Chapter 5 Non-textual Findings and Discussions
The previous chapter deals with the analysis at textual level and presents the comparison of Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese news translations. In this chapter, factors that are not directly related to the texts per se are what are indicated as
“non-textual” factors. In this discussion of these factors, non-textual levels include the decision-making process of source texts, the style of the newspaper (house style), and the process of translation tasks carried out in the Opinion Page; the process often involves the interactions among translators and their copy-editors. The third factor in particular, directly affects the final product.
In the previous section, the sample texts are closely analyzed and compared with the application in English-to-Chinese translations. Aside from the textual factors that determine the translators’ choices of strategy, the non-textual factors also come to my attention. In order to investigate these non-textual occasions, interviews with three of the translators of Taipei Times were conducted. The information they provided benefited the current study and offered answers to some of the phenomenon observed from the translations.
In the following section, the discussion is focused on the non-textual factors involved in the translating process. From the interviews and observation made in of Taipei Times Opinion Page, the non-textual factors that dominate the translations are,
decision-making process of source texts, the styles of copy-editors, the styles of the translators, and the style of Taipei Times. Moreover, the present study reckons that the influence of each non-textual factors advance in a gradual order, with the style of Taipei Times being the most dominant factor.
5.1 Decision-making Process of Source Texts
Before the discussion steps into the decision-making process, it is necessary to describe the operation process of the translation team of Taipei Times. The work flow is demonstrated in the following flow chart.
Deputy -editor- in-chief
Translator Copy- editor
Publication Samples
author Proof-reading
Proof-reading
Authorization (If problem arises...)
Task Work Flow
2nd Proof-reading
Graph II: Work Flow of Taipei Times Translation Team
The flow chart above demonstrates the work flow of the translation team.
Note that one translation goes through more than one proof-reading process. The
first proof-reader is the translator him/herself. Copy-editors are rightly the second
proof reader; the deputy-editor-in-chief serves as the third and usually the final
gatekeeper. After a translator gets his/her task, contacts are to be made with the
author to settle authorization and copyright matters. The interviewee also pointed
out that certain authors would request proof-reading the translation prior to
publication. This is also a part of the delegation process. When the translation is
done and passes on to the copy-editor’s desk, it will not return to the translator unless
any problem arises. Problems often refer to comprehension problems of the text
rather than rhetoric. As two interviewees both suggested that rarely do their
rendering altered at the rhetorical level, and if the copy-editors come up with
questions, most of the issues are concerning cultural or contextual information.
As suggested by the interviewees, the deputy editor-in-chief of the Opinion Page is responsible for choosing the source texts to be translated. The commentaries
in Chinese are then adopted by translators randomly. However, joint efforts can be found in the translated articles for several grounds, first and foremost, deadline pressure. One of the interviewees indicated that the layout restriction also maintains the pressure to the translators since they might be asked to translate an article with the required length within a very short time, usually close to the deadline of the day. In this case one article is likely to be translated by more than one translator so as to meet the pressing deadline. The interviewees suggested that the deputy editor-in-chief of the Opinion Page is solely responsible for choosing source texts. From the observation of sample texts, it is found that quite a number of articles are provided by a number of commentators.
In addition, there are certain sources where the deputy editor-in-chief always turns to, such as Sin Sin Wun (The Journalist, 新新聞), Nan Fang Kuai Bao (South News, 南方快報), and Zih You Shih Bao (Liberty Times 自由時報). Appendix V
provides a detailed table listing the sources of all the 30 sample texts. One of the interviewee commented on this phenomenon that “… the deputy-in-chief has to choose the type of articles that echo the ideas and political stance of our paper…”
This implies that only a certain type of article is chosen, which hence means that the
translators tend to deal with close attention so as not to render ideas that conflict the
paper. In addition, since some authors are often the sources of the Opinion Page,
such as Chin Heng-wei（金恆煒）, Ku Er-teh （顧爾德）, Huang Tien-lin （黃天
麟）and Antonio Chiang（江春男）. All these commentators have their own writing
styles and require the translators’ attention to render accordingly.
5.2 The Styles
The next part of discussion is arranged in three aspects regarding style, copy-editors, translators and Taipei Times. These three aspects all exert power in the process of translation yet degrees differ. This section aims to present the different influence of these styles can bring to the actual translation of commentaries.
