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SPECULATIONS

Since

August 2001

Process and Symbol

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The language of culture. Not only is Chinese culture much different from Western, but the Chinese use of spoken language is very different from that of most Western societies.

Westerners typically process direct information at its face (essentially superficial) value. But Chinese dialects are symbolic languages. Words and phrases often do not relate directly to objects, actions, nor even first-blush implications. The direct information provided can be the least important element of the exchange, and, when taken alone, can be quite misleading. Westerners, with their reliance on translators who provide literal translations, often come away confused at the results of their intended dialogue. After such flops, it is not uncommon to hear the Western party accuse the Chinese of misrepresentation, when in fact, the translation, not the actions nor the intended meaning of their Chinese counterpart's words, is the root of the problem.

Given these peculiar but basic differences, how can currently available "Star Trek" technologies assist East-West communication? A brief discussion of Chinese language and culture may provide some insights.

The Myth of the "Red Monolith"

Somehow over the course of the 20th century, a strange myth has arisen-- partly fostered by the Communist government of China, which indeed has sought to unify the Chinese people into "One China," to an extent far beyond that which had heretofore existed. But...!

Contrary to the superficiality of this popular myth, China is emphatically not a monolithic culture. China is a conglomeration of a great number of separate local cultures into a vast national empire. Western style unified nationalism, so ingrained to us, is a recent phenomenon in China. Historians trace it to turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Chinese reformers who helped throw off the Ming dynasty. While certain components of nationalistic thought influence China's international relationships, and some internal activities, still, Chinese cultures retain divided loyalties. Thus, at every level, from family to nation (and beyond!), groups exist which regard certain other groups as "outsiders," while still others are accepted as "members." At the international level this can be seen in the importance which Chinese place on being able to define their non-Chinese counterparts as "friends of China."

Like the U.S.'s recent (even current) experience, China's early history was one of an amalgamation of disparate tribes, and later, of entire nation-cultures. These tribes had many geographically isolated origins, with the expected, characteristically different languages and customs. Centuries of wars, genocides, unifications, intermarriages, and just plain elbow-rubbing has changed that culturally diverse landscape toward one wherein, at the very least, the disjointed elements are all certainly aware of one another. Yet, within China today, there continue to be multiple dialectical "languages" in constant daily use.

While written Chinese is now common across all of China, spoken dialects may require translations even for a "native" traveling from city to city. Some dialects, such as Cantonese, Taiwanese and Hokkien, are understood over broad regions, but only Mandarin is understood throughout educated China.

Mandarin, the local dialect around Beijing, became the language of the civil servant bureaucracy under a long succession of emperors. By the 1900s it was the de facto language of government, and remains China's language of national discourse. However, all of the various dialects remain active languages of everyday life and business.

What is the everyday impact of this multiple language reality? One who cannot speak the local dialect in a business transaction will be considered an "outsider" and will not be given the benefits or "quanxi" granted to those who speak the local dialect. The outsider, after all, is there only temporarily, and locals perceive no long-term benefit in granting special considerations, which are owed to those with whom you live and do business daily. At the local level, dialect defines insiders and outsiders, exactly like a molecular tag in a biological entity's immune system.

One startlingly obvious, but too often overlooked, implication of this dialectically-tagged immune response is this: If a business transaction must be carried out in Mandarin, the forcing factor is obviously (to a Chinaman) the lack of a common dialect: therefore, this transaction must be a transaction between "insiders" and "outsiders," no matter how well they speak Mandarin! Some Western businesses have learned too late, that the "native" manager they installed in their local China enterprise was considered as much an outsider as were the foreigners. The only difference being, the "native" manager probably knew this full-well.

What constitutes a dialect in China?

The usual notion of a dialect implies a difference in word pronunciation, perhaps word selection from amongst a set of synonyms, and of course, localized jargon (meaning, really different, strange words that might as well have come from another culture). Most of these characteristics indeed apply to the Chinese situation. But additionally, and significantly, Chinese dialects differ by pronunciation and intonation, but generally not by the visual content of the expressions, the "body language" accompanying the sounds. As we shall see, understanding both the aural and the visual content of a communication is important to a complete (read "accurate") symbolic translation of Chinese.

Chinese is a quite different language from English, or indeed most European languages. Some even argue that the language demonstrates a disparity of Chinese and Western thought processes, grounded in neurological differences based on causes operating at the genetic level. For example, Chinese has no verb conjugations nor noun declensions. When talking about the past, one merely includes a specific term identifying the epoch: "yesterday," "last year," "long ago". Literally translated, a Chinese speaker might say, "I go to town this morning" (which has already passed), rather than "I went to town."

The multi-level nature of the communication channel is most obvious in classical, written Chinese, wherein pictographs are composed of several meaningful elements related to ideas, often highly complex, not to the simple sounds of the syllables being spoken to represent that pictograph. Contrast this to English, where our letters compose words, but the letters have no innate complex significance. In China, every word is a picture.

As a consequence of this extra level of abstraction, Chinese is both more visually and aurally homonym rich than a simple alphabetically-presented language. A word is made up of one or more pictographs (all with possible dialectical differences). Spoken Chinese words, corresponding to these pictographs, consist of one or more phonemes. Each phoneme has four tones which provide different meanings. When spoken in daily practice, the "tone" frequently is understood within a specific context, hence only the most sophisticated Western ear will be able to differentiate the full set of meanings intended.

Chinese love to make symbolic use of both visual and aural puns. The intent is similar to our own use of this humor element, but can be accomplished in more, and more subtle, ways. For instance, a spoken phrase without an accompanying, appropriate "body language" component, may be missing so much meaning as to appear nonsensical, while remaining rich in meaning to those familiar with the variety of potential "body language" puns that could have been expressed but were intentionally withheld.

On the other hand, a person may use inappropriate intonation in a humorous way, or inappropriate body language. These kinds of jokes are more easily caught by the neophyte, a little like slapstick humor.

Since Chinese words are not "spelled," the typical Chinese will envision a picture of the word he intends, drawing the character on the palm of his/her hand when not understood. In some ways, the build-up and communication of ideas is similar to sign languages, and likely based on somewhat similar neural processing. We may return to this idea later.

Chinese have several choices for making similar expressions of meaning, equivalent to our homonyms. But the phonemes for a particular choice may contain negative puns or contexts, while that of another choice for the same expression contain more positive or humorous contexts. An English example might be the phrase, "Oh, yeah." By intonation alone, many meanings are possible. Take this situation and multiply it by a very large factor, to represent the opportunities for Chinese intonation wordplay.

The bottom line is: A primary literal context and a symbolic context pervades all written and verbal Chinese. As Emil Preetorius asserted, "picture and script resonate with each other in form and content so much that often they inter-penetrate each other." This interaction, so clear in the highly developed art of Chinese Calligraphy, has deep implications for what translation technology must accomplish, if there ever is to be a successful "universal translator," for our Earthbound civilizations, let alone those which we may face Out There!

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