官方教授

[Kev]

I get the feeling 官方 is used derisively in the quote below. Am I right about this?

 

If so, what would be a good way of translating 官方教授?

Some ideas:

Real life professor?

Honest to goodness professor?

Lackey professor?

Regime friendly professor?

 

If not, please help because in this case I have no idea what a formal professor might mean, and real professor ...

 

Quote:

对比一下：2013年官方教授说“宪政的关键性制度元素和理念只属于资本主义和资产阶级专政"与1980年代官方说“人权是资产阶级的口号”、“人权不是无产阶级的口号”有两样？ 30年了，共产党就是這樣 “进化”的。 这篇文章预示：习近平在酝酿2013年反宪政宣傳攻势。

[陳德聰]

官方 is "official", not formal and certainly in most cases not real.

But I'm interested to know why in the first part it says 官方教授 and then second part just says 官方... this reads a bit odd and out of context, perhaps an error. It would make more sense to me as just 官方说"宪政..."

[Kev]

If my first hypothesis is correct then, depending on context, "real" may be acceptable. I imagine there may be many reasons for only referring to "官方" the second time, among them. 1. The meaning is different 2. The meaning was already clear 3. Save space in a tweet

[陳德聰]

Even so, 官方 being "derisive" would not explain the pairing of 官方 and 教授. It suggests that perhaps this is a person or group of persons who can represent the government's official position, or I might even push it to encompass well-known professors who can act as the talking piece of the party.

 

But it still seems weird.

 

Either way, I can only imagine 官方 as "real" in the sense that someone's online account is the "real" person or it has been "verified". But unless this context is speaking about a specific professor, that doesn't really hold up.

[Kev]

Thanks Chen

I've done a bit more research and now think, and have put into my database accordingly:

官方教授    1. official instructions/guide (often from a company about a product), official lecture, official tutorial 2. official teacher, official professor

教授    教授      1. professor, 2. to instruct, to lecture on

 

The MDBG definition of 教授 is too limited.

 

Of course, I'd welcome other input, because I'm not yet 100% happy with this.

[roddy]

Where are all the unofficial professors? 

[imron]

In the unofficial universities, duh.

[Kenny同志]

In this context, 官方教授 makes sense. It refers those professors who speak for the government.

[zyx199199]

As a native Chinese speaker, I have never heard of this word 官方教授……

 

I am pretty sure there is no such thing as 官方教授

 

I found the original tweet from which you may pick up this sentence. And based on other tweets the twitter posted, I think he comes from Taiwan or Hongkong, which means his usage of words may be slightly different from that of Mainland Chinese, or he just coined that word.

 

Actually, the so-called 官方教授 who said “宪政的关键性制度元素和理念只属于资本主义和资产阶级专政" is a law professor surnamed 杨, he wrote an article on "宪政" and this article got published on a magazine 红旗文稿, a magazine published by the Communist Party.

 

In terms of translation, I believe formal or real professor are both  inappropriate, "a pro-government professor" may be acceptable.

 

By the way, I noticed that you are an Australian NAATI-accredited translator. I'm now pursuing my master degree of translating and interpreting at Macquarie University, Sydney. I'm more than happy to make friends with you.

[Kenny同志]

@zyx199199

 

I think you may have failed to pick up on the humour in the original. The author coined this term; no doubt. But still, it makes sense in the context. In my opinion, it's kind of like '磚家'(internet slang). There're two types of experts, i.e. 磚家 and 專家; and there're two types of professors, too, i.e. 官方教授 (or 叫獸, as some'd like to call them) and 教授.

 

Edited at 10:28

[Kev]

Thank you Kenny同志， please see my first post on this issue.

[Kenny同志]

Consider: The government's professors.

[gato]

It's analogous to "官方媒体", which is very commonly used.

[Kev]

Thanks Kenny同志 again, and gato!