globalisation, networks and translation: a chinese perspective

Globalisation, Networks and Translation:A Chinese Perspective

Jun TangEnglish Department, School of Foreign Languages, East China NormalUniversity, Shanghai 200241, China

Edwin GentzlerTranslation Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-9312,USA

Globalisation is often interpreted as a state of interconnectedness descriptive ofglobal networks of capital, commodities, information, knowledge, migrants, finan-cial transactions and so on. On the global level, the process of globalisation andintensified international contacts or cooperation in various fields have facilitated thegrowth of the translation sector. Being a part of this global market, China hasexperienced translation-facilitated transformations in various aspects of social life,such as commerce, education, fashion and social practices. Aiming to interpret thenew implications of translation and translation studies in the network society of thisage of globalisation from a Chinese perspective, this paper examines the changingdemands of the enlarged domestic translation market, the new requirements andworking environments for translators, and the commercialisation and industrialisa-tion of the local translation sector. The present article presents the latest develop-ments in the translation sector in the mainland of China and reveals majorchallenges in the professionalisation and industrialisation process.

doi: 10.1080/09076760802707918

Keywords: globalisation, networks, translation, China

IntroductionGlobalisation is often interpreted as a state of interconnectedness descriptive

of global networks of capital, commodities, information, knowledge, migrants,financial transactions and so on (Sheppard, 2002; Thompson, 1995; Tomlinson,2006). In the last decade of the 20th century, Manuel Castells published histrilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture to theorise and analysethe transition from industrial society to informational society (Castells, 1996,1997, 1998). The first volume of the trilogy describes the role of informationtechnology in transforming the contemporary world and proclaims the rise ofthe network society. ‘This new society was produced during the last quarter ofthe 20th century’ (Castells, 2000: 694) and ‘is made up of networks’ (Castells,2000: 695) such as the Internet, e-government systems, networks of commu-nication (e.g. newsrooms, computerised information systems, mobile transmis-sion units), and a global financial market based on electronic networks.

Although Castells tends to present the network society as a Euro-Americanphenomenon, the increasing computerisation of society in various areas such as

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trade, education (especially distance education), finance, communication,manufacturing and government administration has enabled electronicnetworks to become the major organisational form of our globalised informa-tion age (Courchene, 2002).

On the global level, the process of globalisation and intensified internationalcontacts or cooperation in various fields have facilitated the growth of thetranslation sector � the value of the global translation market was estimated tohave grown by 40% (from US$11.6 billion to US$16.1 billion) between 1999 and2004 (Hinkkanen, 2006: 8). It has been argued that ‘today’s translation market’is a ‘global, decentralized, specialized, dynamic, virtual and demanding’ one(Olvera-Lobo et al., 2005: 133).

Being a part of this global market, China has been involved in large-scaletranslation-assisted transnational interaction in the fields such as culture,business, information, technology and academic research. Aiming to interpretthe new implications of translation and translation studies in the networksociety of this age of globalisation from a Chinese perspective, this paperexamines the changing demands of the enlarged domestic translation market,new requirements and working environments for translators, and commercia-lisation and industrialisation of the local translation sector.

Globalisation, Translation and Present-day ChinaBeing taken as a synonym for ‘connectivity’ (Tomlinson, 2006: 1�2),

globalisation implies an intensification of cross-cultural and cross-bordercommunication and cooperation between cultures and states, which provokesrising demand for interpretation, translation, and various forms of adaptation(e.g. localisation, e-localisation, glocalisation).

Having achieved transition from the central planning system to a marketeconomy in the 1990s and accession to WTO in 2001, China has become asignificant player in this increasingly globalised world and taken great stridesin telecommunications and computer networking. The process of globalisationand China’s involvement with information technology supported globalnetworks have stimulated the domestic translation market � the value of thedomestic translation sector was estimated to have grown from US$1.6 billionto US$4 billion between 2003 and 2008.1

China’s expanding translation market has been characterised by an‘unfavourable balance of trade’ in terms of copyright license fees forpublications. Between 1995 and 2003, China had paid copyright license feesfor 58,077 foreign-produced publication titles but only received copyrightlicense fees for 5362 domestic-produced ones. The details are shown in Table 1.

