Seems like a stupid question, but I have been wondering about this. Have any linguists studied this question?
Listening to Chinese people talk, I sometimes get the feeling that they tend to lecture one another more than English speakers do. For example, when you have two businessmen sitting in a coffee shop, the conversation is often awfully one sided. One guy raves on about what he did to get the contract, how tricky company A is, how you have to do X to get Y. The other guy just sits there and listens to this stream of (mostly) garbage.
Perhaps exactly the same thing happens in English, but maybe not, maybe there is a difference.
There have been plenty of times where my own eyes have glazed over as somebody has bored me to tears with a repetitive, irrelevant lecture in Mandarin. But maybe it is just that my Mandarin is not good enough to get their real message, or maybe I was asking them the wrong questions, or perhaps I didn’t give the right signals that I understand them and there was no need to continue explaining.
What do people reckon?
Is Mandarin more repetitive and garbage filled than English?
Do Chinese have tend to waffle and lecture more than English speakers?
I’m seriously interested in what linguists have to say about this. Maybe Ironlady has some ideas?
I wonder this, too, especially when someone must give a speech. It seems like I hear the speaker say the same thing in three or four different ways before moving on to the next point, and may yet circle back to hit on the original point one more time. I could be wrong as my Chinese isn’t super duper, but it’s my impression that Chinese is much more circular (ie looping back on itself) than English can be.
I heard that when would-be Chinese officials in the olden days (sorry, I’m no scholar so that’s as close as I can get historically) sat their civil service entrance exams, one of the tests was to take a simple sentence and rewrite it over four pages. Or something.
I know its common in news writing here – you often have to slash a 10-graf piece down to three grafs and its STILL too long – but I think that’s because there’s no concept of the merits of brevity here.
Hmm. Well, this [make a few points and stress them three or four times] is actually in line with advice given to speechwriters and speech makers in English… otherwise, I haven’t listened to enough Chinese speeches to really know.
Having worked in the translation industry for years, I have seen that written expository Chinese is often filled with redundancies and irrelevancies of the kind you might see in a junior high school essay in the US where the student is padding the essay with words to make the required word count.
An example of something I came across recently:
“In order to train hospital staff and provide subsidies to hospitals, we will insitute a program to provide training to hospital staff and subsidies to hospitals.”
When I’ve asked people why this is, they say that in Chinese, repetition emphasizes a point, whereas in English we’re taught that simplicity is best.
There are also plenty of vague statements in Chinese, such as “According to statistics, consuming cold drinks with hot foods is harmful to your health” without stating the source of the statistics.
Sometimes I see entire paragraphs repeated word-for-word in the introduction and conclusion parts of an essay. In English it’s normal to restate the thesis of the essay in the conclusion, but we are taught from day one not to use exactly the same words. (I admit that this repetition does make life a little easier for us translators!)
Nevertheless, I have seen well-written Chinese, which is a pleasure to read.
Even without a Mandarin linguist’s background, I think the Taiwanese’ tendency to be redundant and repetitive in their use of language is easy to spot.
Hao bu hao? Hao hao hao hao.
Dui bu dui? Dui dui dui dui dui …
One other thought. This tendency exists even outside of business and academia. Went on an informal bike ride once with a Taiwanese group. The group leader didn’t discuss anything with anyone – he simply dictated or lectured and took full liberties to make any mechanical changes to anyone’s bike without asking the owner.
[quote=“Kiwi”]
Listening to Chinese people talk, I sometimes get the feeling that they tend to lecture one another more than English speakers do. For example, when you have two businessmen sitting in a coffee shop, the conversation is often awfully one sided.[/quote]I haven’t noticed this as much with the Taiwanese, but in China the ‘four relationships’ are easily apparent. Even among friends, one is always dominant, and is allowed to control the conversation.
