From Confucius to computational linguistics: quantifying cross-linguistic semantic similarity and semantic fidelity using large language models.
Translating The Analects from classical Chinese into English frequently results in semantic losses that obscure understanding and introduce ambiguities. This study aims to quantify the semantic similarities and differences between various English translations of The Analects and the original text, u...
| Publicado en: | Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 1021 - 1033 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Sep2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=188027902&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 188027902 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 2055768X JEO9 jtl: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities issn: 2055768X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2025 vid: 40 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 188027902 10.1093/llc/fqaf052 ppf: 1021 ppct: 12 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.5MB tig: atl: From Confucius to computational linguistics: quantifying cross-linguistic semantic similarity and semantic fidelity using large language models. aug: au: Yang, Liwei Zhou, Guijun Lin, Lin affil: School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China School of Foreign Languages, Shenyang University of Chemical Technology, Shenyang, 110142, China su: Computational linguistics Language models Equivalence (Linguistics) Confucius, 551 B.C.-479 B.C. Translating & interpreting Confucianism sug: subj: Computational linguistics Language models Equivalence (Linguistics) Confucius, 551 B.C.-479 B.C. Translating & interpreting Confucianism keyword: cross-language analysis English translations large language models semantic fidelity semantic similarity The Analects ab: Translating The Analects from classical Chinese into English frequently results in semantic losses that obscure understanding and introduce ambiguities. This study aims to quantify the semantic similarities and differences between various English translations of The Analects and the original text, uncover the root causes of these discrepancies, and quantitatively assess the translations' semantic fidelity. The study constructed a parallel corpus, incorporating translations by D.C. Lau, James Legge, William Jennings, Edward Slingerland, and Burton Watson, along with the original text. By leveraging large language models from Baidu AI, Zhipu AI, and OpenAI, the study established a framework for cross-linguistic semantic similarity. The findings reveal that the semantic alignment between the translations and the original text predominantly ranges from 60 per cent to 80 per cent. Instances of high similarity demonstrate that, despite linguistic variations, the core messages and logical structures of the original can be effectively conveyed in English. This ensures an accurate representation of meanings and maintains structural integrity. Conversely, instances of low similarity highlight the translators' challenges in maintaining semantic fidelity to the source text while ensuring readability. Finally, this study assigns semantic fidelity scores to the five translations of The Analects and offers a reference for the quantification of semantic fidelity in translation evaluation. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 EADH: The European Association for Digital Humanities. item: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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