It must be noted that the great majority of the copyright-settled books offoreign origin have been translated for publication and distribution. From acomparison between the figures shown in Table 1, it can be seen that the annualnumber of copyright-cleared foreign-produced publication titles remainedrelatively stable, about 10 times that of domestic-produced ones. Although thenumber of copyright-settled foreign-produced titles has experienced a slightdecrease after 2003, the average annual number remained above 10,000. As tocopyright expenses for foreign-produced books, the details are shown in Table 2.

170 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology


Table 1 The number of copyright-cleared domestic- and foreign-produced publication titles, 1995�2003

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Total

Foreign-produced 1664 2915 3224 5469 6461 7343 8250 10,235 12,516 58,077

Domestic-produced 354 250 353 588 418 638 653 1297 811 5362

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In recent years, the following cities and provinces with stronger economicstrength have been active in buying rights to foreign-produced titles: Beijing,Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong Province, Guangxi Province, Hunan Province,Jilin Province, Jiangsu Province, Liaoning Province, Shaanxi Province andZhejiang Province. The enthusiasm for translated books had returned highprofits for major publishers, which has in turn provoked the publishers to payeven more to procure foreign-produced texts.

During the first half of the 1990s, translation activities were mainly focussedon books on languages, literature and life styles. Since the second part of the1990s, periodicals and books on academic research, technology, electronics,and finance and economy have earned greater attention. To purchase scientificand academic periodicals from Euro-American countries, China had expendedUS$27.3 million in 2000, US$32.1 million in 2001, US$61.2 million in 2002, andUS$97 million in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, the copyright expenses for foreign-produced scientific and technological titles are listed in Table 3.

Besides the discrepancy in the number of copyright-cleared publicationtitles of domestic and foreign origin, China have paid large sums of copyrightlicense fees for foreign-produced titles and earned limited copyright revenuesfrom domestic-produced titles. Take the year of 2003, for example: China spentUS$168.8 million on copyright-cleared foreign-produced books, but onlyearned US$24.7 million from domestic-produced ones. The year of 2004 hadnot seen progress in China’s copyright trade with its three major tradingpartners, the USA, the UK and Japan. The details are shown in Table 4.

In 2005, the proportion between American copyright-cleared titles broughtinto China and Chinese copyright-settled titles brought into the USA was 1000to six. According to statistics, exported domestic-produced books were mainlytargeted at the Chinese-speaking circles in Southeast Asia, which means thattranslation was often unnecessary. Restricted by the interests of the targetaudience for the exported books, books on classical literature, Chinesepaintings and calligraphy, as well as herbal medicine and treatments arefavoured by buyer countries. This falls short of the expected two-waycommunication between cultures.

The overwhelming presence of foreign-produced books and periodicals hasimposed profound influences on the cultural and social transformation ofChina, especially after China’s accession to the Universal Copyright Conven-tion and the Berne Convention on Protection over Literary and Artistic Works

Table 2 Copyright expenses in US dollars for foreign-produced book titles, 2000�2003

Expenses in 2000 Expenses in 2001 Expenses in 2002 Expenses in 2003

24.3 Million 28.3 Million 26.2 Million 37.5 Million

Table 3 Copyright expenses in US dollars for scientific and technological titles,2000�2003

Expenses in 2000 Expenses in 2001 Expenses in 2002 Expenses in 2003

10.7 Million 11 Million 10.2 Million 14 Million



(i.e. Berne Convention) in 1992. In addition, subtitled or dubbed versions offilms, audiovisual or multimedia products have propelled the transformationof traditional values, ways of thinking and outlooks of life. As a result, a 2005testimony entitled ‘China and Globalization’, which was presented to theUSA�China Economic and Security Review Commission, has proclaimed thatin addition to a surge in popularity of English, China is ‘experiencing aglobalization of tastes’ (Overholt, 2005: 6), the fact of which has profoundlyshaped viewers’ reception of films and audiovisual products of Westernorigin.

