China’s translation bureau explains how to walk linguistic tightrope
Finding balance between accessibility and accuracy can be a challenge, staff at government department say
Chinese political ideas can be difficult for outsiders to fully grasp, and when rendered in languages that are not Putonghua, the terms and phrases can be clunky and obtuse.
But a government department has shed light on how it comes up with translations that try to strike a balance between accessibility and accuracy.
Terms with rich cultural background and phrases that relate to mainland China’s wider political thought present the biggest challenge, key translators at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau said in an interview with the Beijing Youth Daily published on Monday.
The bureau last week issued official versions of 30 key terms, taken from national meetings in March, in seven languages – English, Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Arabic.
Take the “Four Comprehensives“, a political theory put forward by President Xi Jinping. The bureau has translated it as the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy" to emphasise the ideas’ systematic, holistic and synergistic qualities – something that Xi had repeatedly stressed, the Daily reported.
The theory refers to “making comprehensive moves to finish building a moderately prosperous society, deepen reform, advance the law-based governance of China and strengthen [Communist] Party self-discipline”, the bureau said in its official version.