel Xiangzi). A self-constructed diachronic parallel corpus was compiled encompassing translations produced by two male translators, Evan King and Howard Goldblatt, and two female translators, Jean M. James and Shi Xiaojing, spanning distinct historical periods. The analytical framework employed Coh-Metrix 3.0 for comprehensive metric extraction, supplemented by independent samples t-tests conducted via SPSS to assess statistical significance. The investigation yielded three principal findings. First, with respect to lexical diversity, female translators demonstrated significantly higher scores on global discourse-level metrics, specifically MTLD and vocD, compared to their male counterparts (p < 0.01), indicating consistently greater lexical richness across different eras. Second, regarding syntactic complexity, the influence of translator gender exhibited notable era heterogeneity: statistically significant differences in local complexity and global diversity were identified between the early-period translators King and James, whereas no such differences emerged between the contemporary translators Goldblatt and Shi, thereby reflecting the modulating role of evolving translational norms on syntactic choices. Third, qualitative analysis revealed that female translators exhibit higher semantic granularity and a more pronounced preference for lexical variation, particularly in psychological and emotional descriptions. Adopting a diachronic approach, this study provides cross-era empirical evidence for translation style research from a gender perspective and illuminates the complex interaction among gender, era, and translation norms.References
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