Public administration translation in Hong Kong: a sociolinguistic perspective

Abstract

Translation studies in Hong Kong have been focusing mainly on the

literary aspect of the discipline. Although huge amounts of bilingual

texts are churned out every year from virtually every government and

quasi-government department and other institution, these products of

translation, as well as the work processes involved, do not receive due

attention of the academia for research purposes. Studies on translation of

this type and nature may have largely been ignored.

To promote academic studies in this field, this thesis attempts to establish

Public Administration Translation as a genre which bears distinctive

features and a production process of its own, although the linguistic

features of this genre do not form part of the present study and are left for

future exploration. To achieve this goal, a general history of Public

Administration Translation in Hong Kong with regard to various grades of

Public Administration Translation service providers has been compiled to

track the development of these grades, as well as the relations among them.

With a view to putting Hong Kong’s Public Administration Translation in a

sociolinguistic perspective, a sociolinguistic framework regarding societal

multilingualism types with reference to territorial monolingualism,

bilingualism and trilingualism, as well as diglossia and triglossia, is

proposed for discussing Hong Kong’s Public Administration Translation

and its service providers. After detailed analysis and discussion, it is

suggested that Hong Kong’s sociolinguistic situation has always been

evolving in response to its political and demographic development, and the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region seems to be moving towards a

society of biliteracy (i.e. Standard Written Chinese and written English)

and trilingualism (i.e. Cantonese, spoken English and Putonghua) while

Hong Kong’s Public Administration Translation keeps reacting accordingly

to the changes in the sociolinguistic situation of the community.