China’s 40-year-old tradition of importing outdated and cheap films cameto an end in 1994. From 1994 to 2004, a historic breakthrough had beenachieved in terms of the importation of major motion pictures of foreign origin� though not a single one had been imported before 1994, the total number ofimported blockbusters had reached 142 in 2004. The USA has become the topsource country of films imported into China:

The box office receipts of imported American films between 1997 and1999, for instance, was more than $18 million, which accounted for 44%of the total box office revenue of the country during the three years.Between 2000 and 2004, China imported 4332 films, 40�50% of whichwere American. (Tang, 2008: 153)

Among the foreign-produced films imported between 2000 and 2004, about4000 had been shown on various channels (e.g. Channel 1, 2 and 8) of CCTV(i.e. China Central Television) and provincial satellite TV channels, more than40% of which were American-produced; 211 had been screened in movietheatres only, 53% of which came from the USA (Sun, 2005).

As far as screen translation is concerned, ‘dubbing has become the norm in theChinese mainland’ (Tang, 2008: 154) during the 1960s. In the late 1990s cinemasin major cities (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen) began toscreen subtitled foreign films alongside dubbed versions. Since the middle of the1990s, an increasing number of subtitled or dubbed films and TV programmes offoreign origin have been aired on cable and satellite TV channels owned bycentral and provincial TV stations. In addition, TV viewers in big cities andcertain provinces have access to private-owned channels (e.g. Star TV, PhoenixTV), who let them spend a greater percentage of their overall viewing time onsubtitled or dubbed TV programmes. The TV penetration rate in China hasreached 95.3% in 2004, the fact of which implies that the audiovisual contentaired on TV channels can subtly influence the views or life styles of Chinesepeople. Fascinated by the lifestyle depicted in ‘adaptation of translated versionsof Western commercials and audiovisual products incorporated as part of themarketing efforts of local businesses ever since the 1980s’ (Tang, 2007: 139),

Table 4 China’s copyright trade in books, 2004

The USA The UK Japan

Foreign-produced titles 4068 2030 694

Chinese titles 14 16 22

Globalisation, Networks and Translation 173


people in China no longer stick to traditional lifestyles. For instance, a Chinesebride is very likely to wear a Western-style white wedding dress on her weddingceremony; and a city dweller is apt to have a Western-style breakfast rather thantraditional snacks or to have a candled birthday cake instead of a bowl oftraditional birthday noodles. In addition to these superficial changes, China hasundergone multifarious transformations in almost every aspect of social lifesuch as legal practices, moral principles, ways of thinking, academic evaluationand values or outlooks on life (Tang, 2007).

Networks and Translation as a ProfessionOne of the central characteristics of the network society is the ubiquity of

networks supporting the cross-border flow of data, capital, information,technology and human resources. Among the numerous networks, the mostinfluential technological network is the internet. According to ‘The 22ndStatistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China’ released bythe China Internet Network Information Center on 23 July 2008, China has 253million internet users and 214 million broadband users, who spend an averageof 19 hours online per week. Besides, 69.2% of the internet users in China arefamiliar with the search engines and major news websites, 77.2 and 62.6%communicate with others through instant messaging or e-mail messages. Thenumber of websites in the Chinese language has risen to 1,919,000 while thenumber of domain names registered in China has gone up to 14,850,000. Theinternet’s newly gained importance and popularity inevitably affect thetranslation profession in various ways.

Internet literacy has become a must for a translator in the network society.Not only must a translator type, edit, and revise his or her translations on acomputer, but s/he also has to receive source texts and send out his or hertranslations as e-mail attachments. Not only are there online resources (e.g.specialised dictionaries and glossaries) and forums for translators’ andinterpreters’ convenience, but also there are translators and interpreters whouse weblogs and online personal homepages to publicise their working ability.Additionally, use of machine-assisted translation tools (e.g. translationmemory managers or systems) can reduce repetition and workload as regardsspecialised translation.

