Exploring Characteristics of Word Co-occurrence Network in Translated Chinese

Abstract

The translation activity involves both the source language and the target language. Compared to the standard texts in the two language, translated texts show unique language characteristics. In order to explore them from the perspective of integrality and complexity, we introduce complex network method into the study on translated Chinese. Firstly, selected the experimental texts from The ZJU Corpus of Translational Chinese (ZCTC) and its corresponding six sub-corpora, such as Press reportage and Popular lore. And then removed the punctuation and did word segmentation. Secondly, constructed a word co-occurrence network of translated Chinese. After analyzing and counting the parameters, such as their shortest path lengths, degree distributions and clustering coefficients in these networks, we verify that the word co-occurrence network of translated Chinese has small world effect and scale-free property. Finally, by constructing co-occurrence networks of standard Chinese and calculating their network parameters, we compare and verify the differences between translated Chinese and standard Chinese: “simplification” and the more usage of common words. Our work expands the application of complex network in translation studies, and provides a feasible approach for studying translated Chinese based on complex networks.