南京大学外国语学院英语系翻译专业硕士 (MTI) 课程

 

“英汉基础笔译英汉/汉英翻译实务”课程教学大纲

(Fundamentals of E/C Written Translation [FWT] English-Chinese / Chinese-English Translating in Practice: Course Syllabus)

课程时间与地点:秋季学期每周二10:10-12:00,南京大学仙林校区 II-515.  教师:柯平教授 [kepingATnju.edu.cn].  办公地点: 南京大学仙林校区侨裕楼419.  办公时间: 周二14:30-16:30 (预约)

 

学分数及学时数... 2

课程目标... 2

教学方式... 2

教学单元主题... 3

学习要求与考核方式... 3

课程资源... 4

教材 [必读书目,自选其中至少一本精读] 4

推荐阅读材料... 4

课程支持网站... 5

短篇翻译练习材料... 6

1.   Speech by Professor Iu Vai Pan, Rector of University of Macau, at the Closing Ceremony of UM 20th Anniversary. 6

2.   中等收入人群成为长三角社会主体... 7

3.   Translation - Crossing Languages. 8

4.   南京2014年夏季青年奥运会申办报告: 主题13 交通... 13

5.   On Wisdom.. 16

6.   Football Hooliganism.. 16


 

        《英汉基础笔译是为一年级口笔译专业硕士生开设的一门基本翻译原理与方法课程笔译方向学员必修时间为一学期。

 

学分数及学时数

        学分:2

        学时:32课时

 

课程目标

        开设此课程的目的为:在于使学员熟悉英汉/汉英笔译的过程,形成正确的翻译观念,获得或提高从事英汉/汉英笔头翻译的实际能力。学完此课程的具体目标是帮助修课同成绩合格的员将能够

 

              深入理解翻译基本原理,掌握分析与理解英汉复杂语句和语篇信息的基本方法分析与理解技能,掌握生成合格译文所需的各种技能基本技巧

              深化对英汉两种语言及中西两种文化的了解,对它们之间的差异有较强的敏感性,能从词义、语法形式、句子结构、篇章结构、习惯表达方式、修辞手段等方面把握原语和译语英汉语的异同,能较好地处理原文语篇中具有民族文化特色的内容语言成分

              有健全的术语意识,能敏锐辨识和准确翻译原文中的术语;

              学会选择与使用本地和在线参考工具,并在翻译实践中正确使用可靠的参考工具;

              以每小时300-400个单词/字的速度将中等及中等偏上难度的原语文本译成目标语文本,做到:原文理解准确完整,译文表达规范,术语使用正确,篇章结构自然连贯。

 

教学方式

        课堂教学围绕英汉与汉英翻译过程中各工作阶段的重点与难点问题展开。教师通过专题讲授、分析典型案例、实时布置学员实时完成相关练习及讲评课后翻译作业讲解等方式,帮助使学员理解并掌握解决这些问题的原则与方法,力求取得争达到原理学习与实务学习有机结合、学员所学内容基本能被及时消化、学员对具体翻译方法知其然也知其所以然的果。讲授专题的选择与安排依照根据实际翻译过程(原文分析、译文生成与校改)中译者须面对的各典型问题以及这些问题出现的相对顺序,同时考量并参考学习者的专业基础和认知水平加以规律确定。

        课程教学过程中,教师将特别注意引导学员辨识英汉两种语言各句子和段和语篇落各个结构层面上所显现的英汉两个语言群体的不同逻辑和思维逻辑和信息提供(presentation of information习惯,提高增强他们按目的语规范组织信息、遣词造句和建构语篇和遣词造句的能力。本课程的另外一项重要关注是培养学员搜寻与正确使用各类参考工具来解决翻译难题的能力也是本课程的重要关注的教学环节之一

        使学员真正认识翻译活动的本质,掌握英汉/汉英翻译的基本翻译原理和,并掌握基本翻译方法,本课程教师将打通英汉与汉英翻译问题的讲解教学,帮助同学融会贯通支配英汉与汉英翻译的普遍规律结合在一起讲解

        在教学过程中,教师可视时间许可组织课堂讨论或辅导,鼓励学员结合课程内容,深入思考自己翻译学习和实践的经历,提出问题,与其他同学和课程老师切磋研讨,排疑解惑,分享心得,共同探究具体翻译方法后面的原理,达到知其然,也知其所以然的境界

        修课同学须完成课程使用以下两种形式类型的课程作业翻译练习材料

 

        (1)    与专题讲授内容配套的段落翻译练习(课堂完成)

        (2)    不同主题的短篇文本翻译课后完成)。

 

同学完成每次作业完成后,教师将请同学课堂报告作业结果并实时讲评,通过分析被讲评作业对学员练习中的亮点与佳译和典型问题错误进行分析,使班上其他同学也所有学员获得相关启发和教益,逐步提高自己的翻译能力

        为缩小翻译专业学员与职业译员之间的差距,教师还将注意结合课堂与课后翻译实践,培养学员严谨的工作作风与感,促使他们抛弃不求甚解,望文生义,靠猜测、臆断、甚至胡编乱造做翻译的习惯,确立负责任地培养学员独立完成翻译与审校工作的意识与能力

 

教学单元主题

1单元

        课程介绍

2单元

        翻译的基本概念和类型

        翻译工作对译者素质与能力的要求

3单元

        翻译的语义学基础

        翻译质量标准

4单元

        影响原文理解的语内因素

        影响原文理解的非文化语外因素

        翻译参考工具的使用

5单元

        译文生成:语序

        译文生成:被动结构与主语选择

        译文生成:句子的分与合

        译文生成:补偿手段

6单元

        译文校验

        专名与术语

        答疑(备选)

* 各单元主题的内容视具体情况可有所增减。

 

学习要求与考核方式

        修读此课程合格的具体要求为:

 

             课前预习主要教材,课程结束前选读完至少五种推荐阅读材料;

             课堂专心听讲,积极提问和参与讨论,认真完成课堂练习;

             课后独立完成教师布置的短篇文本翻译练习;

             通过期末考试 / 完成期末研究项目。

 

        考核采用百分制,由平时成绩(40%)和期末考试或研究项目成绩(60%)两部分构成的原则进行。平时成绩依照课堂参与情况及每次课堂与课后作业的完成情况评定。期末考试形式为开卷笔试,试题由若干问答题、译案分析题和短篇翻译题随机组成。课程总成绩中各考评项目所占的具体比例为:

 

             出勤和课堂参与(根据是否按时到课,是否积极参加讨论,是否利落回答提问,是否提出过好问题或建议,是否通过任课教师与全班分享过优质学习资源等情况评定)(15%)

             课堂练习与课后评注式翻译作业(根据练习与作业的课堂报告评定)(25%)

             期末考试或期末研究项目 (60%)

 

课程资源

教材 [必读书目,自选其中至少一本精读]

Ke, Ping [柯平]. (1991/1993).《英汉与汉英翻译教程》. 北京: 北京大学出版社. 206/209 pp.