And as for lecturing, it does seem that in Chinese society you do encounter people lecturing others in ways that would be considered very condescending in the West. It’s usually from someone in an authority position who is imparting wisdom to others (repeating to ensure that the listeners understand), and the listeners outwardly appear to (and, apparently, usually inwardly do) accept it without question. Sometimes this authority figure even goes so far as to inform the listener about the listener’s supposedly subjective feelings and preferences.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been told by someone else that I was cold or sitting in an uncomfortable position, even though I’m perfectly capable of deciding for myself how comfortable I feel, and doing something about it if I’m uncomfortable.
Hsiadoga, your point about a difference between China and Taiwan is interesting. I used to live in Taiwan, but it was only after I moved to China I started really thinking about this.
[quote=“Kiwi”]Hsiadoga, your point about a difference between China and Taiwan is interesting. I used to live in Taiwan, but it was only after I moved to China I started really thinking about this.[/quote]I assumed you were talking about China. Chinese this, Chinese that…
I think for the Taiwanese the whole ‘four relationships’ thing is just a plug-in if you like, not part of the operating system. Do you notice a difference in this behaviour with people who lived through the cultural revolution, as opposed to the younger generation that weren’t exposed to that?
Recently I had an insight into an interesting aspect of the repetitive or persistent nature of Taiwanese speech and behavior. No guarantees on the quality of the insight though.
I’ve noticed a tendency among Taiwanese to ask for something or suggest something, ignore any reply to the contrary, and then simply repeat the question or suggestion. I’m a persistent person, and still it is a level of persistence that I find annoying. It goes beyond persistence really. In this regard, it seems like they simply have no interest in the other person’s point of view, cannot incorporate another’s viewpoint, have no interest in any information that does not already agree with them, or they only want one result.
That observation has been bouncing around in the “unexplained” section of my head for some time. And then I observed something else.
Recently I was touring a temple in Taipei. I saw a man praying at an altar and throwing something on the table or ground. Turned out that he was engaging in a prayer request/answer session. He would make his request and then he would throw the shells or coins or whatever on the table and interpret their positions to get his answer from the god (casting lots). After he prayed, he would throw the items on the table repeatedly. Throw them down, look at them, pick them up, then throw them down again, look at them, and pick them up. Over and over again. After watching this cycle several times, I asked a Taiwanese friend to explain it to me. In a casual and matter-of-fact way, my friend said, “He just keeps throwing the items until the god gives him the answer that he wants.”
It seems to me that there is a lot of information in that simple behavior. If such a person interacts with his god in that way, ignoring any answer from the god that does not suit him, and repeating the question until satisfied, then why would he treat an ordinary human any better? If the contrary answer of his god is not an obstacle, why would the contrary answer of a human be an obstacle? It wouldn’t be. He simply uses the “ask/ignore/repeat” process until the desired answer emerges.
Risking getting off topic (I am really more interested in the repetition and lecturing thing). . .
But this inability to accept information that is unexpected or disagrees with previously held beliefs seems to be a real trend among Chinese. (though maybe we do it too?) So many times when I disagree with Chinese I get the “No, you don’t understand!”. Really irritating. Rather than listening to my explain my view/understanding/whatever, they cut in and begin the lecture. And usually the lecture doesn’t address the key issues (those that are key for me anyway). I mean, how could it since they started the lecture without even listening to me in any detail?
Another thought on the repetition/lecturing thing (and this applies in Taiwan as well as China). What about Chinese teachers? In my experience 90% of them lecture the students. They prefer to listen to themselves talk than let the students practice. Seems like the status thing at work again, with the ‘high status’ person dominating the converstaion.
Got rid of my last Chinese teacher over a year ago. She was very helpful (correcting my e-mails and stuff for me outside of class time) but despite my repeated requests she just would not stop wasting my class time my lecturing me about silly stuff I hadn’t asked her about, didn’t want to know, and that was only tenuously related to the Chinese we had just been looking at.
You got that right! WHere I work, the translators are under orders to produce a certain number of words per day.
Rather than taking the time and trouble to find additional stories to translate, how much less inconvenient it is to just pad the stories you already have.
And how irritating it is that the damned bignose cuts my 800 words to 350. But they never seem to learn.
