Tu An’s Chinese Translation of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry: Big-Data Analysis from Technological Perspective

Abstract

Using program written in python language to conduct a statistical and comparative analysis of
poetic form and vocabulary use of Emily Dickinson's original poems and its Chinese translation in poetry
collection, I Know He Exists, translated by Tu An to reveal features of the translation, it is found that poetic
form in the translation does not fully follow the original, of which deviation in the number of verse lines and
stanzas from original text is small, yet there are obvious deviations in dashes and commas. The translation is
generally faithful to the original in terms of vocabulary. The original and the translation are similar in lexical
richness, and share similar emphases on certain nouns, verbs, pronouns and adverbs. Compared with the
original, the translation is more concise, concrete, emotional and vivid in expression to some extent. Nouns
perform more prominently in the original while verbs play more significantly in the translation