On the Translation of “Bu Zheteng”

　　Abstract: This paper mainly deals with the translation of “Bu Zheteng” raised by President Hu Jintao on the 30th Anniversary Ceremony of the China’s Reform and Opening Up. This (,which) has aroused heated discussion concerning its translation and up to now, there is no fixed version (has been reached so far). After introducing the necessary background information of this phrase, this paper mainly compares different popular versions of the translation and proposes the most ideal one on the basis of the translation theories I have learned in this class as well as the feedbacks from the foreign interviewees. (This paper mainly compares different popular versions of the translation and proposes the best version on the basis of the translation theories as well as the feedbacks from the foreign interviewees, who also share insights in to the translation of this phrase.)

　　Key Words: “Bu Zheteng”; Translation Theory; Translation Practice; Translation Criticism

　　On the 30th Anniversary Ceremony of the China’s Reform and Opening Up, the Chinese President Hu Jintao employed a traditional Chinese idiom “Bu Zheteng” to address the Party’s firm determination on China’s New-Era Development. This idiom has won much clap for the underlined message appropriately conveyed and for the amiable amenity brought about. But it also aroused heated discussion on how to translate this phrase into English and to what extent it can be translated concerning the unique Chinese history, culture and underlined message. And up to now, there is no completely fixed authoritative translation of this phrase.

　　I choose the The selection of the topic of the translation of “Bu Zheteng”, is because on the one hand, I am pretty interested in translation, especially the translation of the political articles and speeches is of critical importance in nowadays China. On the other hand, since there is no fixed translation up to now, it is hoped that through my analysis and research I can find a best-possible translation version can be spotted.

　　The thesis has been divided into 4 major parts: Part1: A brief look at the meanings of “Bu Zheteng”; Part 2: the intention of “Bu Zheteng” and the effect it produced; Part 3 Translation Theories and Strategies applied to translate “Bu Zheteng”; and Part 4: Translation practice and translation criticism. Part 1 and 2 provide the essential background information and Pave the way for the 3rd and 4th part which are the major components of this thesis. All the parts are inherently connected and with parts paragraphs are closely related.

　　Part 1: A brief look at the meanings of “Bu Zheteng”

　　Before we looking at the meaning of “Bu Zheteng”, let’s see the meaning of “Zheteng” first. “Zheteng” is a typical slang in northern China. The literal meaning of “Zheteng” is “turn from side to side; toss about; do something again and again; cause physical or mental suffering; turn from side to side” these are the literal meanings found in the dictionaries. It is pretty moderate in its tone and sounds not so serious.

　　However, when combined with China's modern history, “Zheteng” contains different meanings. There were periods described as full of “Zhetengs”. That was `from 1950s to 1980s, the notorious events took place at that time which incurred many “Zhetengs”: The Great Leap Forward, the People's Commune Movement and the most damaging “Cultural Revolution”, along with all the subsequent disasters and great destruction to our country. “Zhetengs” therefore, can represent the typical Chinese social movements as well as the calamities caused by country’s movements or turmoil.

　　Part 2: the intention of “Bu Zheteng” and the effect it produced

　　The intention of this phrase is very serious and significant. In this remarkable moment in Chinese history, President Hu aims to conclude the past thirty years of Opening up and Reform, but more importantly, the past thirty years of toil and sufferings, he warns us not to forget the history and be prepared for danger in times of safety. At the threshold of a new beginning, President Hu reminds the CPC to stick to the development plan and not to distract by other minor issues, especially those that affect our development seriously. He alerts that we Chinese should keep the stability and unity of China.

　　The effect it produced is also exceptional. As can be learned from the history, when it comes to the crucial events of such milestone-like ceremonies, it is not unusual for the state leaders to implicitly deliver the message rather than get to the points so directly and plainly, leaving enough room for the public to ponder and to understand the spirit. It is also common for them to address such speeches in a moderate tone and in an easy, popular, idiomatic way which the public is delighted to accept. In addition, such expression is reader-friendly, mildly soften the tone to review the wrong doings we have conducted, and criticize ourselves in faded strength. This serves the aim to narrow the gap between the President and the audience. For the use of this phrase, it has achieved many benign effects, just as the saying “killing many birds with one stone” goes.

