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BBC 又创造中国特色词汇 Wang
Hong |
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两天前，BBC 网站发布新闻，标题是“Wang Hong: China's online stars making real cash”（中国网红赚的是真金白银）。 |
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这篇新闻的内文把“Wang Hong”解释为 online stars 或 internet celebrities，那为什么不直接这样翻译“网红”、却还要搞出一个新词组“Wang Hong”呢？ 首先，这些翻译无法准确地表达“网红”这一概念。 “在线明星”（online stars）或“互联网名人”（internet celebrities）显然和“网红”是两回事。网红不是上线的明星（例如范冰冰搞线上访谈），也不是互联网领域的名人（例如马云）。 他们只是普通人，利用长相、才艺甚至无厘头的或自虐型表演在互联网上集聚大量粉丝而已，所谓“大量”最多也不超过数百万之众，更多的人有数万粉丝已经算多的了。 他们没有得到主流演艺界的认可，大多数人不以此为生。互联网仅仅是他们的工作工具，他们自己本人还是网站的赚钱工具，因为他们从粉丝处得到的利益，要分一半给网站。 当不能用三言两语（两三个英文单词）说清楚什么是“网红”时，最好的办法就是“音译 + 解释”了。 这是很稀松平常的事情，但是国内很多人把“音译”视为洪水猛兽，唯恐外国人看不懂，一定要坚持词不达意的“意译”或者写一长串单词，把“用外文做解释”当成“翻译为外文”。 其次，把“网红”译为 online stars 或 internet celebrities 不能体现中国特色。 网红是中国特有的现象。中国人口众多，民间有大量有表演天赋和欲望的人。相对其庞大的人数，电视台选秀型综艺节目等传统表演平台无法提供足够的表现机会。中国特殊的政治情况，也使很多非主流的表演形式不可能走上主流媒体。 中国的文娱生活充满很多限制，生活比较单调，于是个性化很强的非主流“直播”平台成为很多人的消遣去处。又因为中国人口众多，只要有很小比例的人喜欢一个人，后者也能聚集起上百万的粉丝，使自己“红”起来。 上述种种中国特有的情况，导致中国出现独有的“网红”现象。 显然，这些情况是不可能用三言两语说清楚的，只能创造一个符号，用这个符号去代表这些复杂的信息，详细的信息则通过解释或辞典等传达给读者。 创造这个符号的最简单办法，就是音译汉语原文“网红”。 实际上中国人自己在翻译外来事物名称时也采取了相同的做法，例如“咖啡”、“幽默”、“巧克力”等等等等。 第三，online stars 或 internet celebrities 更像是一种解释，而不是一种事物的名称。 即使它们和 Wang Hong 的含义完全一样，在人们熟悉 Wang Hong 这个比较简洁的称呼之后，人类的偷懒本能也会用其取代比较啰嗦的 online stars 或 internet celebrities。 就好像“意大利馅饼”被“披萨”所取代一样。 笔者称其为“翻译经济学”原理，详细可见笔者《译龙风云》（www.loong.cn/ylfy）一书有关章节。 （黄佶，2016年8月3日）
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附件： Wang Hong: China's online stars making real cash By Grace Tsoi 1 August 2016 From the section China Photo of Ling Ling Ling Ling, a 29-year-old living in Shanghai, has gone to great lengths to curate a picture-perfect life on social media. Her photos on micro-blogging site Weibo show her glamorous and leisurely life. Dressed in fashionable clothing and with immaculate make-up, Ling Ling is seen dining at fancy cafes and restaurants; attending parties and social events with her girlfriends; travelling to places like Boracay, Tokyo and Dubai. But she does not cultivate her online image just to make herself feel good or her friends jealous. She is one of the new internet celebrities, known as Wang Hong. It's a lucrative business, with Zhang Dayi, one of China's best known Wang Hong, reportedly earning 300m yuan (￡35m; $46m). This compares favourably to top Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, who according to Forbes, made about $21m last year. Media caption Online fashionistas There are two types of internet celebrities in China - those who create original content like Papi Jiang, who was once censured by Chinese authorities for excessive use of foul language in her videos, and the "fashionistas". Ling Ling and Zhang Dayi fall into the second category, selling clothes and cosmetics on Taobao, China's leading online shopping site. Image caption They work as their own shops' models by posting pictures of themselves wearing the clothes they sell, and some of their followers become their most loyal customers. Ling Ling, who has been active online for 10 years and has more than 330,000 followers on Weibo, says she didn't plan on becoming an internet celebrity. "In the beginning, there were only online forums. I posted pictures and wrote online every day and a lot of people started paying attention to me." When she was 18, Ling Ling started a bricks-and-mortar clothing shop in Shanghai, but she soon realised that her online fame would bring more business. Screengrab of Zhang Dayi's weibo page "You will be able to reach to customers across the nation with an online store. I've got quite a lot of customers in Beijing and Guangzhou," she says. Her Taobao shop generates around 300,000 yuan in sales every month and that figure can double during festivals. But these numbers did not satiate her ambition, so she signed a contract with Tophot, an incubator aimed at nurturing top internet celebrities. 'Outperforming A-listers' According to CBNData, a commercial data company affiliated with Alibaba, the "internet celebrity economy" is set to be worth 58bn yuan in 2016, more than China's box office in 2015. The enormous earning potential has led to the rise of internet celebrity incubators in China, which race to discover and nurture the next Zhang Dayi. Chinese actress Fan Bingbing poses as she arrives for the screening of