The internet makes it quicker and easier to get information, and theresulting rapid dissemination of information provokes new ideas about how atranslation should be done and what a translation should look like. ForChinese people, cross-cultural information distribution in this Internet agerelies heavily on adaptation, rewriting or excerpt translation of texts, broad-casting programmes, or audiovisual and multimedia products provided byforeign websites in addition to more traditional resources such as foreignnewspapers, magazines or periodicals and radio or TV channels. In ournetwork society drifted on currents of information, a translation seldom refersonly to a full-length rendition sticking to every message of the original. Itis especially the case in dealing with issues such as e-government2 ande-localisation.3 The wide use of public sector web portals, corporate websites,and software products of foreign origin in the Chinese mainland urgently



demands ‘cultural customisation’ in ‘the design, presentation and delivery ofinformation’ (Denman-Maier and Parycek, 2003: 456). Attracting an increasingnumber of users from different backgrounds and having different values, theInternet has become a site for confrontation of different values, outlooks,political positions and ideological tendencies. How to avoid conflicts andachieve cross-cultural understanding over cultural and ideological barriers isthe most significant problem posed to translation scholars. In this sense,notions such as ethics, power, politics, ideology and discursive strategy haveacquired cross-border and cross-cultural connotations. The public are becom-ing increasingly aware of the fact that ‘developing truly effective interfaces foran international or multicultural audience requires more than just translatingtext’ (Denman-Maier and Parycek, 2003: 456).

The significance of the Internet’s expansion goes far beyond the wideacceptance of the virtual network itself. Since a network is often defined as acollection of ‘interconnected nodes’ which are connected by links (Castells,1996: 470; Gerloff, 2006: 17), the concept of ‘network’ can offer a metaphoricalperception of systems, processes, or structures in real life, such as relation-ships, economies, organisations and communication systems.

In reaction to this age of globalisation, practicing translators and interpretershave to learn to cope with interpersonal networks as well as virtual networks.Since the reform in 1978, translators and interpreters in China can be dividedinto full-time and part-time ones. In general, full-time salaried translators andinterpreters work for government-controlled institutions (e.g. subdepartmentsof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Foreign Trade, theInternational Department of CCTV or major provincial TV channels) or state-owned or private-owned enterprises (e.g. translation agencies, consultantagencies, multinational corporations, importers and exporters). Part-timetranslators and interpreters are mostly affiliated with colleges or universities.In a network society a translator or interpreter serves as the intersection of aninterpersonal network and the virtual network. Working in a society tradition-ally respecting interpersonal relations and social connections, Chinese transla-tors or interpreters � especially those working on a part-time basis � relyheavily on their own interpersonal networks constituted by friends, acquain-tances, former teachers, former classmates and clients’ connections to maintaina constant flow of business opportunities. This has important implicationsbecause a 2007 TRANSN survey of the life and work of translators andinterpreters in China revealed that 70% of the 14,600 survey respondents takeon translation assignments on a part-time basis. What is special about theinterpersonal network in the network society than an earlier society is that,besides direct personal contacts, this network is technologically reinforced byquick exchanges of ideas or high-speed information transmission by mobilephone messages, e-mail messages or attachments, and simultaneous onlinechatting or forum discussing. This depends on translators’ or interpreters’ability in developing good interpersonal relations with those people who canbring them business opportunities. Characterised by abundant resources aswell as high-speed and large-volume information flows, the virtual network isnot only helpful for translators or interpreters to gather information throughuseful links or databases, to get help from online forums for professionals, or to



simplify paperwork by computer-based type-setting, proof-reading, or file-converting, but also useful for freelance translators or interpreters to attract theattention of potential clients by weblogs or online personal homepages.

