“Before examining the splinter in my eye, try removing the rafter from your own”. Matthew 7:5
As conduit to Jesus’ words, the great apostle, Matthew (although yes, he probably didn’t write the words himself), had a point. But before we can even get that far, we better all talk the same language. And we also better know the difference between a splinter and a rafter.
Or the results, as can be seen in relations between China and much of the rest of the world, can be dire.
But making translations of each others’ worlds as accurate as they can possibly be is a problem as old as the Bible itself.
The popular, King James Version of The Good Book presents the verse as, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”.
Elsewhere, the New International Version prefers, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
The meaning of all these quotes is identical. But there is unquestionably a big difference between sawdust and a splinter.
Translation vs. Perspective. Machines provide us with the former; cultural insights the latter.
Stop to analyse for a second, just how much of our daily communication relies on cultural expressions and linguistic idioms.
Take “The cat is out of the bag” as an example. Baidu translation presents this as “The cat is out of line” (这只猫出格了), when the exact meaning is “The secret is out”. Others interpret it as “The cat came out”, as in, “revealed its sexual orientation” (这只猫出柜了).
See the problem?
And it gets worse when we look at inter-government relations. For there can be little doubt that long-term inaccurate translation will cause all kinds of misunderstandings, affect people’s perspectives and eventually, interfere with high-level decision-making.
That was the takeaway from a recent article entitled “Translation Dilemma”, discussing China-US mutual strategic cognition and published in World Knowledge (世界知识) Magazine. The article pointed out that in many cases, fallacies generated in the process of translation and the inequality between Chinese and English in the field of public opinion will lead to the intensification of mutual doubt.
But Americans too are aware of the problem. Two experts from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year that China has a large number of English-speakers who translate foreign documents, non stop, in order to obtain first-hand information. By way of contrast, the United States has very few Chinese doing the same.
The Wall Street Journal also sat up and took notice. The publication’s opinion division last June Tweeted, “The U.S. government and private sector have failed to invest in the language skills and expertise to compete effectively with the Chinese Communist Party”.
But few chose to listen. Immediately following the recent centenary of the Chinese Communist Party, media the world over picked up on a portion of Premier Xi Jinping’s speech.
“Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people”, the BBC reported Xi as saying on 1 July.
In its official English translation of Xi’s speech, Xinhua chose the phrasing, “Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people”.
As in, “Up against an immovable object”. Nothing to do with heads getting bloodied. Except for those who run at full tilt into said wall. Which would be a bit silly.
Other major western media went on in much the same vain as the BBC. Bar the South China Morning Post, not one chose to use the Xinhua translation. But logic would dictate, that being the official version, this would be the way China wishes the world to interpret Xi’s words. That’s China perspective.
Why the big difference? Because Chinese is a colourful language which doesn’t have enough words. Compared to over a million words to choose from in English, China needs make do with around 10,000.
Few words. Many meanings.
The Chinese use such colourful, exaggerated language at almost every turn. English invents new words all the time or might resort to satire, irony or sarcasm to get its point across. By necessity, the Chinese use metaphor or powerful descriptions.
Consider the humble cigarette lighter. In Chinese that would be “打火机”, literally “strike fire machine”. But the character “打” has many meanings; strike, hit, beat, fight, attack.
Whoah, hold on there. Like, it’s just a lighter. And other than burning a few thumbs, hasn’t had a fight with anyone.