　　The same situation happened when Deng Xiaoping put forward the theory of Black and White Cats. Shortly after the implementation of Opening up and Reform policy, many people questioned the rationale and reasons of its enforcement. The state leader at that time, Deng Xiaoping at that time made a humorous and straight comparison of cats’ catching rats. He put it like this: no matter the color of the cats are white or black, they are competent cats if they can catch rats. The implication is that China can develop market economy as long as it can bring development to our country. Deng Xiaoping, who was very resourceful and wise in his selection of words, solved the crux in a softened tone, witty manner and well-accepted language.

　　Part 3: Translation Theories and Strategies applied to translate “Bu Zheteng”

　　3.1 the text type of “Bu Zheteng”

　　In Chapter 4 of Peter Newmark’s A Textbook of Translation, Peter classifies all the texts in to three categories: the expressive, the informative and the vocative.

　　For the vocative texts, the core of the language is the readership, the addressee. This type of text serves as the means of calling upon the readership to act, think or feel and to react in the way intended by the text.

　　“Bu Zheteng” should be categorized into the vocative text since it is an imperative sentence whose core is the readership and the addressee. Meanwhile, it calls on people to behave and to react as advocated in this phrase.

　　3.2 Translation methods can be used

　　As for the appropriate method to translate “Bu Zheteng”, I it is proposed to employ mainly the communicative translation, combined with semantic translation.

　　Briefly speaking, semantic translation takes more account of the aesthetic value and allows for the translator’s intuitive empathy with the original. The semantic translation is written at the author’s linguistic level, and is chiefly used for expressive texts. Communicative translation, on the other hand, attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership. Communicative translation is used for the vocative texts.

　　Since “Bu Zheteng” is a typical vocative text, it is highly recommended to translate this word in communicative translation for the following two reasons:

　　Firstly, the communicative translation is set at the reader’s level of language and knowledge and is more likely to create equivalent effect than is semantic translation at the writer’s level. Secondly, since this phrase contains many implied meanings, social background information as well as the Chinese history knowledge, the “recreative” translation should be taken in to consideration for political publicity and propaganda. Communicative translation can live up to this expectation because it is social, concentrates on the message and the main force of the text and is always written in a natural and resourceful way. And most importantly, it aims to make the exact contextual meaning of the original, allowing for both the meaning and the language delivered to the readers.

　　Although the communicative translation takes the major role in translation, it must be noted that semantic translation, which stands for the faith to the original texts and which required the equivalent meanings translated and conveyed, should also be considered due to the complicated meanings of “Bu Zheteng”.

　　3.3 Translation and Culture

　　Since this phrase is very typical Chinese cultured, so in order to better translate this phrase, we need to take a deep look at the translation of this culture word should be taken. Here are few steps according to Peter Newmark in his book: A Textbook of Translation.

　　Firstly, the ultimate consideration of translating these words should be recognition of the cultural achievements and should respect for all foreign countries and their cultures. The same idea has been echoed by刘宓庆 in his book Introduction of Contemporary Translation Theory. He mentions the “Cultural Obstruction”, which covers the symbols of National Consciousness, the symbols of National Audio-visual features, the symbols of National Society and the symbols of National Location. He regards that culture adds some obstructions to the process of translation because of the symbols needed to be considered in translasion. (Unit 6 P 138-140)

　　These theories can be applied into the translation of this Chinese culture word. According to the theories of Intercultural Communication we have learned, China is a typically high-context culture, which means that people communicate in a way that do not always contain the full meanings and implications in their words, they tend to spare some space between the lines for others to perceive. In Chinese traditions, we this is called “something Can be felt but not explained”. Therefore, the Chinese culture requires the sayings, especially some significant words to implicitly express the meaning depending on different occasions. And this phrase “Bu Zheteng” is especially used to meet this demand. This is a typical Chinese way of expression in our culture.

　　Not only the understanding of Chinese high-context culture is needed to translate “Bu Zheteng”, but also the knowledge of Modern and Contemporary Chinese History is required without which no satisfactory translation would be made. The Great Leap Forward, the People's Commune Movement, the Cultural Revolution as well as all the disasters brought about by these events, they have inscribed in every Chinese’s heart. Therefore, when President Hu summarized all the past experience and put forward his famous “Three Don’ts”, only the Chinese people, who have gone through these catastrophes can fully understand the profound meaning of “Bu Zheteng”.

