A Study of the Western Readers’ Acceptance of the English Translation of The Legends of the Condor Heroes: An Approach of Sentiment Analysis Technology

Sentiment analysis is a natural language processing technology used to identify the readers’ emotional attitudes or opinions on various texts. Its application makes it accessible to acquire the comments of overseas readers on a large scale and quantify those directly. This research employs a mixed-methods approach to examine Western readers’ reception of the English translation of The Legends of the Condor Heroes. Specifically, we conducted computational sentiment analysis on reader reviews from Amazon and Goodreads to quantify their emotional attitudes, supplemented by qualitative analysis of representative comments. The results show that this translation has an overall acceptance among Western readers. Positive reviews predominantly highlight three compelling elements: captivating portrayal of Eastern fantasy martial arts, immersive narratives integrating ancient Chinese historical contexts, and enlightening growth trajectory of the protagonist. Conversely, critical feedback focuses on four primary areas: inconsistent and overly literal naming conventions, underdeveloped secondary characters, prolonged combat sequences, and hyperbolic marketing claims that create dissonance between reader expectations and textual reality. These identified issues demonstrate significant correlations with diminished reading engagement.