Sun, Wanbiao [孙万彪]. (2003). 上海英语中级口译资格证书考试《中级翻译教程》. 上海外语教育出版社. xxvi+301 pp.

Ye, Zinan [叶子南]. (2001).《高级英汉翻译理论与实践》. 北京: 清华大学出版社. vii+383 pp.

 

推荐阅读材料

中华人民共和国国家标准 GB/T 19363.1-2003(翻译服务规范 [Specification for Translation Service]).

中华人民共和国国家标准 GB/T 19682-2005(翻译服务译文质量要求 [Target Text Quality Requirements for Translation Services]).

Austermühl, Frank. (2001). Electronic tools for translators. “Translation Practices Explained” (A. Pym [Ed.]). Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing. 192 pp. [ISBN: 1900650347]

Baker, Mona. (1992). In other words: a coursebook on translation. London & NY: Routledge. xix+654.

Bowker, Lynne. (2002). Computer-aided translation technology: a practical introduction. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. [ISBN: 0776630164; Amazon: $45.00.]

Cao, Xueqin [曹雪芹]. (1979).《红楼梦》. 4 vols. 北京: 人民文学出版社.

__. (1973-1980). The story of the stone (David Hawkes & John Minford, Trans.) (Vols 1-4). Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1792) [Univ. lib. K275/W13e]

Chau, Simon S. C. [周兆祥]. (1986).《翻译实务》. 香港: 商务印书馆香港分馆. 152 pp.

__. (1996).《翻译与人生》. 香港: 商务印书馆香港分馆. vii+142 pp.

Chen, Gang [陈刚]. (2004).《旅游翻译与涉外导游》. “翻译理论与实务丛书 [原创版]”. 北京: 中国出版集团中国对外翻译出版公司. xvii+440 pp.

Ke, Ping. (1993). What makes a good translator? Available from: http://keping.sprinterweb.net/TEC__WhatMakesAGoodTranslator.htm

__. (1997). Meaning in translation. Available from: http://keping.sprinterweb.net/M-in-T.htm

__. (2001). Using reference tools to solve problems in translating (Project 7). Available from: http://keping.sprinterweb.net/TECResearchProjects.htm

__. (2005). Numerical expressions. Available from: http://keping.sprinterweb.net/TEC__NumericalExpressions.htm

Landers, Clifford E. (2008). Literary translation: a practical guide. 外教社翻译硕士专业 (MTI) 系列教材笔译实践指南丛书-1”. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社 (Originally published by Mulilingual Matters Ltd. in 2001). vi+214 pp.

Li, Changshuan [李长栓]. (2004).《非文学翻译理论与实践》. 北京: 中国对外翻译出版公司. xxii+589 pp.

Li, Kexing, & Zhang, Xinhong [李克兴, 张新红]. (2006).《法律文本与法律翻译》.“翻译理论与实务丛书 [原创版]”. 北京: 中国出版集团中国对外翻译出版公司. xix+591 pp.

Newmark, Peter. (1988). A textbook of translation. London: Prentice Hall. [Sch. Lib.: J 19/W 58; 21871 外英PE-3]

Nida, E. A., & Taber, C. R. (1969). The theory and practice of translation. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Pinkham, Joan. (2000). Translator’s guide to Chinglish (《中式英语之鉴》). 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社. vi+561pp.

Quah, C. K. (2008). Translation and technology [《翻译与技术》]. “外教社翻译硕士专业系列教材笔译实践指南丛书. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社. 221 pp. (Original work [Translation and technology. Palgrave Textbooks in Translating and Interpreting. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.] published 2006) [ISBN: 978-1-4039-1832-1. £18.99. TOC: http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20379028]

Robinson, Douglas. (1997). Becoming a translator: an accelerated course. London & NY: Routledge. 368 pp. [ISBN: 0415148618; Price: $24.99; MIIS Lib.]

Shen, Fu [() 沈复]. (1999).《浮生六记》(汉英对照绘图本; Lin Yutang [林语堂], Trans.). 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社. xxiii+327 pp.

Shirer, William. (1983). The fall of the Third Reich《第三帝国的灭亡》. (Abridged English-Chinese bilingual edition. Dong Leshan [董乐山], et al., Trans.). 北京: 中国对外翻译出版公司. 203 pp.

Sofer, Morry. (2000). The translator’s handbook (3rd ed.). Rockville, MD: Schreiber Publishing. 400 pp. [ISBN: 1887563482; Price: $24.95]

Thackeray, William M., & Sutherland, John. (1998). Vanity fair: a novel without a hero. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

__. (1994).《名利场》(Yang Bi [杨必], Trans.). (2 vols.). 北京: 人民文学出版社.

Varó, Enrique Alcaraz, & Hughes, Brian. (2008). Legal translation explained. 外教社翻译硕士专业 (MTI) 系列教材笔译实践指南丛书-5”. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社 (Originally published by St. Jerome Publishing in 2002). 204 pp.

Wang, Ying, & Lü, Hefa (Eds.) [王颖, 吕和发 主编]. (2007).《公示语汉英翻译》. “翻译理论与实务丛书 [原创版]”. 北京: 中国出版集团中国对外翻译出版公司. 394 pp.

Wang, Yuexi, & Wang, Enbao. (Eds.) [王约西, 王恩保 选注]. (1994).《古诗百首英译》. 北京: 北京语言学院出版社. 515 pp.

Wilss, Wolfram. (1996). Knowledge and skills in translator behavior. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. viii+259 pp. [北图 2-97/ H 059 /W75]

Yu, Yungeng [喻云根]. (1996).《英美名著翻译比较》. 汉口: 湖北教育出版社. iii+432 pp.

 

课程支持网站

http://nlp.nju.edu.cn/kep/TOC/T.html

http://keping.sprinterweb.net/TOC/T.html


 

短篇翻译练习材料.

1. (ECTb1) Speech by Professor Iu Vai Pan, Rector of University of Macau, at the Closing Ceremony of UM 20th Anniversary

Distinguished Guests, Dear Alumni, Colleagues, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

       It is a great honour for me to be here today to announce the closing of our university’s 20th anniversary. Last year, we launched a kick-off ceremony in our campus as the first activity to commence our 20-year anniversary. To the university, this closing ceremony is certainly meaningful and important. During the past 13 months, under the theme of 20th anniversary, we held many celebratory functions at all levels in the university. Not only our university, but also the community at large, and many institutions at overseas are aware of the 20 years of the establishment of the University of Macau. There are many discussions I have shared, and many comments I have received, on the past, present, and most important, the future role of this leading academic institution in Macau. This observation has given me a clear focus of my future work.

