Sketching the English translations of Kumārajīva’s the diamond sutra : a comparison of individual translators and translation teams

Abstract

This is a corpus-based study of four English translations of Kumarajiva’s The Diamond Sutra (401/2002). We sketched the four translated English sutras made by both individual translators and translation teams in terms of the profile of their word and sentence use and readability, using a range of corpus tools. Our results reveal that there are major differences between the individual translators and the translation teams in terms of word repertoire, sentence length and readability. The translation teams produced the English Buddhist texts as easy to read and strict with key concept terms to facilitate their missionary work. The individual translators’ renditions tend to differ remarkably based on the translators’ identities. Our study would shed light on the future research on language studies of English Buddhist texts and the dissemination of Buddhism from East to West through translation.