An Empirical Study on the Normative Effectiveness of the Chinese Translation Regulation of Foreign Terms

Chang Wenfei

Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning ›› 2025, Vol. 10 ›› Issue (4) : 84-96.

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Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning ›› 2025, Vol. 10 ›› Issue (4) : 84-96. DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20250409

An Empirical Study on the Normative Effectiveness of the Chinese Translation Regulation of Foreign Terms

  • Chang Wenfei
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Abstract

The normative effectiveness refers to the influence and binding force that language and character standardization exert on society after its promulgation, which can be observed through two indicators: usage intensity and standard coefficient. Measuring the normative effectiveness is an important means to test the implementation effect of language standards. This article selects the news data covering the periodfrom 2012 to 2019 in the Dynamic Circulating Corpus of the National Broadcast Media Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center. By calculating the normative effectiveness, the study examines the effect of the Chinese translation regulation of foreign terms recommended for use in the fourth batch, which was issued by the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference Expert Committee on the Standardization of Foreign Language Terms in Chinese in 2016. The findings are as follows: (1) Overall, the release of standardized Chinese translations has had a certain positive effect on regulated usage in society. (2) The standardization effect on the media has been significantly improved, although this positive trend can generally last for only about two years. (3) The effects of the recommended translation names vary considerably across fields, with the best results in the field of international organizations, followed by the economic field, while the terms in fields of social life and science and technology have received relatively weaker impact. (4) Proper nouns prove to be easier to standardize in comparison with common nouns. The study suggests increasing efforts in the development of Chinese translations of foreign terms, strengthening the evaluation mechanism for these translations, focusing on differentiated strategies for norm implementation, and fully mobilizing various forces to promote the standardization work.

Key words

Chinese translation of foreign terms / language regulation / usage intensity / standardization coefficient / normative effectiveness

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Chang Wenfei. An Empirical Study on the Normative Effectiveness of the Chinese Translation Regulation of Foreign Terms[J]. Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning. 2025, 10(4): 84-96 https://doi.org/10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20250409

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