the film Mad Max: Fury Road Incubators like Tophot provide training for budding internet celebrities, with skills in photography, make-up and performance. They also represent internet celebrities and help them find jobs like product endorsements. In return, they take a cut from their earnings. Janet Chen, founder of Tophot, said internet celebrities had already "outperformed" showbiz A-listers and she attributes this to the fact that they are more down-to-earth and approachable. "Zhang Dayi is not an exceptional beauty, but she looks like someone you can be friends with. People think they can look like her if they put on some make-up," Ms Chen says. She says Tophot has signed cooperation agreements with 30,000 emerging internet celebrities. Although obviously not all are set for stardom. Picture of Janet Chen, founder of Tophot Image caption And internet celebrity incubators are becoming increasingly popular with investors, says Zhang Yi, founder of iiMedia Research, a Guangzhou-based media consultancy firm. He says there are already about 50 internet celebrity incubators in China. But, he points out, some investors worry about the long-term prospects of the industry. "A lot of factors behind [the popularity of] internet celebrities cannot be duplicated," Mr Zhang says. "The failure rate [of investment of internet celebrity incubators] is 95% or above." Others in China worry about the standards of beauty online celebrities are creating for Chinese women. An attractive appearance seems to have become an indispensable quality for internet celebrities, and "internet celebrity face", which refers to the combination of doe eyes, a pointy chin, a high nose and fair skin, is a commonly used shorthand in China. Photos of Ling Ling Image caption According to CBNData, about 90% of customers of the online shops run by internet celebrities are females. In the report published by iiMedia Research, about 10% of internet celebrities admitted that they had undergone plastic surgery. "Internet celebrities create standard, rigid aesthetics and body images for women," says Li Sipan, founder of Women Awakening Network, a feminist group based in Guangzhou. Ms Li also says that many young women would believe that being an internet celebrity was a fast-track to success, and imitate their behaviour. 'She's an idol' But the fans are devoted and unlike with movie stars and top musicians, they get a lot of access to their favourite internet celebrity. Ling Ling employees six assistants, but she says she is the one who interacts with her fans online. Apart from Weibo and WeChat, Ling Ling also conducts live-streaming sessions at times. "Fans are most important," Ling Ling says. "I have been working in the business for 10 years and I am thankful for the support of my fans." Ling Ling, a 29-year-old social media celebrity from ShanghaiImage copyright
Tophot "Ling Ling is very friendly [to fans]. There are always chances for us to meet her," says Hu Xiaofei, a long-time fan who spends about 1,000 yuan on Ling Ling's shop every season. "She is like an idol [to me]. I will learn how to mix and match and put on make-up from her posts." Janet Chen firmly believes that the digital native generation - those born in and after the 90s like Hu Xiaofei - will continue to fuel the popularity of internet celebrities in the long run. "When these generations become the mainstream group, their [digital] habits will dominate society's consumption pattern," she adds. However, Ling Ling admits that she sometimes feels insecure. "There are so many [social media] platforms and new internet celebrities. There are more and more pretty girls… Even for top internet celebrities, if they do not work hard, people may not know them at all in a few years." Additional reporting by Zoe Chen http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36802769
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