Academy founded for Chinese to foreign language translation

In an effort to better explain China to the world, the China International Publishing Group founded the China Academy of Translation in Beijing on Tuesday.

An inauguration ceremony was held alongside a summit conference on Chinese cultural exchange and education in Chinese to foreign language translation at the Conference Center of the National People's Congress.

Zhou Mingwei, the president of the CIPG, was appointed the first president of the academy.

Zhou said the academy aims to become China's top research platform for translation scholars and practitioners both at home and abroad, focusing on opening Chinese culture to the world through translation.

He said there are six major tasks for the new academy.

First, the academy will serve as a think tank for the translation industry in China, providing advice on its development to the government and professional associations.

It will tackle the key problems in effectively translating the keywords of major current affairs in China, and release those guidelines.

It also plans to build a talent pool of skilled translators, and a body of expressions with Chinese characteristics, such as political terms, culture-loaded words and terminology used in traditional Chinese medicine, Zhou said.

It also plans to improve the current evaluation system for translators and translation projects by setting up national translation awards.

It will promote translation education for non-common languages in China, such as languages from Africa and Southeast Asia.

Last but not least, he said, the academy plans to organize training programs for both foreign and domestic translation experts to learn from each other and to study the latest developments.

Nearly 200 people attended the ceremony and summit, including government officials, university professors, and representatives from translation associations, publishers and media.

Tang Wensheng, executive vice-president of the Translators Association of China; Yan Guohua, vice-president of Beijing Foreign Studies University; Zhong Weihe, president of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; and Bao Chuanyun, former dean of the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, gave keynote speeches during the summit.