       As in the case for many parts of the world, the political, economic, and social conditions in Macau as a whole have changed. A knowledge-based society has a lot to offer to young people. However, these opportunities do not come without high competition and great challenges. We strive to help our young people learn wisdom and diversity to serve and build the community, acquire knowledge to be geared to tackle challenges, and possess essential humanity to bring compassion and benefits of competition to the society. This objective is recognized from the active involvement of many of our alumni working in management and policy-making level in both public and private sectors.

       Startinged in May 2001, a number of activities were held in commemorating the 20th anniversary of the University of Macau. I could only name a few among many held, namely, the Kick-off Ceremony, 20th Anniversary Celebration Ceremony and Symposium, Charity Fund-raising for Walk for Millions which breaks our previous records, Photo Competition and Exhibition, student’s projects showcase, opening of new laboratories, alumni gatherings, international conferences, seminars and distinguished lectures series held by different faculties. Of particular importance are two world-renowned scholars who have come all the way to Macau to join us in the university. Prof. Yau Shing Tung, Fields Medalist in Mathematics and the only Chinese awarded with this honour in history, delivered a seminar “Mathematics & Society” in January this year in the University Cultural Centre. Over 300 high school students were benefited from the inspiration Prof. Yau has given them in Mathematics. In the same venue in March 18, the university conferred an honourary degree of Doctor of Social Sciences to Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences. Prof. Stiglitz delivered his first public lecture in Asia as a Nobel Laureate and presented us with the “Lessons from the Financial Crisis in Asia” which was simultaneously broadcasted and interpreted in Mandarin and Cantonese to over 1,400 audiences on-campus. This has undoubtedly highlighted the landmark of our history.

       Accomplishing a lot of remarkable events held during the celebration, I would like to direct my deepest gratitude to the staff and students. Let me assure you that your work will be recorded and well remembered. Despite demanding workload, you have all shown creativity and great dedication.

       I cannot conclude without thanking the generous support of the SAR government and local authorities. Financial support has been secured. Academic autonomy and institutional independence have been well respected. It is only through academic freedom can intellectuals express, and it is through the expressions of intellectual opinions can University of Macau achieve its integrity and quality throughout these years. Again, on behalf of the university, I am deeply grateful for the support you’ve lent us and the confidence you have placed in us.

       While much of our work is being evaluated from regular degree courses, University of Macau has stepped up and started many research projects and scientific co-operation. Many overseas universities have been our main collaborators in a number of joint efforts. Due to the link in the past, our relation with Europe has been particularly close. This will remain so in the future with the strengthening of greater ties with the mainland, Asia, US, Australia and New Zealand. It is important to widen our global vision as an international community of scholars. Without weakening the mission of University of Macau as a higher educational institution providing talents for local industries, we seek to increase our outreach and visibility throughout the world, and at the same time, continue to be an intellectual think tank of Macau with an importance it deserves and needs in Macau.

       Thank you.

 

2.  (CETc3) 中等收入人群成为长三角社会主体

        伴随着长三角经济的迅猛发展,近年来一个庞大的中等收入人群在长三角迅速崛起,成为这一区域小康社会的主体。

        8年前,年轻的周伟怀揣梦想,从苏北来到“绸都”苏州市盛泽镇打工。如今,周伟已是当地众多小老板中的一员。他不仅在盛泽镇买了房子安了家,去年还买了一辆桑塔纳轿车,成为盛泽镇5000多名私家车拥有者之一。

        像周伟这样从打工者做到小老板的人,在盛泽镇很多,但他们只是当地中等收入人群中的一小部分。“盛泽镇有1000多家企业、4000多家贸易公司,全镇20万人口中年薪12万元以上的高薪人员至少有2万人。”盛泽镇党委书记姚林荣说,如果以年收入5万元以上作为中等收入的衡量指标,“在盛泽,绝大多数人都可被列入中等收入人群。”

        繁荣与富庶“写”在街头巷尾。7家商业银行在镇上密布了40余个网点,肯德基快餐厅、台湾“上岛咖啡”等著名连锁店,随处可见。街上钢琴行的老板说,每架万元以上的钢琴也很热销。一位乡镇干部说,在子女教育方面,盛泽人更是大笔花钱。8成的中等收入家庭将其子女送到苏州、上海等地的双语学校或民办寄宿学校读书。

        富裕的盛泽人只是长三角中等收入群体的一个缩影。在长三角,像盛泽这样的城镇星罗棋布。全国百强县中半数以上集中于此,全国经济实力最强的10个城市中,也有5个在此聚集。经济的发达与社会的开放,为中等收入群体提供了成长的土壤和表演的舞台。越来越多的经营者、企业高级管理人员、中介机构专业人员、科研人员、海外归来的留学生以及部分外企员工,跻身中等收入群体的行列。

        在这里,“中产”的途径可以是拥有高学历获得高年薪;可以是持有科技专利成果,享受智力分红;可以是自主创业,让资本增值;也可能是在资本市场上运作,时有所得。随着民资热潮汹涌,众多中等收入者不再满足于当“白领”,纷纷加入投资者的行列。从今年7月起,上海准许在职人员开公司就是应对这一新形势的举措。长三角中等收入人群的收入,正由过去按劳取酬为主,走向按智力、无形资产以及投资等分配的多元收益并行的格局。

        复旦大学产业经济研究所近日所作的“上海高收入阶层消费行为研究”表明,上海有房有车或有实力购房买车的“高收入阶层”,已占到总人口的15.4%。以此推算,上海中等收入人群的比例当逼近半数。这些收入稳定、家境殷实的中等收入人群,构成了长三角的支柱性消费群体。浙江省统计局城调队的调查显示,在这个省的中等收入家庭中,已购买住房的超过7成,拥有家用电脑的占4成多;在江苏,仅今年上半年私家车就增加了8万多辆;在上海,约有近2成的人拥有两套住房。无论是在买房、购车热,还是在游乐、教育等消费潮中,中等收入群体都扮演着长三角社会主流的角色。

 

3.  Translation - Crossing Languages

3.1 What is translation?

You are in school. On the whiteboard there are words in a foreign language. Your task is to understand their meaning and transfer it into English. The teacher glowers.[to look in an angry, aggressive way (OALD7)] The clock ticks. Sunlight slants across the room. Mistakes will be punished.

       The test is called ‘translation’.

