By Zhijun Gao, Jingsong Yu, and Menno de Jong | Associate Fellow
According to the World Bank, China is the second-largest and fastest-growing economy in the world. In the past decades, many international companies have entered the Chinese market and several Chinese enterprises have also found their way to international markets. In the early days, China became known as the "factory of the world." More recently, we can see a rise of the creative and high-tech industries, like Lenovo computers, Huawei telecommunications equipment, Geely cars, and Baidu Internet technology. We are currently in the midst of a transition from "made in China" to "created in China."
Translation contributed strongly to China’s early development. User documentation and interfaces of foreign products had to be translated and adapted for Chinese users. The importance of translation is reflected in the 159 Master’s degree programs in translation and interpreting that emerged in Chinese universities. Technical communication, in contrast, is still in its infancy as an academic discipline in China, despite initiatives starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Tegtmeier et al., 1999; Barnum et al., 2001). However, it is generally acknowledged that the economic developments in the country require highly trained technical communicators, and that the prospects of technical communicators in China are very good.
In this article, we provide an update of the position of technical communication in China. Our main input was a Technical Communication and Technical Translation Salon that we held on 20 October 2012 at Peking University. The Salon was organized by the Department of Language Information Engineering of Peking University and the Localization Service Committee of the Translators’ Association of China. It was attended by over 200 participants, consisting of professionals, employers, academics, and students. The three-hour program started with short keynote presentations, but most time was reserved for free discussion. We complemented our insights from the Salon with literature, database information, and focused interviews with some of the Salon participants.
Growing Demand for Technical Communicators
The attendance at the Salon can be seen as an indication of the growing interest for technical communication in China. Companies are looking for highly qualified employees, students appreciate the good job prospects, and universities are considering starting technical communication programs or including technical communication courses in existing curricula.
To further examine the demand for technical communicators, we conducted an analysis of job postings and a salary review. For job postings, we used the Chinese search term "documentation engineer" instead of the less familiar "technical writer" or "technical communicator," and limited our search to the most popular Chinese recruitment website, 51job.com. On 16 December, we found a total of 714 job postings on the site with "documentation engineer" in the job title or as a prominent part of the job description. Technical communication jobs are offered in various industries, such as telecommunications, hardware, software, and health care. For comparison, there were 672 job positions for news editors in the same period on the same website. News editor is a well-recognized job in China; every year, broadcasting companies recruit hundreds of news editors to work for them.
For the salary review, we used a well-known salary website, Fenzhi.com. Many employees report their salary rates on this site. Although the salaries cannot be verified, the data can be used to establish rough indications of salaries on the site.
A total of 102 technical communicators entered their salaries in this site. On average, technical communicators earn 5,495 renminbi (RMB) (around $880 USD) per month. The salaries range between 1,000 RMB ($160 USD) and 25,000 RMB ($4,010 USD) per month. For comparison, the average salary of 461 translators on the website is 4,234 RMB (around $680 USD). While the number of technical communicators is smaller than the number of translators, salaries are higher for technical communicators.
Technical Translation and Technical Communication
In the academic literature, the fields of technical communication and technical translation are not strongly connected. In the Chinese situation, however, the common ground between the two disciplines logically reflects the country’s development. The translation of existing user documentation is gradually replaced with the creation of new documents. A similar connection between translation and technical communication can be found in France, where technical communication as a discipline has only recently emerged (Minacori and Veisblat, 2010).
Traditionally, technical communication focuses more strongly on theories of effectively instructing users and on formal and informal research techniques to safeguard the usability of documentation. In technical translation, the main concern is with the relationship between the source document and the target document. The goals of both disciplines, however, are exactly the same: producing usable instructions for the users of technology (Lentz and Hulst, 2000).
Whether technical translation and technical communication overlap depends on the interpretation of the task of translating. For nontechnical translation processes, Yan Fu’s three criteria for successful translations are dominant in the Chinese academe: faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance (Wang, 2011). Faithfulness means that the translation must be as close as possible to the source document, which is especially relevant in the translation of official documents or literary works. Expressiveness and elegance both refer to the mastery of the target language.
For technical documentation, usability should be added as a fourth criterion. A translated document must optimally support the intended users to effectively and efficiently use the software or device. The growing body of literature on cross-cultural communication shows that literal translations of source documents are not always the optimal solution. Instead, a broader "localization" approach is preferred (Barnum and Li, 2006).
