Translation in Hong Kong: Past, Present and Future.

• Author: Erbaugh, Mary S.
• Position: Book Review

Edited by CHAN SIN-WAI. Hung Kong: CHINESE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2001. Pp. xv + 282. $19.50. [Distributed by University of Michigan Press.]

U.S. President Bush mocks Americans who even attempt to speak French. In most of the world, including Hung Kong, translation is valued as the serious, complex and high-stakes issue so well depicted in this volume. Hong Kong's people are ninety-seven percent ethnic Chinese, and ninety-five percent Cantonese-speaking, yet the government employs almost six hundred professional translators. The "Basic Law," Hong Kong's mini-Constitution, recognizes that both Chinese and English may be used for official purposes. This diplomatic recognition of English finesses a very complicated language scene. "Chinese" (zhongwen) refers to the unified written language, with no mention of either Mandarin or Cantonese, the latter about as different from Mandarin as German is from English. Hong Kong's goal is for all its citizens to master "two written languages and three spoken ones" (liang wen san yu).

Cantonese is central to Hong Kong identity. The majority of Hong Kong people speak little or no Mandarin, though most are eager to learn. Hong Kong radio, television, and film contain almost no Mandarin. English, meanwhile, remains the language of most of the courts and the Legislative Council, the official language of higher education, and an indispensable medium for cross-border trade and relations, both internationally and with the mainland. Yet only about five percent of Hong Kong people understand English well enough to follow a movie without Chinese subtitles (Yiu Po Kwong's chapter, p. 193). Negotiating this rapidly changing reality are Hong Kong's professional translators and translation instructors, some of whom are the contributors to this volume.

We often think of translators as rendering literary masterpieces such as Dream of the Red Chamber, as the chapters by Yau Wai Ping, Liu Ching-chih, and Eva Hung Wai Yee of Renditions make clear. But the reality for professional translators is tough and wide-ranging, sometimes with life and death stakes. Liberal arts graduates are asked to translate highly technical engineering and scientific documents (David Lam Kui Kwong). Hong Kong interpreters work for the police and for the courts, where many judges still do not speak Chinese. Hong Kong's entire legal code was drafted in archaic English. Property deeds and other legal documents used to be English-only. The heroic effort to...