1　Introduction

This section reviews the divergences in core concepts and research approaches in translator style studies, points out the limitations of existing research that overemphasizes formal features while neglecting functional dimensions, and then introduces the theoretical contribution of Wu Kan and Li Defeng's 2025 monograph—proposing the concept of "functional translator style," defining translator style as the linguistic specificity in translators' reconstruction of literary and textual functions in the target text, and integrating corpus stylistics with stylometric attribution approaches in methodology, comprehensively employing keywords, lexical chains, semantic fields, and multidimensional statistics to provide a function-oriented empirical analytical framework for literary translation studies.

2　Overview of Contents

This section introduces the overall structure and core content of the book's 12 chapters. The first half (Chapters 1–4) focuses on theoretical construction, exploring the theoretical genealogy of translator style studies, the development of corpus-assisted research, and proposing for the first time the concept of "functional translator style," defining it as the linguistic specificity manifested when translators reconstruct or construct functions in the target text. It classifies this concept along two dimensions—scope (holistic/local) and type (literary function/textual function)—refining three representative functional styles: thematic style, character image reshaping style, and textual panorama style, while establishing two analytical paths: corpus stylistics and stylometric attribution. The second half (Chapters 5–12) conducts empirical research using Lao She's novel *Er Ma* and its four English translations as a case study: Chapters 5–6 present the research background and methodological design, propose five interlinked research questions, and complete the transition from theory to operational level; Chapter 7 generates and categorizes keywords, establishing the starting point for entering literary function analysis from linguistic forms; Chapters 8–10 respectively examine three dimensions—theme reconstruction, character image reshaping, and textual panorama construction—revealing translators' specific performances at literary and textual function levels through collocation analysis, semantic field comparison, principal component analysis, and multidimensional analysis; Chapter 11 explains style causes from both translator factors and extra-translator factors, advancing statistical differences into explainable phenomena; Chapter 12 summarizes findings, indicating that translator style is multidimensional and hierarchical, and that the corpus stylistics path can accommodate both form and function, suitable for multi-angle investigation.

3　Brief Evaluation

This section evaluates the academic contribution of *Functional Translator Style: A Corpus-Assisted Approach* from three dimensions. At the theoretical level, the book responds to long-standing core controversies in translator style studies—whether style should be understood as quantifiable linguistic "fingerprints" or grasped within textual function and meaning construction—by introducing the concept of "functional translator style," advancing the research focus from formal statistics to language choices related to literary function generation, proposing three types (thematic style, character image reshaping style, and textual panorama style), and establishing closer connections between "linguistic description" and "literary interpretation." At the literary meaning level, the book shifts the research focus from linguistic feature identification to meaning interpretation, explaining how local linguistic choices accumulate into holistic textual effects through textual progression, and revealing how translation participates in the reconstruction of literary meaning through observable linguistic choices. At the methodological level, the book integrates corpus stylistics with stylometric methods, associating features such as keywords and semantic fields with literary functions, and depicting overall textual stylistic profiles through multidimensional statistics, providing a demonstration of "multi-method triangulation" while suggesting possibilities for further expansion at textual and narrative levels.