書卷獎 in English?

[lingo-ling]

Does anyone know if there's a "standard" English translation for 書卷獎? And if so, what it might be?

 

It's a type of award for academic excellence in university studies, often given to one of the top three performing students within a 班. These are a common type of academic award in Taiwan; no idea if there is such thing on the mainland.

 

Thanks

[skylee]

Consider awards of book coupons. Ref - http://lc.hkbu.edu.hk/elap/prize.php

PS - I don't think it is a good incentive but obviously this university does and is quite happy with the results.

[skylee]

Oh I have misread 書卷. I thought it was 書券. Sorry about that.

[skylee]

Consider Outstanding Awards. Ref -http://registra-en.web.nthu.edu.tw/files/13-1111-5190.php (take a look at the first downloadable form)

[陳德聰]

"Outstanding Award" suffers from a bad case of Chinglish.

 

I translate this as Academic Excellence Award or Outstanding Academic Achievement Award when I do students' resumes, or "Award for Academic Excellence/Outstanding Academic Achievement" depending on how much space needs to be filled.

[skylee]

I guess for such things inflation is inevitable.

[lingo-ling]

I've encountered "Book Coupon Award", but the recipients aren't given book coupons, as far as I understand.

 

I've encountered "National Book Award", but it's not a national award; it's just an award given by a university.

 

I've seen "Academic Excellence Award" and permutations thereof, but these seem just too generic.

 

But I haven't found anything that seems remotely authoritative. It's not in Taiwan's Ministry of Education Glossary, for instance.

 

 

EDIT: Scratch that: I just found that Tunghai University issues these awards as bilingual printed certificates, and the English is "Presidential Award". Though that's just one university's nomenclature, it's authoritative enough for my needs at the current stage.

 

EDIT Again: National Taiwan University, Taiwan's top university, also issues them as "Presidential Award"!

[陳德聰]

The first two are 100% terrible translations.

Re: Being too generic, 书卷奖 are exactly that. So many students receive this award that I feel like it is just nominal without any sort of weight to it. The top 3 from every 班? There are a lot of 班s.

[skylee]

Re "authoritative", which are the authorities? Unless it is a national scheme, I think each institution is free to give or not give such awards and call them whatever they like. So it is quite acceptable that there is not a standard or authoritative English name IMO.

[lingo-ling]

Since Taiwan's Ministry of Education doesn't have a translation for this in its glossary, I'm happy to accept something that's: a) used by two major universities, one being the most prestigious in Taiwan, on their official documentation; and b) not Chinglish. These sources are sufficiently authoritative for my needs.

[skylee]

Well search on then.