       You are the 17th-century poet John Dryden. You have been brought up reading as much Latin as English; the writer you most love is Virgil. You translate and imitate Latin poems as often as you compose your own. But your own poems also include an element of translation because Latin and English words and phrases run together in your imagination as you write. Now, in the 1690s, towards the end of your career, you are translating the complete works of Virgil for publication in a big, expensive volume. You want to give new readers a sense of Virgil’s brilliance. You also want to dignify English literature by raising it to his level.

       That is another instance of translation.

       You are an Italian teenager. You are chatting to some friends. As is often the case, pretty much everywhere around the world, the group is multilingual. You say, ‘Ma dai, non ci credo!’ Your French friend says, ‘Quoi?’ You say, ‘I not believe it.’ The words that you’ve come out with don’t have the same nuance as what you said in Italian, and they are not in perfect Standard English either. But your friend still gets the gist.

       Is that translation?

       You are in hospital. Gravely, the doctor informs you that you have suffered a TIA. ‘That means,’ she says, ‘a transient ischaemic attack.’ Oh?’—you respond, enquiringly. She explains: ‘the blood supply to your brain was interrupted but then restored. It’s like a temporary little stroke.’

       What about that?—Is that translation?

       How about [what/how about sb/sth spoken 【口】used to ask a question that directs attention to another person or thing 某人/某物怎么样 [怎么办]〔用以将注意力转向另一人或另一物〕: What about Jack? We can't just leave him here. (LDoCE5)] what happens whenever anyone says anything? Or [You use or to introduce a comment which corrects or modifies what you have just said: The man was a fool, he thought, or at least incompetent... 他想道,那人是个傻瓜,或者说,至少很无能。(CB5)] what is happening now, as you read this text that I have written? Don’t we all know a slightly different range of words from one another, and use them slightly differently? Don’t we all, to that extent, speak a different language? Isn’t this obvious from the frequency with which we misunderstand each other, getting the wrong end of the stick? (What end of the stick did you just get?—to some readers that idiom will mean ‘misunderstand’ and to others ‘be short-changed’.)

       If that is so, then translation must happen when we speak or write or read or hear the language that we think of as our own just as much as languages we call foreign.

       But in that case why do we need the word translation at all? If translation is no different from communication in general why do we generally assume that it is?

       These brief, everyday instances have begun to show how nebulous the field of translation is, and how tricky it can be to think about. They also suggest a way for us to start. There is no point trying to insist on our own clear, rigid meaning for the word—no point trying to say, for instance, that translation only really happens between different standard national languages like Japanese and French and not between dialects or different varieties of the same language. There is no point asserting that a ‘true translation’ must catch the ‘spirit’ of the source text, or taking the opposite view (like Vladimir Nabokov) that it should aim at expository precision above all. If you take that sort of stance, you shut out the complexities that make the subject interesting: you stake a claim but don’t explore the territory.

       Instead, we need to look at the range of ways of doing things with words that can be thought of as translation, from what seem typical instances like Dryden’s Virgil or the classroom test to less obvious ones like the doctor’s explanation. We need to see how it matters whether we call something translation or not, and work out where to draw what sort of distinction. We need a map, one that registers the many features of the landscape: contours, boundaries, and conceptual marshy areas. To begin to sketch it, let’s look now at some more extended examples from the territory of translation in different historical moments and places around the globe.

 

3.2 The no man’s land between languages

       Japanese and Chinese overlap. The spoken languages are different, but the written forms have much in common. The reason is that the Chinese developed writing first, and when Japanese needed to be written down scribes simply borrowed the Chinese characters. During the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868) this state of affairs led to an activity that was both like and unlike the usual Western ideas of ‘translation’. Texts written in Classical Chinese were made intelligible by a process known as ‘漢文訓読’, kanbun-kundoku, which means, roughly, ‘Chinese text, Japanese reading’. Faced with a piece of Chinese writing, a scholar would add little marks to show how the characters would be arranged in Japanese: this made the text intelligible to someone who could not speak Chinese but had been trained in kanbun-kundoku. A further step was to rewrite the characters in Japanese order, and add signs for pronunciation: a text like this could be understood by most literate Japanese people.

       Kanbun-kundoku does not transfer meaning between two languages. Rather, it creates a sort of no-man’s land that readers of one language can enter to make sense of writing in another. ‘This is quite different from how translation functions in the West!’ we might exclaim. But is it? This morning I received a spam email in German and put a sentence into Google Translate. The result: ‘in Germany alone there are around 25 million signs that help to make the road and to make safe for all road users’. The individual words are correct Standard English but the idiom and grammar have a German shape. Here, as with kanbun-kundoku, the writing is neither completely in one language nor completely in another.

       Google Translate is of course a fairly recent development. People sometimes make fun of it for producing this sort of translation which feels strange or incomplete. But in fact lots of translation is like this, and always has been. Think of the last time you had a conversation with someone whose first language was not your own. Just like our Italian teenager from a moment ago, their use of your language was probably not perfect—nor perhaps your use of theirs. Translations done in a rush, or else done very carefully as word-for-word cribs,[(informal) written information such as answers to questions, often used dishonestly by students in tests (考试作弊用的)夹带: a crib sheet (OALD7) 小抄] can have a similar feel. There is a technical term—‘translationese’—for this way of putting words together which falls between two tongues.

       ‘Translationese’ is often used to voice a criticism: ‘this isn’t a successful translation—it’s translationese’. But the language of translations is almost always at least a bit different from the language of texts that have not been translated. This strangeness can be a source of poetry. In Ezra Pound’s collection of poems Cathay the arrangement of the English words is modelled on Chinese and Japanese writing:

 

Blue, blue is the grass about the river

And the willows have overfilled the close garden.

       Another famous example is the King James Bible whose cadences,[a modulation of the voice in reading aloud as implied by the structure and ordering of words and phrases in written text. 抑扬顿挫(书面文字因词语结构、用词语序安排而在被读出时会有的声音效果): the dry cadences of the essay. 这篇随笔散文枯燥生硬的行文语调节奏 (NOECD)] influenced by the Hebrew and Greek from which it was translated, seemed challengingly foreign when it was published in 1611. Yet, over centuries of repetition, the King James Bible’s translationese came to seem familiar to many English speakers. Some even judged it to be an ideal of English style.

