From online discussions to adverts, Chinese culture is full of puns. But the country’s print and broadcast watchdog has ruled that there is nothing funny about them.
互聯(lián)網(wǎng)論壇、廣告、甚至是整個(gè)中國(guó)文化里都充滿了俏皮話。但是中國(guó)新聞出版廣播電視總局卻覺(jué)得這些俏皮話一點(diǎn)也不好玩。
It has banned wordplay on the grounds that it breaches the law on standard spoken and written Chinese, makes promoting cultural heritage harder and may mislead the public – especially children.
目前國(guó)家新聞出版廣電總局發(fā)布新規(guī)，禁止媒體生造詞語(yǔ)亂用成語(yǔ)，因?yàn)檫@些誤用會(huì)影響文化傳承，還容易誤導(dǎo)公眾——尤其是孩子。
The casual alteration of idioms risks nothing less than “cultural and linguistic chaos”, it warns.
廣電總局警告媒體說(shuō)不能因?yàn)樗烈鈦y改亂用造成文化斷代和語(yǔ)言混亂。
Chinese is perfectly suited to puns because it has so many homophones. Popular sayings and even customs, as well as jokes, rely on wordplay.
由于中國(guó)的語(yǔ)言體系中有許多多音字，所以非常適合使用諧音雙關(guān)。許多俗語(yǔ)、俏皮話和風(fēng)俗都和諧音有關(guān)。
But the order from the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television says: “Radio and television authorities at all levels must tighten up their regulations and crack down on the irregular and inaccurate use of the Chinese language, especially the misuse of idioms.”
國(guó)家新聞出版廣電總局下達(dá)的規(guī)定中說(shuō)各級(jí)廣播電視管理部門必須強(qiáng)化監(jiān)管力度，打擊不正規(guī)不準(zhǔn)確的漢語(yǔ)使用，尤其是誤用成語(yǔ)。
Programmes and adverts should strictly comply with the standard spelling and use of characters, words, phrases and idioms – and avoid changing the characters, phrasing and meanings, the order said.
規(guī)定要求電視頻道和廣告必須嚴(yán)格遵守標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的字、詞、短語(yǔ)、成語(yǔ)的拼寫(xiě)和使用方法——避免改變成語(yǔ)中的字，變換結(jié)構(gòu)和意思。
“Idioms are one of the great features of the Chinese language and contain profound cultural heritage and historical resources and great aesthetic, ideological and moral values,” it added.
規(guī)定中指出成語(yǔ)是漢語(yǔ)的重要特征之一，包含著深遠(yuǎn)的文化影響和歷史因素，其中不乏重要的美學(xué)、意識(shí)形態(tài)和道德價(jià)值。
“That’s the most ridiculous part of this: [wordplay] is so much part and parcel of Chinese heritage,” said David Moser, academic director for CET Chinese studies at Beijing Capital Normal University.
首都師范大學(xué)CET對(duì)外漢語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)項(xiàng)目的負(fù)責(zé)人莫大偉(David Moser)對(duì)此表達(dá)了自己的意見(jiàn)：“這項(xiàng)規(guī)定最荒唐的就是這點(diǎn)：文字游戲是中國(guó)文化重要的組成部分。”
When couples marry, people will give them dates and peanuts – a reference to the wish Zaosheng guizi or “May you soon give birth to a son”. The word for dates is also zao and peanuts are huasheng.
中國(guó)人結(jié)婚的早生貴子(棗生桂子)就是其中一個(gè)例子。
The notice cites complaints from viewers, but the examples it gives appear utterly innocuous. In a tourism promotion campaign, tweaking the characters used in the phrase jin shan jin mei – perfection – has turned it into a slogan translated as “Shanxi, a land of splendours”. In another case, replacing a single character in ke bu rong huan has turned “brook no delay” into “coughing must not linger” for a medicine advert.
規(guī)定引用了“晉善晉美”和“咳不容緩”的誤用例子，但是這些例子看上去卻無(wú)傷大雅。
“It could just be a small group of people, or even one person, who are conservative, humourless, priggish and arbitrarily purist, so that everyone has to fall in line,” said Moser.
Moser對(duì)此評(píng)論說(shuō)：“很可能是一小部分保守的人，甚至有可能是一個(gè)保守派，這幫人沒(méi)有幽默感，是死板又專橫的純粹主義者，搞得每個(gè)人都要遵守規(guī)定。”