As the intersection of interpersonal and technological networks, a translatormust produce translations while trying to balance diverse intentions andpurposes of different parties. If a translator works on a literary text, s/he has tostrike a delicate balance in weighing his or her choices concerning the texturalfeatures of the original, the agenda of the initiator or publisher, the sociallydominant taste, and the target audience’s reaction because, in an increasinglycommercialised society, few publishers are willing to spend money on anunsuccessful or unprofitable project. If a translator works on a technologicaltext, s/he must consider the informational messages of the original, the client’spractical needs, and the user-friendliness of his or her final version. If atranslator works on an audiovisual or multimedia product, s/he has to thinkabout the acceptability or attractiveness of the translated product and thereception or reaction on the part of the target audience. The intersubjectivedimension of translation is thus highlighted in a networking context. Inaddition, the power interplay in terms of age, sex, religion, political agendasand ideological tendencies underlying translation must be carefully examined.

The notion of ‘network’ also has implications for professional organisationsdedicated to the advancement of the knowledge, theory and quality oftranslation and interpreting. In proportion to the expansion of the translationmarket, the number of professional organisations (e.g. associations of transla-tors or interpreters in different fields such as literary translation, nonliterarytranslation, simultaneous interpreting and court interpreting) and private-owned or institution-affiliated translation service providers has multiplied atan amazing speed since the 1990s � the number of associations for translatorsand interpreters had reached about 60 in 2007,4 and the number of registeredprofessional translation agencies had reached about 3000 in 2004 (Wang, 2008).To enhance binding interactions and consolidate cooperation ties between itsmember associations, the Translators Association of China, a federation ofprovincial and territorial translators’ associations, has organised symposiums,lecture sessions and professional training courses in recent years. It is generallybelieved that professional associations for translators and interpreters in Chinahave established good network relationships to share information andprofessional knowledge as well as to promote interaction and communication.

The growth of the translation profession placed greater weight on theeducation and training for a qualified workforce. In the middle of the 1990s,intensified international communication and cooperation lifted the curtain on aglobal age of translation-assisted communication and cooperation betweenChina and other countries. On the one hand, the overwhelming quantity ofspecialised documents requiring translation has posed challenges for trainingcourses in written translation, which remained subordinate to degree pro-grammes in foreign languages and literature until the late 1990s. The situationsubsequently began to change: in the early 2000s, some major universities havestarted independent departments or colleges to offer specialised courses intranslation. Since 2006, 13 major universities (e.g. Beijing Language and CultureUniversity, East China Normal University, Shandong University, University of



International Business and Economics, Xi’an International Studies University)have been accredited by the Ministry of Education to develop specialisedundergraduate programmes and to award bachelor’s degrees in translation. In2007, 15 major universities (e.g. Beijing Foreign Studies University, FudanUniversity, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University,Shanghai International Studies University) were accredited by the Commissionon Accreditation of Degree Programmes of the State Council to developspecialised graduate programmes and to award master’s degrees in transla-tion. On the other hand, an increasing demand for interpreters follows in wakeof the rapid growth of cross-cultural contacts in various forms, such asinternational bilingual or multilingual conferences, academic lectures pre-sented in foreign languages, bilateral or multilateral meetings for governmentofficials, and business negotiations between trading partners of differentnationalities. Before 2003, only Beijing Foreign Studies University was certifiedto train simultaneous interpreters. Since there was no special traininginstitution for interpreters, those who wanted to get into the trade had torely on their own resources before they passed national or local examinationsand received their licenses as practicing interpreters. The general public hasshown deep concern for the shortage of qualified candidates who have beentrained to be liaison, consecutive or simultaneous interpreters. As a result, nineof the abovementioned 15 universities accredited to award master’s degrees intranslation are also authorised to award master’s degrees in interpreting.

