Unravelling the stylistic nuances: a comparative multidimensional analysis of amateur and professional translations of Legends of the Condor Heroes

Amateur translation, fueled by technological advancements and online resources, has significantly impacted the global reach of literature, particularly Chinese martial arts fiction (wuxia). Platforms like wuxiaworld.com showcase the genre's massive online audience. While amateur translations (AT) have expanded access to wuxia novels, this growth contrasts with limited research directly comparing stylistic differences between AT and professional translations (PT). This study addresses this gap by focusing on Jin Yong's *Legends of the Condor Heroes* (*LCH*), a renowned wuxia novel translated multiple times by both amateur and professional translators. The study aims to explore the linguistic and stylistic differences between these versions, seeking insights into the cultural and political implications of different translation approaches. The research question focuses on identifying the stylistic differences between AT and PT of *LCH*, specifically in fictional speech and narration, and exploring the contributing factors to these differences. The existence of both amateur and professional translations of widely read works such as *LCH* presents a unique opportunity to study the impact of different translation processes and to reassess traditional understandings of translation and the role of the amateur translator in shaping the reception and understanding of translated literary works in target cultures.

Prior research on Jin Yong's translations predominantly analyzed published professional versions, exploring translatability, cultural transformations, and translation strategies. Studies highlighted challenges in rendering martial arts techniques and combat scenes (Wong, 1997), the dichotomy of domestication and foreignization (Lai, 1997), and the translation of martial arts terminology and character titles (Zhao, 2009; Mok, 2002). Recent scholarship shifted towards examining translator subjectivity and cultural mediation (Xu and Zhang, 2020; Zhang, 2020). Corpus-based studies examined normalization tendencies in translations (Wu and Li, 2021, 2022) and omissions of cultural information (Chen and Dai, 2021). However, a significant gap remains in research directly comparing amateur and professional translations of Jin Yong's works, especially considering the substantial online readership of amateur translations. This study aims to fill this gap by providing a comparative analysis of stylistic variations.

This study utilizes a corpus-based approach, comparing amateur and professional translations of *LCH*. The corpus comprises four sub-corpora: fictional speech and narration from both the amateur and professional translations. Each sub-corpus contains 40 chapters of *LCH*. A Python program extracted dialogues based on punctuation, and narration corpora were manually reviewed to remove reporting clauses. Biber's multidimensional analysis (MDA) framework, examining 67 linguistic features across six dimensions, was employed to analyze the four sub-corpora. All six dimensions were applied to ensure a comprehensive comparison. The Multidimensional Analysis Tagger (MAT) facilitated the extraction of necessary statistics. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare the two translations across each dimension due to the non-normal distribution of dimension and feature scores. The research questions focused on identifying dimensions of divergence between the AT and PT, specifying the linguistic features contributing to the differences, and exploring the contributing factors to the observed stylistic differences.

The Mann-Whitney U-test revealed statistically significant differences between the amateur and professional translations across several dimensions in both fictional speech and narration. In fictional speech, significant differences were found in Dimensions 1 (Involved vs. Informational production), 2 (Narrative vs. Non-narrative concerns), 5 (Abstract vs. Non-abstract information), and 6 (On-line informational elaboration). Professional translations exhibited higher scores in involvement and affectivity, more narrative content, greater concreteness, and less evidence of being produced under time constraints. Specific features contributing to these differences included the use of personal pronouns, conjunctions, and 'that' clauses. In fictional narration, significant differences were also found in Dimensions 1, 2, 5, and 6. Professional translations demonstrated higher informational density, more pronounced narrative features, less abstract information, and less online elaboration. Features such as 'that' deletion, tense usage, and adverbial subordinators contributed to these differences. The comparison with other text types analyzed by Biber (1988) further highlighted the stylistic divergence between the amateur and professional translations. Amateur translations showed less distinctive variation between speech and narration registers, with lower involvement in speech and reduced informational density in narration, suggesting lower overall translation quality.

The findings indicate that professional translators more effectively preserve the stylistic nuances of both fictional speech and narration, creating translations that better align with target language norms. This disparity can be attributed to several factors: differences in the translation processes (team size, native language translation), the distinct identities and experiences of amateur and professional translators (training, goals, and target audience), and the presence of rigorous editing and quality control in professional translations. Amateur translators, often working collaboratively and in a non-native language, might prioritize conveying core concepts to a niche audience. Professional translators, however, aim for a more stylistically faithful and holistic translation, targeting a wider readership. The observed differences in stylistic choices suggest that readers of amateur translations might miss the subtleties of character interactions, emotional depth, and narrative dynamics present in the original text and in the professional translations.

This study reveals significant stylistic differences between amateur and professional translations of *LCH*, impacting reader engagement and comprehension. Professional translations better capture the register variations in speech and narration, highlighting the importance of training and editing processes. Future research could expand the scope to include diverse texts and methodological approaches (activity/descriptivity measures, dependency distance, entropy-based analysis), incorporating qualitative data (interviews with translators) for a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing translation styles.

This study focuses on a single source text, potentially limiting the generalizability of findings. The analysis primarily utilizes MDA, and exploring other linguistic or stylistic elements could provide further insights. Future work should expand the corpus to encompass a wider range of texts and translation types to improve generalizability and validity of the conclusions.