       Across history, and around the world, linguistic oddities created by translation have been absorbed into the texture of national languages. This is what happened to thousands of Latin words that were drawn into English during the 16th century. There was cross-pollination [1. The transfer of pollen from an anther of the flower of one plant to a stigma of the flower of another plant. 异花传粉:花粉从某一植物的花药传到另一植物的花柱上的转移过程 2. Influence or inspiration between or among diverse elements 相互影响,相互启发:种类不同的因素之间的相互影响或启发 (AHD4) 译者注:根据语言转借的历史常识,此处作者用的应是第1义。] between German and the classical languages at the start of the 19th century, and between Japanese and European languages at its end. Similar processes are happening all around the globe right now as English is used for cross-cultural communication by people who know it as their second or third or fourth language, and who re-shape it to suit their location and their needs.

       Here is the first discovery for our map. Translation does not simply jump from one language to another. It also ‘crosses languages’ in the sense of blending them, as you might cross a bulldog with a borzoi, or two varieties of rose.

 

3.3 Diplomatic translation

       In England, in the 16th-century court of Queen Elizabeth, letters arrived from the Ottoman Sultan Murad III. They had been composed in Turkish and then re-written by the Sultan’s translator, his dragoman, in Italian, a language which Elizabeth and her courtiers could understand.

       Murad assumed that he was the grandest ruler in the world, and he thought of Elizabeth as a minor potentate [a monarch or ruler, especially an autocratic one (NOECD)]: his letter claimed that she had ‘demonstrated her subservience and devotion’ (izhar-i ubudiyet ve ihlas). The dragoman realized that Elizabeth might not be very pleased to know this. His most important aim in translating was not to transfer meaning between languages. If he did that, he risked causing an international crisis or losing his head. For the dragoman, translation was crucially a matter of keeping open a channel of communication, of greasing the wheels of diplomacy. So he wrote that Elizabeth had demonstrated, not ‘subservience’, but sincera amicizia (‘sincere friendship’).

       This aspect of translation—mediation, the avoidance of conflict—is crucial in diplomatic negotiation. Figure 1 shows another instance: the translator and diplomat Amédée Jaubert (with the open hand) is advising the Persian envoy, Mirza Mohammed Reza Qazvini, who is about to meet Napoleon to form an alliance. The same consideration comes into play whenever mutually acceptable phrasing is negotiated among the twenty-four official languages of the European Union. In the charged environment of a war zone, lives can depend on an interpreter’s tact in choosing words.

       In fact, every act of translation negotiates between two powers. The aim of conveying what a speaker or source text is saying has to be tempered by an awareness of what the listener or reader is prepared to take on board. So our second orientation point is this: all translation involves diplomacy.

 

[此处有插图一幅]

 

3.4 Crowd translation

       In China, in the first few centuries of what people in the West call ‘ad’ or ‘the common era’, Buddhist holy texts were being translated. Typically no written source was present. A monk, who might have travelled from India, and who knew a Sutra by heart, would recite it bit by bit, perhaps in Sanskrit, perhaps in one of several possible intermediary languages. An assembly of as many as a thousand linguistic and religious experts would listen, ponder, and debate until they reached an interpretation of each phrase; a scribe would then record the result in Chinese brushwork characters.

       It is easy to see that translation in this case is more complicated than it is often thought to be. The monk’s words are translated, not only between languages, but from speech to writing. With the change of medium, a great deal shifts. Sound and intonation are lost; and visual form is gained. Some ambiguities disappear while others flower [(literary) to develop and become successful 成熟;繁荣;兴旺 =blossom (OALD7)] (this happens in all languages, including English: try reading out ‘she hit me with a scull’: would a listener hear ‘scull’ or ‘skull’?) In fact, translation often crosses media as well as languages: subtitles are a modern, everyday example.

       The Chinese Buddhist scenario also seems unusual because translation is done by a crowd rather than a single translator. But this too is less rare than you might think. It took forty-seven scholars working in teams to create the 1611 King James Bible. In 1680, a famous translation of Ovid’s Epistles was done by John Dryden and ‘several hands’. More recently, translations of Joyce into French and Proust into English have shared out the work between several translators. Websites offer quick translation services which are typically done by translators working in trios or pairs. Crowd-sourcing platforms allow translations to be done by large numbers of volunteers; and any translator can draw on shared knowledge by posting a question to an online forum. Machine translation software also draws on the labour of crowds. It searches many previous translations in order to find the best fit for whatever phrase you ask it to translate.

       Crowd translation is helpful simply for coping with large volumes of text. But it also shows us something crucial about the sort of interpretation that translators engage in. The reason why the King James Bible was translated by committee was not just that it was big: after all, the Bible (or large portions of it), had been translated by individuals before, such as St Jerome, Luther, and Tyndale. The translators needed to arrive at a version that was in harmony with the community they were translating for—the recently established Church of England—and the faith that they communally held. The translators brought their Church’s assumptions with them to the work of translation. They translated their source text in line with meanings that their faith told them it must have. Modern machine translation also does its best to produce text that will be acceptable to its users.

       In fact, all translators feel some pressure from the community of readers for whom they are doing their work. And all translators arrive at their interpretations in dialogue with other people. The English poet Alexander Pope had pretty good Greek, but when he set about translating Homer’s Iliad in the early 18th century he was not on his own. He had Greek commentaries to refer to, and translations that had already been done in English, Latin, and French—and of course he had dictionaries. Translators always draw on more than one source text. Even when the scene of translation consists of just one person with a pen, paper, and the book that is being translated, or even when it is just one person translating orally for another, that person’s linguistic knowledge arises from lots of other texts and other conversations. And then his or her idea of the translation’s purpose will be influenced by the expectations of the person or people it is for. In both these senses (this is our third key discovery) every translation is a crowd translation.

 

3.5 Let me count the ways

       When Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her celebrated sonnet ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’, she pretended it was a translation, one of the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ that were concealed at the back of her book Poems (1850). She did this out of shyness, because she wanted nobody to guess how personal the poems were. But the title also pointed to the idea that love-sonnets are always in a sense translations because they derive from a trans-linguistic tradition and cannot help re-using material from elsewhere. The first sonnets in English, in the 16th century, were translations of Petrarch by Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the language of love draws thoughts and images from many languages. Poetry is often said to be untranslatable. In fact, translation is at the root of much poetry, and at the heart of what might—at a casual glance—seem like separate national literary traditions.

       In these opening pages we have already discovered some perhaps unexpected truths. Translation mixes languages. Translation always involves diplomacy. All translation is crowd translation. We are beginning to see that translation can be done in a variety of ways—but only beginning. Let me (very quickly) count the ways of doing things with language that are commonly thought of as translation.

       Translation can seem to turn one written or printed text into another: perhaps this is the most common idea of it. But translation actually makes one text out of several, for (as we saw with Pope) translators inevitably draw on previous linguistic encounters. It can transform written texts into spoken ones, for instance if you translate while reading aloud; and it can make spoken text written, as in the Chinese Sutra translations. It can transpose one spoken utterance into another, as in oral interpreting; and turn recorded speech into different recorded speech (as in dubbing)—or into celluloid or digital subtitles. And it can turn digital text into more digital text, as when your browser takes you to a foreign website and asks, ‘Translate this page?’

