Basketball without “NBA”? The state of the economy without “GDP”? This could be the new reality for television viewers in China, as Beijing has reportedly curbed on-air use of English abbreviations. China Central Television and Beijing Television told the state-run China Daily that they had received notification from the government to avoid using certain English abbreviations on Chinese programmes.
Broadcasters will now be asked to give the Chinese equivalent for such phrases as NBA (National Basketball Association), GDP (gross domestic product), CPI (consumer price index) and WTO (World Trade Organisation). It was not immediately clear how many English abbreviations had been listed in the government notice, today’s report said. Calls to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for comment on the report went unanswered.
Last month, Huang Youyi - a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a body that advises lawmakers on political matters - proposed tougher measures to keep English from polluting Chinese. “If we don’t pay attention and don’t take measures to stop mixing Chinese with English, the Chinese language won’t remain pure in a couple of years,” said Huang, the editor-in-chief of the China International Publishing Group.
(Source: AFP)
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 00:13
This is not the first time they did this. Back in the 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007. Having experience dealing with the State Admin of Film, Radio and Television (SAFRT) who passes such rules, I can tell you right now it will last for a few months or even weeks and things will go back to normal. Huang Youyi (Youyi BTW mean FRIENDSHIP in English) is new to his position and like most new appointed lawmaker needs to be seen as doing something, just as burocrates the world over.
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 03:02
When western movies or television series are played on CCTV, instead of keeping the original audio and providing subtitles, they just dub right over it. I think this mostly has something to do with illiteracy, though. The Chinese are not as ethnocentric as the Japanese when it comes languages.
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 12:25
CCTV will only run a movie that is dubbed if one is available. But any times if they run a movie not in English, but let\’s say French, Spanish, german or another they will run it with subtitles.
But aside from CCTV you also have a number of cable and satellite channels. Again the same thing. If the movie has a dubbed version they will show that over a subtitled one. But if there is not dubbed version then the subtitled one runs instead.
It may interest you to know that the majority of films dubbed in Chinese are not done in China. Most are done in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 23:29
With due deference to Chinese culture, it is always interesting when a new vocabulary is created by using a stick instead of a carrot. Here is an example which might be anecdotal to some:
The national language of the diverse country of India is Hindi, a somewhat of a derivative created for the masses, sometimes using a forced vocabulary due to lack of terms for new things such as computer, bicycle, etc. which post-dates the creation of the language itself. In one such instance, Doordarshan, the state-owned television conglomerate, coined a term for the word \
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 23:30
Part 2:
In one such instance, Doordarshan, the state-owned television conglomerate, coined a term for the word “tie” as in what some wear round their necks. The new word or rather word-pair was ”kanth-langot” which literally translate to “neck-underwear”. There was a further unprintable degeneration of this term and others which did not add to the credibility of the station which was then viewed as a government mouthpiece. Perhaps there is a lesson in that - words are powerful and they are best created by other means than by end of a stick…