查尔斯·穆勒儒学英译风格研究——基于多维度语言特征的相似度分析

A Study of Charles Muller’s English Translation Style of Confucian Classics—A Multi-Dimensional Similarity Analysis Based on Linguistic Features

摘要: 查尔斯·穆勒是当代儒学与佛教经典英译领域的重要学者，其“四书”译本在英语学术界影响广泛。目前，学界对其译本研究多聚焦于哲学概念的转译，缺乏对整体语言风格的量化考察。随着数字人文的发展，计算语言学为翻译风格研究提供了新路径。本研究以其《论语》《中庸》《大学》《孟子》四部译本为对象，采用描述性统计与相似度计算方法对多维语言特征进行比较分析。结果表明，《论语》《中庸》《孟子》三者语言风格高度相似，而《大学》则在多项指标上呈现显著差异，与其他译本相似度偏低。本研究从计算语言学视角验证了穆勒译本内部的风格结构，为儒学经典英译研究提供了数据支持与方法参考。

Abstract: Charles Muller stands as a prominent figure in the field of English translation for contemporary Confucian and Buddhist classics. His translations of the “Four Books” have exerted substantial influence within the English-speaking academic community. Existing studies on his translations have predominantly focused on the rendering of philosophical concepts, while quantitative investigations into his overall linguistic style remain limited. With the development of digital humanities, computational linguistics has provided new methodological pathways for translation style research. This study takes Charles Muller’s English translations of “The Analects”, “The Doctrine of the Mean”, “The Great Learning”, and “Mencius” as its corpus, and employs descriptive statistics and similarity-calculation methods to conduct a comparative analysis of multiple linguistic features. The results show that “The Analects”, “The Doctrine of the Mean”, and “Mencius” exhibit highly similar stylistic patterns, whereas “The Great Learning” displays significant divergences across several indicators and demonstrates lower similarity with the other texts. From a computational-linguistic perspective, this study reveals the internal stylistic structure of Muller’s translations and provides data-driven evidence and methodological reference for future research on the English translation of Confucian classics.