       Translation can move between sign language and spoken language, between pictograms and alphabetic words, and between print and digital multimedia formats. It can set to work on religious books; on poems, novels, and plays; on technical manuals, political speeches, diplomatic negotiations, lawbooks, scientific articles, jokes, insults, ancient inscriptions, declarations of war, and everyday conversation.

       Translation can cross languages that have much in common—for example, English and French—and languages that are very distant—like English and Malay; it can span languages that share the same script system (Japanese and Korean) and those that don’t (Japanese and Arabic or German); it can go between dialects (or between a dialect and a language) or between different words of the same language, as when our doctor a few moments ago translated ‘Transient Ischaemic Attack’ into ‘like a temporary little stroke’.

       Translation can be done by one person, or several, or hundreds—or by machine. It can be a matter of life and death, as in a war zone; or an ordinary part of everyday existence in a multilingual community.

       All these instances belong in and around the territory of translation. They all use words to stand in for other words. But there are also large differences between them, and they happen in varied terrains. If we are to pinpoint them on our map, we need to explore how translation relates to other kinds of re-wording.

 

4.  (CETaL) 南京2014年夏季青年奥运会申办报告: 主题13 交通

[S1]

关键点

        城市交通基础设施不需专门改造建设

        青奥会将建立一套完善的交通系统

        30分钟车程抵达绝大多数场馆

        公共交通系统为青奥会免费开放

 

13.1     交通理念

        南京城市交通网络系统发达,交通基础设施不需要专门为青奥会改造建设即可满足比赛需要;南京城际交通网络系统完善,拥有国际级的交通基础设施,完全能够为青奥会提供优质的交通服务。青奥会期间,组委会还将构建一套完善的青奥会交通网络系统,通过青奥会班车、公交专线、地铁等多种形式直接连通青奥村、比赛场馆、国际奥委会酒店、媒体中心和相关配套设施。

城际路网系统

        高速铁路网。南京与周边城市都已开通快速铁路,交通便利。2010年,南京与上海将建成最高时速超过300公里的城际铁路,到2014年前,还将开通最高时速为350公里的高速铁路。届时参加青奥会的各国青年如果从上海到南京仅需1个小时即可抵达亚洲第一大火车站——南京南站。该站距离青奥村约10千米,乘车9分钟即可进入青奥村。高速铁路网还将使南京成为1小时交通圈的中心,通达范围覆盖10多个城市的1亿人口。

        高速公路网。南京周边高速公路网发达,高速公路密度达到7.6公里/百平方千米,位居全国中心城市第二位。2014年,南京周边10万人口以上城镇,都将直通高速公路,高速公路时速达120千米

        城市道路网。2014年,南京的城市快速路网全面建成,共有8条快速路。城区任何一个地方出行,能确保15分钟上城市快速内环,再用15分钟可上高速公路,直接通上海等周边城市。

 

[S2]

城市交通系统

        地铁系统。2014年,南京地铁运营线路将包括1号线、1号线南延线、2号线、2号线东延线,拥有83.5千米的线路、80列车辆和57座车站。地铁3号线即将开工建设,有望在2014年建成。地铁运营时间每天超过17个小时,行车间隔为4分钟,青奥会期间还将延长时间,增加行车密度。地铁票价为人民币2元(30美分)。

        公交系统。南京共有5家公交运营商、398条营运线路、5541辆营运车辆,营运线路总长达6037.4公里,年客运总量10亿人次以上,票价为12元(1530美分)。青奥会期间,将增开到各比赛场馆的青奥会专线,满足观众看赛需求。

        出租车系统。南京拥有营运出租车9940辆,从业人员约2万人,出租车起步价人民币9元(约1.5美元)。青奥会期间,出租车系统将为青奥会提供优质服务。

青奥会交通系统

        青奥会期间,组委会将在城市交通系统的基础上,构建一套完善的青奥会交通系统,以青奥村为中心,辐射所有体育竞赛场馆、训练场馆、文化教育场馆、国际奥委会酒店、各媒体中心及相关配套场馆设施,并与城际路网系统自然衔接,为青奥会提供安全可靠、高效免费的交通服务。

        青奥会交通指挥中心是青奥会交通系统的核心,由南京公安交管部门有经验的交通指挥团队直接负责,按照青奥会赛程安排,制定科学的智能化交通管理方案,统一调度、管理青奥会交通,保证各交通系统之间的协调有序。

        青奥会班车服务。组委会将按照比赛赛程和各场馆的实际情况,制定青奥会班车服务计划,在青奥村、各场馆、国际奥委会酒店、媒体中心、机场、火车站等相关设施间开通青奥会专线班车,负责场馆间的穿梭运输服务。所有班车将安装GPS系统,方便统一调度,确保车辆和人员的安全。

        青奥会专用车道。组委会将在各场馆间的道路上开设青奥会专用车道,并为青奥会专用车辆配备统一的青奥会车辆号牌,保障青奥会专用车辆在各场馆和设施之间的快速通行。

        青奥会专用车辆。组委会将为国际奥委会官员、贵宾和相关工作人员提供配备清洁能源的青奥会专用车辆。

        青奥会鼓励使用清洁能源。青奥会交通系统内的所有车辆都将使用液化气等清洁能源,成为“绿色车辆”。城市的出租车、公交车等公共交通工具将提升使用清洁能源的比例,减少温室气体排放。组委会将提供自行车租赁服务,鼓励青奥会参加者用自行车代步。

 

[S3]

13.2     交通基础设施

        南京现有的交通基础设施能够满足青奥会的办赛需要,并且正在规划建设一批新的交通基础设施,到2014年完全能够为青奥会的举办提供完善的交通设施保障,不需为青奥会专门改造和建设新的交通基础设施。

        正在规划建设的新的交通基础设施请参照表13.2

        [13.2]

 

13.3     机场情况

        南京禄口国际机场是青奥会的主要机场,同时,上海浦东国际机场和北京首都国际机场也可为青奥会各代表团提供优质服务。不能直达南京的旅客既可以通过上海浦东国际机场转乘京沪高速铁路1小时抵达南京,也可以通过北京首都国际机场转机,1个多小时后即可到达南京。

