Translation of a Singapore politician’s commentaries from Chinese to English : considerations and guidelines

Abstract

The advent of social media and a changing political landscape in recent years have seen the opening up of new communication channels by Singapore politicians as they attempt to increase engagement with the public to further develop their political careers. As the working language in Singapore is English, most of such communication is in English. A notable exception is the publication of a collection of commentaries written in Chinese on topics ranging from life as a politician to national issues by Mr Baey Yam Keng, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth. This paper attempted to outline pointers for translators who undertake Chinese-English translation assignments of similar writings to take note of. These pointers include general ones in consideration of the nature of the work and the target audience, and specific ones in consideration of both cultural and political sensitivities due to the content. In addition to discussions on these guidelines, which are derived from the analyses of the translations produced by the author of this dissertation, discussions on the limitations of this study and recommendations for future studies are also included at the end of the paper