Learning Chinese political formulaic phraseology from a self-built bilingual United Nations Security Council corpus

Abstract

This pilot study investigates the formulaic phraseology most frequently used in highly formulaic political documents by examining a self-built bilingual parallel corpus of 43 speeches delivered in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meetings by Chinese representatives. The study also probes corpus-based approaches to explore formulaic phraseology and demonstrates a method to retrieve Chinese formulaic phraseology from the UNSC corpus. Formulaic phraseology is often seen in political discourse. It can be defined as a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements that are, or appear to be, prefabricated, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar. This study begins with a literature review of formulaic phraseology, including its features and significance in simultaneous interpreting. It then exhibits a four-step retrieval process with the Sketch Engine software program to acquire Chinese formulaic phraseology from the corpus to fill previous studies’ gap. Key functional units of the Sketch Engine, including Wordlist, N-grams, and Concordance, are used to extract formulaic phraseology from the UNSC corpus. Methodological issues involved in identifying formulaic phraseology, such as length of phraseology and quantitative criteria (frequency and dispersion thresholds), are also discussed in the study. Three types of formulaic phraseology are identified: (1) greeting representatives and other members and expressing appreciation; (2) expressing concerns about the topic of the meeting; (3) expressing China’s viewpoints about the topic of the meeting. The training of interpreters would be more effective if this categorization of formulaic phraseology is incorporated into the curriculum.

Investigating students’ attitudes towards translation technology: The status quo and structural relations with translation mindsets and future work self

“…There is also a need to give students a sense of breaking down their career goals and relating them to their everyday life and study activities ( Ling et al, 2022 ). Additionally, both future work self-salience and elaboration can be upgraded through the career-oriented TTT approach, such as simulating real-work scenarios ( Alcina et al, 2007 ), engaging students in authentic translation projects ( He and Tao, 2022 ), considering how professionals perform ( Song and Cheung, 2019 ; Ma and Cheung, 2020 ; Wu et al, 2021 ), enhancing ties with the industry, and integrating translation technology into other core translation courses ( Bowker and Marshman, 2010 ). All of these could bring students closer to the real professional environment and allow them to know about the latest application of translation technology in the workplace.…”

Translation directionality and the Inhibitory Control Model: a machine learning approach to an eye-tracking study

“…Process-oriented CTIS has witnessed a number of recent key volumes presenting studies primarily based on “behavioral” evidence (e.g., Ferreira and Schwieter, 2014 , 2015 ; Schwieter and Ferreira, 2017 ; Pease and Cheung, 2018 ; Li et al, 2019 , 2022 ; Alves and Jakobsen, 2021 ; Carl, 2021 ; Wu et al, 2021 ; Zhang and Cheung, 2022 ; Chang, 2023 ; Liu X. et al, 2023 ). In contrast, the number of studies in process-oriented CTIS involving “physiological” data relatively pales in comparison.…”

COVID-19 and Interpreting

“…The United Nations (UN) has been a champion of multilingualism, recognized by its General Assembly as a core value. Simultaneous interpreting (SI) of six UN official languages is normally available at UN's Security Council open meetings (Ma & Cheung, 2020;Song & Cheung, 2019;Wu et al, 2021). It was essential for the Security Council to continue its daily meetings, especially during the period when the pandemic was rampaging globally.…”

“…Simultaneous interpreting of all six official languages resumed gradually following the implementation of remote simultaneous interpreting, a form of distance interpreting. Diplomats posted to the United Nations from non-English speaking countries may be proficient in English and may not rely on simultaneous interpreting services when English is used (Cheung, 2019;Wu et al, 2021). The fact that the Security Council could continue its daily meetings without the involvement of interpreters is a wakeup call to both interpreting trainees and trainers to reflect on the roles of interpreters and the purposes of interpreting services.…”