Abstract

This study investigates the translator styles of Qiao Zhigao and Wu Ningkun through the use of speech-act report verbs (SARVs) in their Chinese translations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Moving beyond qualitative discussion of isolated examples, it adopts a combined corpus-driven and corpus-based approach to examine recurrent linguistic and strategic patterns in the translators’ work. Drawing on a self-compiled English–Chinese parallel corpus, keyword analysis is first employed to identify salient SARVs in each translation. These keywords are then traced in aligned concordance data, and their translational variants are grouped and compared to reveal divergences in lexical patterning. The study further applies Nida’s (1964) techniques of adjustment—addition, subtraction, and alteration—while introducing retention as a complementary analytical category to examine the patterned use of translation techniques underlying these differences. The findings reveal recurrent differences between the two translators at both lexical and strategic levels. Lexically, the two translators display different preferences in the selection and range of SARVs. Strategically, Wu more frequently retains source-text reporting patterns and favors more standardized renderings, whereas Qiao more often employs adaptive techniques that produce more varied and context-sensitive formulations. These findings suggest distinct translational tendencies in the handling of SARVs and indicate that this linguistic feature can serve as a useful, though necessarily limited, window on translator style.

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