Contrary to Venuti’s argument about the invisibility of translators (Venuti,1995), Chinese translators are conspicuously visible and widely respected andadmired. The principal reason in support of the argument of visibility is theelitist nature of the translation profession in China � until 2000, only 18% ofthe working-age population of China has completed high school or highereducation, and the proportion of those holding college certificates oruniversity degrees is less than five out of 100. Belonging to the 5% possessingcollege certificates or university degrees, Chinese translators are dulyrespected. Additionally, the status of the translation profession is reinforcedby the alignment of translators with the political and cultural agendas of thecentral government as well as for the fact that the profession is much admiredby the general public. The former was reflected in the Annual Congress inRecognition of Senior Translators held in Beijing on International TranslationDay every year since 2001, while the latter culminated in the emergence of newtranslation colleges and university departments and the recent enrolmentboom experienced by these aforementioned institutions. In this sense, Chinesetranslators can be argued to have higher social status and greater publicitythan their Western peers. A counterargument might be that the payment forliterary translations is not adequately high. In fact English�Chinese transla-tions are paid at the same rate per thousand words as original writings ofChinese book authors. In addition, translations for nonliterary or non-Englishtexts are much better paid � often four or five times higher than the normalpay rate.

Translation as a profession in present-day China must address two urgentissues. Firstly, only a limited number of the 60,000 professional translators andinterpreters (Wang, 2008) are professionally trained; and even less are officially



accredited � jointly launched and organised by the State Ministry of Personneland China Foreign Languages Bureau in December, 2003, the China AptitudeTest for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI) is the first national qualificationtest for translators and interpreters. To cope with the insufficiency inprofessional training, career-oriented curriculum and training programmesmust be developed in the first place. In the next place, stringent qualitycontrol procedures must be taken to provide the institutional guarantee for theindustrialisation of the translation sector. Secondly, the unprofessional residueof a less modernised society still lingers. In the Chinese mainland, when anindividual user asks a translator friend to help with a source text of a limitedlength, the translator is not expected to ask for cash payment as a social rule �it has been a deep-rooted tradition that friends are not expected to ask for cashpayments for minor favours. Of course, it does not mean that the translator hasto do the job for nothing. Instead of cash payment, an abundant dinner, apersonal gift, or a promise of a favour will be the translator’s reward. But it islikely that the dinner costs much less than the deserved cash payment; and it ispossible that the promise of a favour will be forgotten or unfulfilled. ManyChinese translators have experienced such embarrassing situations. Conse-quently, some Chinese translators feel like they are being taken advantage ofand resort to pretexts in order to turn down translation requests from theirfriends. Another problem likely to happen is as follows: it is likely that, toshorten the preparation period for a book scheduled to be translated andpublished, a small or medium-sized publishing company will ask a translatoror several translators to do the translation before the company clears rights forthe book. If the licensing agreement has not been obtained in the end, thepublishing company will pay a small amount of money to compensate for thetime and energy that have been spent. Chinese translators have to fight againstunfavourable conventions and professional abuses in order to eliminate theabove-mentioned irregularities and build up a more agreeable workingenvironment.

Commercialisation and Industrialisation of the TranslationSector

The age of globalisation has presented new possibilities and challenges fortranslation as a network-supported commercial process. A network dimensioncan be added to translation studies in consideration of the social connectionsand relationships between the initiator, the text producer of the original, thesource audience, the translator, and the target audience, in addition to theconnection patterns of channels to buyers’ market.

In a market-driven context, there are usually two options for commercialisa-tion of the translation sector: the majority of translation agencies in China havecreated self-publicity websites to attract corporate and government clientswhile most of the initiators of translation projects such as creating subtitles to aforeign film and translating a bestseller or a textbook tend to adopt marketingstrategies to publicise the end products. A brief analysis of translation as aproject involving stages such as initiation, production, promotion and some-



times distribution and consumption may be helpful for understanding thecommercialisation process.