　　Secondly, to translate such cultural phrases, it would be ideal if the image of the SL can be equally transferred into the TL. A good example is the translation of the Ghost of Communism into Chinese as 幽灵. Thirdly, when we meet the difficulties to conserve the image in translation, we try to find the corresponding image in TL to replace that in the SL. An example would be the translation of “Love me, love my dog”. Finally, if it is impossible to find the corresponding image, then the cultural factors or the image should be sacrificed for the sake of the fully conveyance in message. The aforementioned three are different levels of transiting culture words.

　　3.4 Equivalent effect of Translating “Bu Zheteng”

　　Equivalent effect means to create the same effect (or one as close as possible) on the readership of the translation as was obtained on the readership of the original. However, according to both Peter Newmark and刘宓庆，translating “Bu Zheteng” to English is an unlikely result.

　　To begin with, Peter Newmark says in his A Textbook of Translation that equivalent effect is the desirable result, rather than the aim of the translation. It is an unlikely result if there is a pronounced cultural gap between the SL and TL text. The more cultural (the more local, the more remote in time and space) a text, the less is equivalent effect even conceivable unless the reader is imaginative, sensitive and steeped in the SL culture. In addition, 刘宓庆 holds in his book, Introduction of Contemporary Translation Theory, that the information translated from the SL to the TL can never be accurately quantified, nor can the whole meaning and content being alternated coding keep intact. In addition, apart from the translating procedure, the language in itself faces the problem of fuzziness (Introduction of Contemporary Translation Theory Unit6 P 116): the clear division between some words and some others is hard to make; and the exact meaning and implications of some words are hard to determine. Especially for the political phrases like “Bu Zheteng”, there are bound to exist cultural fuzziness, barriers, as well as uncertainty. It will also incur more or less cultural loss or adding to translate from Chinese to English. In this case, it is much harder or even impossible to achieve the equivalent effect. (Introduction of Contemporary Translation Theory Unit 6 P127)

　　For the phrase: “Bu Zheteng”, it contains the features typical to Chinese people and Chinese history. Only those who have gone through the same events, such as the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, can fully understand the meaning and implications of this phrase. It is very hard for the foreigners who don’t have relevant experiences to perceive the implication and meaning no matter how hard translators have tried. The hidden meaning is very complicated, ambiguous, typical and requires the readers to learn enough background information before understand it. To sum up, translating the phrase “Bu Zheteng” is unlikely to achieve the Equivalent effect. The best translation would convey the message first and make due allowance to the form of the translation.

　　In this part, we have run after running over the text type, the proper translation methods and the cultural factors needed considered concerning the translation of “Bu Zheteng” as well as three levels of culture translation and whether the equivalent effect can be achieved in translating this phrase. In the following part, we will employ the theories discussed in this part will be employed to evaluate the translations of this phrase. At the same time, since our ultimate goal is to translate this phrase into English, we the thesis will focus on how the foreigners evaluate the translations of this phrase.

　　Part 4: Translation practice and translation criticism

　　The objectives of this thesis are to evaluate the translations of “Bu Zheteng” and to propose one ideal version if necessary. Since the reader of the translation would be foreigners, so I conducted a research is conducted on how the foreigners view the existing translations of this phrase.

　　The interviewees are all The Beijing Center (TBC) students who have been exchanged to UIBE to study Chinese for around 1 year. The reasons for choosing this group of students: first, they are all junior or senior students, which are pretty mature in their thought and active in voicing their ideas. Second, they have been in China for around one semester or two which guarantees that they have tasted the Chinese culture and have had basic understanding of Chinese culture as well as Chinese history. Thirdly, they come here to study Chinese, and after learning, they possess the basic Chinese, which grants them some prerequisites to understand “Bu Zheteng” and have the curiosity to understand this phrase and translate it with few unnecessary worries about talking about the Chinese Political Issues.

　　The interview method is face-to-face interview with these TBC students respectively. At the very beginning, I provide them with the background information of this phrase is provided for them: about the proposal of this phrase, its literal meaning in simple Chinese (they can understand) and the heated discussion surrounding the translation of this phrase. Furthermore, I provide them with fundamental historical knowledge of this phrase and the possible reasons why President Hu addressed in this way is also offered. Sufficient in the background information and foreshadowing, they are asked to compare the translations one by one, analyze their translation in the meaning conveyed as well as the format transferred, whether they deliver the same meaning in English.