Well, that’s not strictly true – certain of them have the habit of saving their original work seperately, submitting the piece to me, but then putting their ORIGINAL Chinglish one on the wire to keep their word count up. How irritating it is, though when the damned bignose goes to the wire, spots my subterfuge, and starts stomping around angrily – what a loss of face for me! Oh well, maybe he’ll forget to check tomorrow. Worth a try, at least.
That’s a great story seeker4. It was very illustrative! I believe it is really on point and understanding this helps us “deal with” some of the Taiwanese way of doing things. One of my friends who’s been here for a while said to me, you just have to keep on top of them all the time until they bend. It’s a battle of the wills.
[quote=“Chris”]Having worked in the translation industry for years, I have seen that written expository Chinese is often filled with redundancies and irrelevancies of the kind you might see in a junior high school essay in the US where the student is padding the essay with words to make the required word count.
An example of something I came across recently:
“In order to train hospital staff and provide subsidies to hospitals, we will insitute a program to provide training to hospital staff and subsidies to hospitals.”[/quote]
I’m a C-E translator too. This kind of thing is far too common, and drives me up the wall. Newspaper stories have a similar type of convention regarding repetition: the first paragraph sums up the story, the second gives a few more details, the third basically repeats the first, the fourth is a quote from one of the principles, and the fifth, for all intents and purposes, is the same as the first and third.
This is truly annoying, and crops up every time I translate or edit research papers. When I edit these things I make a list of questions about sentences/statements which are unclear or wouldn’t pass muster in Western journals, and I am merciless. For a 5,000-word paper I’ll often send back a Word file with 30+ questions wherein for each I quote the offending statement, usually much more vague and/or incoherent than the example you give above, and underneath write:
This is completely unintelligible. What does this mean? Please explain.
Links and/or sources, please. I want to read well-written Chinese too!
Recently I was touring a temple in Taipei. I saw a man praying at an altar and throwing something on the table or ground. Turned out that he was engaging in a prayer request/answer session. He would make his request and then he would throw the shells or coins or whatever on the table and interpret their positions to get his answer from the god (casting lots). After he prayed, he would throw the items on the table repeatedly. Throw them down, look at them, pick them up, then throw them down again, look at them, and pick them up. Over and over again. After watching this cycle several times, I asked a Taiwanese friend to explain it to me. In a casual and matter-of-fact way, my friend said, “He just keeps throwing the items until the god gives him the answer that he wants.”
It seems to me that there is a lot of information in that simple behavior. If such a person interacts with his god in that way, ignoring any answer from the god that does not suit him, and repeating the question until satisfied, then why would he treat an ordinary human any better? If the contrary answer of his god is not an obstacle, why would the contrary answer of a human be an obstacle? It wouldn’t be. He simply uses the “ask/ignore/repeat” process until the desired answer emerges.[/quote]
From what I’ve recently learned, when you pray to the god/godess, you don’t simply repeat the same question or request over and over. When the god/godess doesn’t agree or approve (by making your coins or shells turn to the same side when you throw them down on the floor/table) you rephrase the request, add a bit more information (e.g. some explanation or more details), or throw in an “incentive” (e.g., please approve, and I’ll do… or I’ll not do…)
The person who prays still wants to get the answer s/he wanted but at least s/he tries to make his/her wish more clear, work on being more persuasive, and maybe compromise a little.
This is probably a newer way of praying but I guess it’s a little better than just “ask/ignore/repeat.”
I found this topic interesting and posters’ insight fascinating. I thought only my mother-in-law repeated herself and ignored my feelings and view points.
If I were God or a god, I would only grant wishes to people who could make an articulate, convincing request on the first try. If they can’t get it right the first time, then screw 'em. I wouldn’t appreciate my time being wasted with multiple attempts.
If I were God or a god, I would only grant wishes to people who could make an articulate, convincing request on the first try. If they can’t get it right the first time, then screw 'em. I wouldn’t appreciate my time being wasted with multiple attempts. [/quote]
If you were a god or God, you wouldn’t worry about “time.” Would you?
Still I think making multiple “modified” attempts is better than speaking like a broken record.