Different from operations in former societies, the initiation of a translationactivity in the network society relies heavily on technological networks as wellas on interpersonal networks maintained by editors or agents working fornewspapers, websites, translation agencies and publishing companies. Tech-nological networks have made interpersonal interaction more efficient byproviding alternatives such as e-mail, weblog, file sharing, online chatting orforum and bulletin board systems. Efficient interpersonal interaction sup-ported by technological networks has in turn reinforced interpersonal net-works. Determined by factors such as friendship, professional reputation, andsocial connections, considerations of interpersonal relations have turned theinitiation of a translation project into a decision-making activity affected by thenetworking patterns of interpersonal networks and the power dynamics ofresource distribution. There is no doubt that the selection of texts to betranslated determines the acceptance or rejection of certain texts of technolo-gical, religious, philosophical, cultural and linguistic significances while theconsumption of various target texts may influence different micro-networks ofa society and their interconnections.

In this globalised age, an initiator of a translation project often has to balanceeconomic, political and ideological concerns so as to decide which text will betranslated. And the translator’s strategies and the publisher’s promotion anddistribution policies will certainly affect the consumption of a translatedversion. Being an interpersonally and technologically networked process ofinitiation, production, promotion, and distribution, translation in the networksociety is either a market-driven or a politics-loaded project. The initiation oftranslation projects has largely become a profit-driven event in China since thelate 1990s. For instance, if the dubbed or subtitled version of a Western filmbased on a novel has succeeded at the box office, the publishers will competefor opportunity to publish and promote the Chinese version for the novel. Since1996, a number of Chinese versions, including those for The Bridges of MadisonCounty, The Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter book series, had beeninitiated in the wake of box office successes. It is understandable that all thepublishers were wise investors though it was not necessary for all thetranslators to be competent ones.

In addition, the promotion and distribution of translated books or dubbed orsubtitled audiovisual products have been strongly influenced by the notion of‘network’. The legitimacy of the market economy in 1993 had promoted thecommercialisation and industrialisation of the culture sector in China. It followsthat the promotion and distribution of translated products (e.g. translated books,dubbed or subtitled films, or dubbed or subtitled audiovisual or multimediaproducts) have been remarkably commercialised � distribution and marketingnetworks or channels have been established, maintained and diligentlyexpanded. Naturally, unprecedented efforts have been put into the publicityand promotion of translated products. Here is a perfect example of successfulcommercialisation of a recent translation for a well-sold translated novel. Duringthe late 1980s and the early 1990s, the first edition and reprint editions of the firstChinese translation for the English version of one of the novels by Milan



Kundera (i.e. The Unbearable Lightness of Being) were put on the market throughtraditional distribution channels, consisting mainly of public-owned bookstoresand private-owned book stalls. Furthermore, the reprinting of the Chinesetranslation was facilitated by booksellers after the first edition had become abestselling title. In 2003, when the Shanghai Translation Publishing House, amajor publishing company for literary translations, decided to have a newChinese translation made from the French version, L’Insoutenable Legerete del’etre, it spared no effort and did an excellent job for the new translation’smarketing and promotion. In August 2003, about one month after thepublication of the retranslated version, Jinling Evening News, an influentialnewspaper in Nanjing City, published an interview with XU Jun, the French�Chinese translator and a professor at Nanjing University. Xu claimed that hisnew translation ‘is infinitely closer to the original’ because ‘it has been donedirectly from French’ and that ‘France is the second homeland’ of the originalauthor. The interview deliberately avoided mentioning the fact that the originalnovel was written in Czech. Meanwhile, the Journal of Nanjing Universitypublished an edited transcript of an interview with Xu (i.e. the translator ofthe latest published version) and Han Shaogong (i.e. a cotranslator of theprevious version and an influential writer), which focussed on different viewsand motivations of the translators. Throughout the marketing stage, numerouswebsites released reports concerning differences between the earlier translation,which was considered a successful one of high literary merit, and the newversion, which was expected to be a more ‘truthful’ rendition done reliably andacademically because of the professor’s linguistic mastery. In addition totraditional channels, online book stores also participated in the distribution ofthe new translation. Because of fruitful marketing and promotion efforts, thenew French�Chinese translation had sold 150,000 copies in 2003, in spite of thefact that the former English�Chinese version had been reprinted for 13 times andhad sold one million copies during the span of 18 years.