　　The finished questionnaires and the original edition can be found at the attachment.

　　And the following translations are collected from the Internet, many of which have been proposed by celebrities or famous translators. By summarizing the ideas to these translations from the foreign students, I will focus on how the foreigners evaluate the translations of this phrase. I will employ the theories discussed part three to assess the translations.

　　(1) No more hassle:

　　(2) No trouble making(don’t beat about the bush)

　　(3) Avoid self-inflicted setbacks

　　(4) Much ado about nothing(in the writing of Shakespeare)

　　(5) No making movements

　　(1) No more hassle:

　　Meaning: There are no longer any problems, struggle, sufferings, etc. And stopping dealing with unnecessary problems. Don’t need to be bothered by anything. This translation is not so appropriate for it doesn’t contain the imperative meaning, it is just like the description of the future. The vocative tone is not strong enough.

　　(2) No trouble making (don’t beat about the bush)

　　Actually, when I interviewed the foreign students, they told me that these two phrases cannot be put together, because their meanings are quite different. No trouble making is sort of like No more hassle, but it is over- colloquial, one of the interviewee, Lauren, told me that this idiom is only suitable for some small kids. While for the latter translation, “Don’t beat about the bush”, it means that don’t try to be subtle or polite, just say what you are thinking, no euphemisms. Therefore, for this translation, it is quite misled. I have no idea why the editor from China Daily would select this phrase as her translation.

　　(3) Avoid self-inflicted setbacks

　　This is the version proposed by China's ambassador to Namibia, Ren Xiaoping. This translation in the foreigners’ eyes is quite awkward-sounding. They haven’t heard of such expressions before. The meaning is that don’t be your own problem. But the fatal problem of this translation is that it contains too much Translationese (the trace of translation is too clear), dropping the easy-going effect in Chinese.

　　(4) Much ado about nothing(in the writing of Shakespeare)

　　This is a phrase from Shakespeare, the TBC students they say that this phrase is too extensive in meaning and to leave aside something not so important and it can be used when somebody is exceedingly happy with something unimportant. However, it cannot reflect the implied meaning of this phrase.

　　(5) No making movements

　　This is the worst translation, most of the foreigners marked a huge question mark here, and it is too Chinglish.

　　Eventually, one of my dear friends, Matt Florian, who has been in China for 3 years, is very interested in the translation of this phrase. He even conducted some research on the Internet. He searched an American Website which puts the translation as “Don’t get side-tracked”. This translation can be deemed as the sixth version. However, he explained to me that this phrase means “Don’t get distracted by something less important.” This phrase is pretty straightforward in its meaning and plain sounding, without very serious tone in it. In my opinion, it It can be put into some other political propaganda which is less significant or which circumstance is not so summative or marked as a milestone in Chinese History; but in this case, where the implication is so profound and the underlined meaning so rich, this translation is not appropriate. Such a phrase may be proper in its tone and it literal meanings, but when it comes to its underlined meanings and implications, this cannot manifest them to a suitable extent.

　　The last translation which is also possibly the most ideal version is traced back to its very first translation: “Bu Zheteng” which was translated by the interpreter on the 30th Anniversary Ceremony of the China’s Reform and Opening Up.

　　This translation puts the concept of “Zero translation” into use. This method has been proposed by Peter Newmark in his book A Textbook of Translation Chapter 13, the Creation of Neologism. The main ideas of this chapter can also be applied here. The creation of a new word is partly because other translations have failed, either because of their incompetence to deliver the message very clearly and thoroughly or owing to the fact that the profound implication hardly be satisfactorily delivered to the foreigners. This translation, however, fill the gaps between the previous types of shortcomings. Such kind of translation can enable us to have the initiative to define the meaning. We can add the The background information and supplementary contents to this meaning-rich phrase without being confined by the form. This kind of translation can also motivate the foreigners like Matt, who really want to understand this phrase, to learn and to search by themselves, and thus, they look for the background information and finally discovered the whole scenario as well as the meaning and implications of this phrase. A proper comparison of Utopia can be made: if we Chinese translate Utopia to 桃花源, then Chinese readers would not be bothered to search for more accurate meaning of this word. On the other hand, if the translation goes like 乌托邦, a new word, then the readers would normally turn to the book written by Sir Thomas More (1516) describing the perfect society on an imaginary island. The same case happens to the translation of “Bu Zheteng”.

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