撰写On November 26th, Li Xuejun, director of the Translation Office of Xinhua News Agency, published an article entitled "Why Trump Translated into Trump instead of Trump". The article pointed out that the official mainstream media such as Xinhua News Agency, CCTV and People’s Daily all unified the Chinese translation of the newly elected president of the United States as "Donald Trump", but some media, websites and scholars have always insisted on using the translation name "donald trump". According to the article, many people question the translation of Trump, so the author gives three reasons for Trump’s translation into Trump instead of Trump.
US President-elect Donald Trump (data map)
The following is the full text of the article:
The US presidential election has long been settled, but the dispute over the Chinese translation of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who won the election, seems to have just begun.
The official mainstream media such as Xinhua News Agency, CCTV and People’s Daily all unified the Chinese translation of the newly elected president of the United States as "Donald Trump", but at the same time, some media, websites and scholars have always insisted on using the translation of "donald trump".
I have also heard many people’s doubts about the translated name "Trump", thinking that the Chinese translated name is not in line with Trump’s English pronunciation, and "Trump" is closer to Trump’s pronunciation. I have also seen an article that Trump should be translated as "Trump" instead of "Trump". Practically speaking, from the pronunciation, "Trump" is closer to Trump’s pronunciation. If the name Trump is translated on the basis of facts and without considering other factors, the Xinhua News Agency’s name translation office will definitely translate Trump into "Trump". But why is the name of the newly elected president of the United States determined to be "Trump" instead of "Trump"?
And listen to me slowly to you:
First, translating Trump into "Trump" has a long history.
In the 1950s, Premier Zhou instructed that the translation of foreign languages should be unified and centralized in Xinhua News Agency. Under the instruction of Premier Zhou, more than 10 units, including Xinhua News Agency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Military Commission, Ministry of Education and International Liaison Department, sent people to hold a meeting to discuss the unified translation of names. At the meeting, it was agreed that Xinhua News Agency should first draw up a transliteration table, and established the principle of "the name should follow the owner and be established by convention", which took the first step towards the unification of translated names throughout the country. On July 24, 1956, the party group of Xinhua News Agency decided to set up a translation group (later renamed the translation room). According to the spirit of the meeting attended by various units, the translation group successively formulated English-Chinese transliteration tables, French-Chinese transliteration tables and other national transliteration tables. Subsequently, the foreign language translation department decided to concentrate on a dozen comrades to make a translation manual. At that time, the comrades in the translation group collected the existing translation cards, foreign names in English dictionaries and foreign names in various reference books, typed them into draft materials in alphabetical order, and then published them by the Commercial Press, titled "Handbook of English Names Translation", commonly known as "English Hundreds of Surnames", which was an important achievement in the unification of translation names. This book was first published in May 1965, and was later revised, supplemented and reprinted many times. It is considered as the most authoritative English name translation reference book in China.
After reading the Handbook of English Names Translation and the Dictionary of World Names Translation published by China Foreign Translation Publishing Company entrusted by the Translation Office of Xinhua News Agency, Trump translated it into "Trump". It can be said that this is the most important basis for the Chinese translation of Trump, the newly elected president of the United States, as "Trump".
As for why the predecessors of the translation room translated Trump into "Trump" in the first place, there is no way to verify it, and now it seems that it is indeed debatable to translate Trump into "Trump" in the first place. However, in view of the fact that this translation has been used for more than 50 years, according to the principle of "established practice" in foreign language translation, this translation will not be changed easily.
An interesting phenomenon about the dispute over the Chinese translation of the new president of the United States is that many people think that Trump should be translated as "Trump", but few people seem to question the accuracy of Donald’s translation as "Donald". In fact, from the pronunciation point of view, translating Donald into "Donald", the Chinese translation of the name is not the same as its pronunciation. If the name Donald is translated now, it should be translated as "Donald" instead of "Donald". However, Donald has been translated into Donald instead of Donald for a long time, just as Trump has been translated into Trump instead of Trump for a long time. This is the principle of "established practice" in foreign language translation.
Maybe someone will ask: won’t the wrong translation be changed? Is it always going to be wrong?
Needless to say, there must be many shortcomings and mistakes in the Handbook of English Names Translation and the Dictionary of World Names Translation. Of course, some obvious mistakes should be corrected and revised, and the translation office is duty-bound to do so. However, if it involves the translation of some long-used world dignitaries, we must be cautious, and easy changes may lead to confusion.
As we all know, in the translation of names, "convention" has always been a very important guiding principle. Many important figures in world history, such as Arthur Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, two famous prime ministers in British history, the former translated as "Chamberlain" and the latter as "Churchill", Franklin Roosevelt, president of the United States during World War II, and Joseph Stalin, the supreme leader of the former Soviet Union. At that time, the translator made these foreign historical figures surnamed Zhang, Qiu, Luo and Si respectively, leaving a story in the history of foreign language translation. If we follow the current translation rules, we will definitely not translate them like this, but according to the principle of "established practice", we must use the names that have been used all the time when it comes to them, otherwise people will be confused.