Scholars have come to notice that the network society has provided newalternatives for the promotion and marketing of a translated product. Besidesradio and TV channels and paper media, the Internet has become a costefficient and user friendly means for promotion and marketing. A click of themouse can lead one to a useful link that is information abundant while typinga few words into the search boxes of search engines such as Google, Yahoo andBaidu may get one in contact with numerous links. Herein lies the temptationof the Internet.

Motivated by the commercialisation process, the translation sector in Chinabegan to anticipate the process of industrialisation in the early 2000s (Shi andGuo, 2003). To facilitate the industrialisation process, the translation businessin China must remove three obstacles: loose supervision, incompetent serviceand lack of qualified professionals.

In order to strengthen the supervision of the translation industry, theTranslators Association of China formed the Translation Service Committee in2003. Working jointly with the China Association for Standardisation, thiscommittee enacted the ‘Specification for Translation Service (Part I: Translation)’in 2003, the ‘Target Text Quality Requirements for Translation Services’ in 2005,and the ‘Specification for Translation Service (Part II: Interpretation)’ in 2006.



Since supervision of the industry has only recently been tightened, theperformance of the local translation service providers can hardly be labelled ascompetitive. According to a report (Shi and Guo, 2003) published in the LiaowangNews Weekly, local translation agencies were mainly small and medium-sizedenterprises, whose sizes had determined that their business scope and serviceproductivity were rather limited � their service incomes only accounted for 10%of the total value of the local translation market and few local agencies reportedannual revenue of $400,000. A recent report (Cui, 2008) claimed that most localtranslation agencies generate annual revenue of less than $125,000.

For improvement of the performance of the local translation serviceproviders, an encouraging increase in the number of qualified professionalsmust be achieved. The 60,000 full-time salaried language professionals can onlyhandle 10% of the workload created by the translation market and less than 5% ofthe salaried professionals can act as consecutive or simultaneous interpreters forinternational conferences or symposiums.5 Owing to the short history ofprofessional training in China, much more must be done to change the situation.

ConclusionAs suggested by this paper, the wave of globalisation and the rise of the

network society have important implications for the translation sector in theChinese mainland, which has been characterised by a large market, lack ofprofessionals, the insufficiency in professional training, and the incompetenceof local translation service providers. Since the ongoing processes ofcommercialisation and industrialisation of the translation sector have posedhigh-level requirements on translation as a profession, Chinese scholars,translation professionals, and relevant institutions have been working hard toraise standards for career training and competency determination. Further-more, the changing scene of the translation sector in the mainland of Chinamay help to add new dimensions to interdisciplinary studies and incorporatefindings from such fields as economics and sociology into translation research.

CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Jun Tang, P.O. Box 206, 41 Wenhua

Road, Tai’an City, Shandong Province 271000 ([email protected]).

Notes1. For details, see the transcript of a 2008 speech by Guo Xiaoyong, Executive Vice

President of the Translators Association of China and Deputy Director-General ofthe China International Publishing Group, at http://www.china.com.cn/news/2008-02/27/content_10851934.htm.

2. The Chinese government launched the Government Online Project in 1999. Fordetails, see ‘E-Government in China’ by Peter Lovelock and John Ure at http://www.trp.hku.hk/ publications/e_gov_china.pdf.

3. E-localisation service refers to the incorporation of cultural perspectives andvariables into developing an overall strategy for the design of e-services.

4. See the complete list of the names of the associations at http://www.china.com.cn/education/zhuanti/fanyi/2007-10/25/content_9125514.htm.

5. For details, see a 2006 report in Yangcheng Wanbao (i.e. Guangzhou Evening News) athttp://www.ycwb.com/xkb/2006-12/20/content_1323581.htm.



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