Three Faces of Heroism: An Empirical Study of Indirect Literary Translation Between Chinese-English-Portuguese of Wuxia Fiction

Abstract

Abstract This paper conducts an empirical study using digital humanities to explore the indirect translation of Chinese contemporary literature, focusing on a Portuguese version of Jin Yong’s A Hero Born: The Legend of the Condor Heroes derived from its English translation. Employing BERTopic modeling, it quantifies thematic changes related to heroism in the translation process from Chinese through English to Portuguese. This study examines how Chinese concepts of heroism are adapted or rewritten in translation, exploring the notion of intermediate translations as “secondhand” and “distorted” from digital humanities perspective. By applying the zero-shot BERTopic model, the research allows for a quantitative comparative analysis of topic distribution across the original, intermediate, and final translation texts. The findings aim to enrich translation studies by demonstrating how Chinese cultural concepts are transformed and circulated through indirect translation, providing a data-driven insight into the global dissemination and reception of Wuxia literature.