        南京禄口国际机场是中国大型枢纽机场、航空货物与快件集散中心。目前机场有一条跑道、一座候机楼、15座登机桥,年客运能力达到1200万人次,已开通45个国内城市、12个国际(地区)城市的航线。国际(地区)航线已延伸至法兰克福、东京、大阪、首尔、新加坡、曼谷、吉隆坡、普吉、沙巴、台北、香港、澳门等城市。该机场正在进行大规模扩建,将新增一条跑道、一座候机楼,到2014年之前,年客运能力将达到3000万人次,国际航线进一步增加。

        禄口国际机场到国际奥委会酒店、青年奥运村和主媒体中心采用的交通方式是乘坐专用巴士,距离约40公里。青奥会期间,禄口国际机场将开通青奥会专用通道,并为青奥会持证人员提供免费的机场交通服务。

        上海浦东国际机场是中国最大的机场之一,距离南京303公里。该机场拥有3条跑道、2个航站楼、218个停车位、70座登机桥,最大年客运能力达6000万人次,航线覆盖90多个国际(地区)和70多个国内城市。

        不能直达南京的旅客可自由选择铁路交通或公路交通转抵南京。铁路交通有沪宁城际铁路和京沪高速铁路,最高时速分别是300公里350公里,采取24小时运营,上海到南京最快只需1小时。公路交通有沪宁高速公路和国道312一级公路,提供巴士客运专线。

        北京首都国际机场是中国地理位置最重要、规模最大的国际机场,是亚太地区的枢纽机场,也是北京奥运会的主要机场,距南京1000公里,拥有3座航站楼、双塔台、3条跑道,开通了国内、国际航点187个,年吞吐量超过6400万人次,已进入世界八大机场行列。预计2014年,该机场的年吞吐量将近8000万人次。

        不能直达南京的旅客可选择从北京转机或转乘高速铁路抵达南京。北京至南京的飞行时间1小时40分钟,乘坐高速铁路仅3个多小时即可抵达南京。

        [13.4]

 

[S4]

13.5     运行目标

        ●完善的路网格局为青奥会人员和市民提供及时、便捷的交通服务。

        ●便捷的客运体系为来自各地的观众提供准时、可靠的交通服务。

        ●智能化的交通管理手段保证南京的交通运转正常有序。

 

13.6     交通服务

        对参加青奥会的官员、工作人员、运动员提供以专用空调巴士为主的交通服务,交通警察将保障青奥会车辆的优先通行,确保整个交通系统的安全、舒适。

        观众和市民实行以地铁和公交为主、出租车为辅的交通方式。开辟场馆专线,确保观众能够安全、便捷地直达青奥会各场馆。

   

13.7     交通管制方法

        南京市公安交通管理部门和青奥会组委会将为赛会创造良好的交通环境。对城市道路,特别是通往场馆的道路运行状况,通过电子设备进行实时监控,并安排交通警察进行实时管理。

        青奥会还将通过设置专用车道,提供专用工作车辆,开行专线班车等各种方法为整个赛事提供安全、通畅的交通保障,同时,把对居民出行的影响降到最低。

 

13.8     门票和交通政策

        青奥会鼓励使用公共交通。所有持证人员在青奥会期间享受免费乘坐公交车和地铁的待遇;观众也可凭门票在观赛当日享受此项免费服务。

        通往赛事场馆运送观众的车辆,允许在青奥会专用道上行驶,便于持票观众更快抵达赛场。

        在比赛的当日,将安排相关公交车辆、地铁等延长运行时间,增加运行班次,缩短运行间隔时间,为观众和市民提供更为人性化的服务。

 

13.9     青奥会期间的责任

        交通管理指挥中心统一调配、指挥全市道路交通运行。同时设立安保指挥中心、交通现场指挥部及分指挥部,建立指挥通畅的指挥调度网络。

        交通管理指挥中心受南京市公安局指挥中心和青奥会安保指挥中心指挥。

        南京市公安局交通管理局提供担保书。

        担保书请参见担保文件13.9部分。

 

5.  (ECTc1) On Wisdom

I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and the now. We cannot help the egoism of our senses. Sight and sound and touch are bound up with our own bodies and cannot be made impersonal. Our emotions start similarly from ourselves. An infant feels hunger or discomfort, and is unaffected except by his own physical condition. Gradually with the years, his horizon widens, and, in proportion as his thoughts and feelings become less personal and less concerned with his own physical states, he achieves growing wisdom. This is of course a matter of degree. No one can view the world with complete impartiality; and if anyone could, he would hardly be able to remain alive. But it is possible to make a continual approach towards impartiality, on the one hand, by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and, on the other hand, by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings. It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom.

       Can wisdom be taught? And, if it can, should the teaching of it be one of the aims of education? I should answer both these questions in the affirmative. I think that the disastrous results of hatred and narrow-mindedness to those who feel them can be pointed out incidentally in the course of giving knowledge. I do not think that knowledge and morals ought to be too much separated. It is true that the kind of specialized knowledge which is required for various kinds of skill has very little to do with wisdom. But it should be supplemented in education by wider surveys calculated to put it in its place in the total of human activities. Even the best technicians should also be good citizens; and when I say “citizens,” I mean citizens of the world and not of this or that sect or nation. With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity of realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now.

 

6.  (ECTc3) Football Hooliganism

(INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTS EDUCATIONAL TRUST [IOL]. DipTran Examination: General Translation [Paper 1: Compulsory Examination])

DIPLOMA IN TRANSLATION

DT/2003/ENGLISH/PAPER 1

PAPER 1: GENERAL TRANSLATION WITH OPTIONAL ANNOTATIONS

For information only, not to be translated: the following was taken from a speech on security at international football matches delivered at the Plenary Session of the European Parliament in April 2002, by a Member of the PSE Group of the Party of European Socialists. Translate into your target language for a general readership.

 

TRANSLATION TO BEGIN HERE:

Mr President, Colleagues,

       Firstly I would like to inform the House that the PSE Group welcomes this report and the measures in it intended to prevent the activities of hooligans and organised thugs at matches. We will, however, need to monitor the way these monitoring centres carry out their functions to ensure that the football community is fully engaged in the exchange of information. Most important of all is the need to ensure adequate resources both in financial and personnel terms.

       On Friday, I visited the football intelligence unit in Greater Manchester police service. Unfortunately, we have a wealth of experience and expertise in tackling football related violence in my city. The Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police has read this report and he welcomes the initiative in the light of what he calls “different standards in dealing, for example, with Manchester United away fixtures and England away fixtures”. On Friday, the unit was preparing for two key matches on Saturday. One of those was Oldham versus Stoke City: the last time these two teams had met, known hooligans had rampaged through the town, wrecking property and attacking people. In the UK we have pro-active football legislation to deal with our hooligan problems. This allows us to impose banning orders; so, when a hundred of those fans arrived in Oldham, they were immediately arrested because they are banned from attending any matches. Those banning orders also apply to international matches.