5.2.1 The style of copy-editors
As the flow chart (Graph II) indicated, the copy-editor is one of the gatekeepers of the translation product. This role of copy-editors presents as a subtle difference with the translators in news edit-translation tasks. Translators in wire story translation team is said to be the significant gatekeepers that accept, choose, resemble and deliver information (Yu, cited in Liu, 1995: 259). However, the translators in Taipei Times performs purely translation, no editing is involved. Instead, the
copy-editors “accept, choose, and deliver” the translation. According to the interview results, the translators suggested that there were a few times where the author found fault with the translation or the rendering was not correct/was not what the author intended to mean. Yet this situation was not, suggested by the interviewees, caused by the translators but the copy-editors. Copy-editors in Taipei Times do not necessarily have good Chinese literacy, a factor that risks misreading
and wrong revision. The few “wrong translation” incidents were later found that the copy-editor failed to consult the translators the mistaken parts. When a mistake really occurs, nonetheless, correction is made on the website rather than on the page of the next day.
The copy-editors’ styles consequently matter to the translations in terms of
English writing style. When a translation is passed to the copy-editing table, it is
likely to be altered so as to make it more readable to the target language readers. In
the case of Taipei Times Opinion Page translation, the relationship between a copy-editor and a translation is subtle. Translators are expected to have good commands in both English and Chinese, whereas their translations are subject to gatekeepers, copy-editors, that do not necessarily understand Chinese. As a result, the styles of copy-editors do matter to the translation yet in the meantime presents a possible risk if any comprehension problem occurs.
5.2.2 The Style of Translators
The style of translator here implies the English writing style of translators in relation to readability for target readers, which also maintains a subtle difference of translation strategy opted by Taiwanese and foreign translators. For readability’s sake, foreign translators tend to paraphrase or displace a culture-laden image or expression in Chinese in the translation, whereas Taiwanese translators dispose for a close translation or annotation. In Chapter 4 the cited examples in addition, adaptation and annotation demonstrate the different strategic options made by Taiwanese and foreign translators. In the in-depth interviews, two of the interviewees approve this observation, where one of them coined this situation resulted by the “personal preference of each translator”. The Taiwanese translator interviewed suggested that the reason for a close or annotated translation is to
“preserve the images or culture and introduce them to the readers in their own rights.”
In his research of the translation of political language, Newmark pointed out that
“Political writings are likely to be ‘sacred’, and therefore translators cannot interfere with the text…” (Newmark, 1991:160) The interview and analyses of the present study suggest that Taiwanese translators of Taipei Times have the same awareness in translating the commentaries from Chinese to English.
The following cases show Taiwanese translators’ efforts to render text closely,
Example I:
不過，「見風轉舵」則是台商主要的應對策略。
Still, "sailing with the wind" has now become their primary strategy.
Example II:
凸顯出台商在商言商與不碰觸政治敏感議題的特性。
This highlights their tendency to "talk only about business when doing business,"
and not touch upon sensitive political issues.
Example I and II both indicated that the translators translate the special expressions in the source text directly. Quotation marks are used to imply the readers that the translations are not usual expressions seen in English. One of the Taiwanese interviewees suggested that he often translates Chinese expressions directly.
In so doing, the translation “introduces our culture and language to English readers.”
In this regard, it is clear that Taiwanese translators are aware that the culture-laden Chinese expressions may be found strange to the target language readers and therefore often make efforts to render the expressions closely. However, foreign translators are found to have a contrasting attitude, either toning down the language or simply paraphrasing the expression (as seen in Chapter 4). Moreover, foreign translators are also more likely to treat texts with more English expressions (as seen in Rhetorical addition example in Chapter 4). Both of these two phenomena highlight the stylistic difference of translators and indicate the freer attitude of foreign translators when treating the source texts, while Taiwanese translators often stay close to the source texts and render with extra efforts, such as annotation.
5.2.3 The Style of Taipei Times
Style of news writing bears little resemblance
1to other literary forms.
McIntyre stated that “newspaper writing tends towards pure exposition.” (1995: 26;
italic author’s own) Moreover, in this pure exposition, many rules are made to regulate the writings. This holds truth for news translation as well.
Style of the newspaper, suggested by the interviewees as well as previous studies, makes the distinction of Taipei Times and other local English newspapers.
In the present study, this distinction is often reflected in the translations of terminologies and proper nouns. In the current analysis, certain proper nouns are translated in a specific manner. Nevertheless, newspaper style rules, suggested by Bernstein, “… are devised to avert typological anarchy.” (1958: 207) This observation highlighted the necessity for translators to stay in line with Taipei Times’
style. In order to explicitly describe how the newspaper’s style influence translation, the example of term and proper noun translation is drew as an example and a brief table is listed below.
Term in Chinese Translation of Taipei Times Recognized Translation
中國政府 Beijing Chinese Government
中國共產黨 CPC (Communist Party of China) CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 小三通 Small Three Link Mini Three Link
Table II: Term and Proper Noun Fixed Translation of Taipei Times
The above table is a brief compilation of some fixed translation of proper nouns.
These terms are given from top-down to the translators irregularly in the form of
1
