Chinese TV stations to avoid English abbreviations in programs

BEIJING - A government department in China has asked television stations to keep away from certain English abbreviations in Chinese programs.

China Central Television (CCTV) and Beijing Television (BTV) have said that they received a notice in this regard from the government department, asking them to avoid using certain English abbreviations in Chinese programs, reports the China Daily.

It was, however, not made clear by the channels that how many English abbreviations were listed in the notice sent by the government department.

A number of provincial channels have also received a same notice, reported the Hangzhou-based Today Morning Express on Tuesday.

The report said the broadcasters and journalists have been asked to provide Chinese explanations for obligatory English abbreviations in their programs.

The notice not only limits the use of English abbreviations in sports news, but also in economic and political news, the report said.

“Abbreviations such as ‘GDP’ (gross domestic product), ‘WTO’ (World Trade Organization) and ‘CPI’ (consumer price index) will also be replaced with their Chinese pronunciations, it added.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, however, refused to comment on the matter.

The decision came in the wake of a growing number of national legislators and political advisors, who called for preventive measures to preserve the purity of the Chinese language.

“If we don’t pay attention and do not take measures to stop mixing Chinese with English, the Chinese language won’t remain pure in a couple of years,” said China International Publishing Group’s Editor-in Chief.

“In the long run, Chinese will lose its role as an independent linguistic system for passing on information and expressing human feelings,” said Youyi earlier to China Daily.

According to Youyi’s proposal, who is also the secretary-general of the Translators’ Association of China, all the documents and speeches of top government officials should be written in pure Chinese, without the use of English abbreviations such as GDP, WTO or CPI.

He also mentioned in his proposal that a law or regulation should be commenced to serve as a guideline for the use of foreign words in domestic publications, adding that a national translation committee should be formed to translate foreign names and technical terms, which can then be published on a website.

Meanwhile, the limited use of English abbreviations on Chinese television programs has triggered a debate among the scholars.

“It makes no sense to introduce a regulation to prevent the use of English in the Chinese language in the face of globalization. It is cultural conservatism,” said China’s Communication University Professor Liu Yaoying.

“If Western countries can accept some Chinglish words, why can’t the Chinese language be mixed with English?” he added.

It has been reported that both Singaporean newspaper New Straits Times and London’s Daily Telegraph used Chinese Pinyin Lianghui in their reports about the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, inspite of using English to paraphrase the proceedings.

Meanwhile, the governments in some western countries have also tried to safeguard the purity of their languages.

There are reports that France Government forbids advertising in English and authorizes a 40 percent quota of French songs on the radio, according to a Christian Science Monitor report. (ANI)