       The football intelligence unit has a sophisticated database of so-called “football prominents”, using the latest digital image technology to update and record cases. Let me tell you where the unit believes the EU information exchange system has to do better: 150 fans were deported from Charleroi in June 2000. Among those arriving in Manchester airport were Belgian nationals, some of whom may not have been involved in hooliganism at all. Rounding up and deportation without prosecution does nothing to help the intelligence network on hooliganism. A list of the deportees was then sent to the intelligence unit: very useful as far as it went, but the accompanying report contained no information. Officers could not read it because it was not in English, and they could not act on it because the information did not allow for any further action due to prosecution or conviction. During Euro ’96, German fans arrived in Manchester. As a result of German data protection and privacy laws, no list of known hooligans could be passed on to the local intelligence forces and the officers working in the unit therefore had no information accessible in a usable format to tackle the hooligans. So there is an issue here in that we do need to standardise our information formats while recognising that there are different cultures on policing and information collection across the EU.

       We need to deal with hooliganism pro-actively, not re-actively. On the issue of cost, no doubt it would be useful to have a study on whether clubs should pay more for the policing of hooliganism. The difficulty is, however, who pays those costs after hours in cities where football hooligans are still engaged in activities.

       In 2004 we will be hosting the final of the European championships at Old Trafford in Manchester. Our priority has to be to protect the law-abiding supporter and clamp down on hooligans who spoil the game. We need a practical, pro-active approach to information sharing for national monitoring centres. Their existence alone will not guarantee the end of football hooliganism. I therefore urge this House to adopt the report that we are discussing as it contains immensely valuable recommendations.

 

6. (ECTc2) Bush Behind the Smiles

On his 10-day trip to Asia this week, President George W. Bush is likely to get a polite reception for his ambitious agenda. He wants to rally allies to the war on terror, the confrontation with North Korea and the expansion of transpacific trade. He’ll be asking Japan and China to allow their currencies to get stronger, so they will find it cheaper to buy more goods from struggling U.S. manufacturers (and give American exports a boost just as the U.S. presidential-election season is gathering steam). Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese will say no outright, but they won’t say yes, either. Below the polite ambiguities, something disturbing is happening, at least from an American viewpoint.

For all its military power, political clout and economic might, America could be losing its influence in what is arguably the most dynamic region of the world. Big changes are happening in Asia, for which America’s policies are increasingly out of step. Washington’s preoccupations the mess in Iraq, the jobless recovery and the escalating fiscal deficit at home are not Asia’s preoccupations. When Bush looks into the future, he sees an American Century with a troubled story line dominated by the fight against terror.

Asians will say the right things about helping with the war on terrorism in order to extract concessions from Bush more military aid here, a bilateral free-trade agreement there, less serious arm-twisting on currencies in a third instance. But this won’t change the basic problem. Asia’s main global interest is in international economic polices that help sustain its ongoing boom. And on that front, U. S. leadership is now much weaker than Asians expect.

Yet Asia can push only so hard. The ties among countries in the region are growing stronger, but there is no equivalent to the European Union, and each country sees its relationship with the United States as equally important to those with its neighbors. Each badly needs access to American markets. Most Asian leaders are deeply opposed to the unilateral, pre-emptive way that Washington went to war in Iraq, but they are less bitter about it than Europeans are. Moreover, most Asian leaders want attention from Uncle Sam but not too much lest Washington become overbearing. For many of them, 10 days of President Bush’s hopscotching across the region, shaking hands and giving toasts to no real effect, might be just about right.

The Asian future looks bright even if nothing comes of the Bush trip. Japan may be at last emerging from a decade of recession and seems poised to seek greater political and even military status around the world. China is growing at breakneck speed and, as so nicely symbolized by its successful space launch last week, is making world-class technological strides. The countries hobbled by the financial crisis of the late 1990s ― Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea have rebounded, and they are more skeptical now of listening to the American free-market policy prescriptions that many feel got them into trouble in the first place. There’s lots of talk of free-trade pacts in the region and closer security agreements. Hundreds of millions of new Asian consumers with spending power are entering the global market, and the supply systems of virtually every major multinational company from the United States and Europe are more and more dependent on their Asian networks.

Increasingly, Washington’s policies are falling short of the leadership that the world has a right to expect from America. Take trade. Throughout most of the 1990s, Washington pushed hard for multilateral agreements that lowered barriers and created dispute-settlement mechanisms for all countries, capped by the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994. Soon after, Washington led an international effort to get China into the WTO. No one would say that the accords were perfect, but the United States was building a system in which Asian economies would prosper.

Today U.S. interest in building global institutions has clearly waned. Washington seems more interested in concluding bilateral free-trade agreements, often with political allies. Asian nations will sign these accords because they want access to the American market any way they can get it. But over time, so many different arrangements, each with different provisions and wrinkles, will fragment the global trading system as much as open it up. On his trip, Bush will be accelerating this process by advancing new bilateral-trade deals from Australia to Thailand.

He’ll also be trailing the specter of rising protectionism in America. There is quite legitimate fear in the United States that the “jobless” recovery may not be a temporary phenomenon and that at least part of the problem may be the outsourcing of millions of jobs, particularly to China and India. That fear has inspired calls for sanctions against Asian imports, and the pressure on Tokyo and Beijing to allow their currencies to appreciate in value. From the Asian standpoint the risks of upwardly floating currencies are too great, and therefore Washington is banging on a closed door.

Japan, for example, is unlikely to allow a stronger yen to impede its recovery. China fears that floating the yuan could worsen the bad-debt problems in its banking system and precipitate a financial crisis. In both cases, while currency appreciation could help American exporters somewhat, Americans and Asians would benefit far more from a change in Asian economic strategy that places less emphasis on exports for growth and much more on domestic consumption. That’s the big, chronic economic problem in U.S.-Asian economic relations, but it’s unlikely to be discussed.

Ironically, President Bush will arrive in Asia as the embodiment of the world’s only true superpower, but one that has become dependent on Asia. Asian nations are amassing huge trade surpluses with the United States. Their central banks are investing their excess cash in U.S. Treasury securities, thereby keeping down American interest rates. American budget and trade deficits have become so large that there is no substitute for these foreign funds.

And perhaps it’s unfair to think that a 10-day whirlwind tour might begin to deal with so many fundamental questions. But it’s hard not to feel that there is a missed opportunity for Washington to build more meaningful ties to Asia. If the diverging interests of U.S. and Asian leaders are ignored on this visit, they will come back at some other time, and probably in even more troubling ways.

(1070 words)

 

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