We would argue that the tasks of a technical communicator and a technical translator are very similar. In fact, both have to "translate" the logic of software or devices to the perspective and use context of the users. The main difference involves the basic information that both groups have at their disposal. For technical communicators, engineers and the intended users will be the main sources of information, in addition to their own practical wisdom, experiences, and analyses. For technical translators, the source text can replace all or some of these resources.
Technical Communication and Translation Processes
One of the topics discussed in the Salon involved the language policy in design processes of user documentation. Normally, the technical documents of Chinese companies are first written in Chinese and then translated into English. Translations into other languages are then based on the English document. This sequence causes unnecessary delay in the release of new products. More recently, many companies are taking a different approach: they write their documentation in English first and translate the
English document into other languages, including a Chinese version. Many English documents are first written by Chinese technical communicators and then reviewed by native English speakers.
Specific Research Is Needed
A precondition for a further development of technical communication in China is the advancement of solid technical communication research within the Chinese context. Several studies show that there are many differences between Western and Chinese contexts, which might question the applicability of Western insights in Chinese technical communication practice. Differences involve the preferences and routines of users, the textual conventions and traditions, and the implications of the totally different scripts (Western alphabet versus Chinese characters). The literature about such cultural differences is not systematic and not very rigorous, and relatively many contributions are based on comparisons of document characteristics instead of comparisons of users using documents. Technical communication in China needs its own supporting research, both by academic researchers and by practitioners, as well as platforms for the exchange of experiences between practitioners. STC can play an important role here.
Need for Creative, Problem-Solving, and Research-Minded Professionals
Employers need technical communication professionals who can combine a profound knowledge of principles of effective technical communication with creativity, critical thinking, Chinese- and English-writing skills, and a problem-solving attitude (with tolerance for complex and broadly defined problems). Empirical and analytical research are important as sources of information and as tools to support the solution of practical problems. This calls for innovative and specialized technical communication programs that diverge from common practices as described by Ding (2011), where rote learning and a focus on basic English are important characteristics.
Conclusion
To summarize, in the current situation supply and demand are not balanced in China in regard to technical communication. There is a clear demand for qualified technical communicators, but the field is only in its early stage of development. There seems to be a fruitful connection with the field of technical translation, a connection that might also be worth exploring in other national contexts. It is important that technical communication develops its own identity in China, with research and education aimed at effective technical communication in the Chinese context, at the same time offering the Western world a mirror to consider the cultural limitations of existing theories and insights.
ZHIJUN GAO (gaozhijun@pku.edu.cn) is a teacher of computer- aided translation at the department of language information engineering at Peking University (Beijing, China). He is also a PhD candidate at the University of Twente (Enschede, the Netherlands). His research interests include technical communication, translation technology, and translation project management.
JINGSONG YU (yjs@ss.pku.edu.cn) is an associate professor of natural language processing at the department of language information engineering at Peking University (Beijing, China). He is also vice director of the department. He set up the first Master’s program in computer-aided translation in mainland China. He is currently working on an education and research collaboration with the University of Twente in the field of translation and technical communication.
MENNO DE JONG (m.d.t.dejong@utwente.nl) is a professor of communication science at the University of Twente. He is an STC Associate Fellow and the editor of Technical Communication. He has won the Frank R. Smith Outstanding Article Award and the Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research. He is currently working on a long-term education and research collaboration on translation and technical communication with Peking University.
References
Barnum, C. M., and H. Li, (2006). Chinese and American Technical Communication: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Differences. Technical Communication, 53, 143–166.
Barnum, C. M., K. Philip, A. Reynolds, M. S. Shauf, and T. M. Thompson, (2001). Globalizing Technical Communication: A Field Report From China. Technical Communication 48, 397–420.
Ding, D. (2011). When Traditional Chinese Culture Meets a Technical Communication Program in a Chinese University. Report on Teaching Technical Communication in China. Technical Communication 58, 34–51.
Lentz, L., and J. Hulst, (2000). Babel in Document Design: The Evaluation of Multilingual Texts. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 43, 313–322.
Minacori, P., and L. Veisblat, (2010). Translation and Technical Communication: Chicken or Egg? Meta 55, 752–768.
Tegtmeier, P., S. Thompson, R. Smith, D. L. Scroggs, and S. Dragga, (1999). China Is Hungry: Technical Communication in the People’s Republic of China. Technical Communication 46, 36–41.
Wang, Z. (2011). Analysis of Yan Fu’s Translation Theory. Overseas English 4, 174–175.
