Is there an English equivalent for 监督?

[tooironic]

Just wondering if there is a decent translation for 监督 in English?

Of course literally it can be translated as "supervise" but would one say "the government supervises X" is natural English? I feel that "supervise" is more commonly used when you're talking about a person watching another person, though I may be wrong.

"Oversee" may be an OK translation, or the noun form "oversight", what do you think?

What are the common collocations of 监督 in Chinese? Perhaps we can compare them to the common collocations for "supervise" in English, and go from there.

[skylee]

I always have reservation about the use of "oversight" in this sense.

 

"Monitor" is an alternative.

[Michaelyus]

"Oversee/Oversight" is my knee-jerk reaction, and is what I use the most (in English as well). I also come across "supervise" used by whole corporate bodies, e.g. "this department supervises the sales in...". 

 

在...监督下 is the most usual use I see in Chinese. Then there's 专司监督, 公众监督, which seem to suggest styles of supervision... which borders management. But then the two are certainly not synonymous, especially in the business world. I found this: 发挥监督、管理和引导作用, which sounds very (all-too?) typical. I second skylee's "monitor" suggestion, mainly because this is a useful distinction between 管理 and 监督.

[tysond]

Consider "regulate"?  Especially if it's a legal/government context where we are talking about supervising a system/economy/market.

[roddy]

Seconding that - as a government activity that's very often the word you're looking for. The one I find tricky is 舆论监督. 

[tooironic]

That looks interesting Roddy, thanks for posting. I suppose "supervision" (or "regulation" or "oversight" depending on the context) will have to suffice for now.

[roddy]

How do you mean "for now"? Are you expecting something better? What contexts do you have where one of those three won't suit?

[tooironic]

Because sometimes good translations take time to come up with. There have been occasions where a decent translation of a Chinese word into English or vice versa didn't emerge until a year or two after the fact. But I've already grown accustomed to this.

 

In this case I feel that in English "supervision" is not something a government can logically do, but rather an individual can, e.g. an employer supervising his/her employee. This is because a "government" is not a person with eyes that can "watch" something. But this is just my gut feeling, I don't have any hard evidence to back it up.

[roddy]

For what it's worth, you've got the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation in the US and the word's used in similar contexts in the UK and EU. These are perhaps newer usages as a result of the more proactive approach deemed necessary over the last few years. It's perhaps more appropriate in China where the government tends to be more hands on. In fact, it usually owns the company.

 

Personally I'd say we've got the words we need in this case, and I won't be holding out for any new ones. Suggestions welcome though. 

[imron]

The one I find tricky is 舆论监督.

Managing public opinion?

[roddy]

Well. 

 

When the government tries to influence 舆论, the collocation is usually 引导 or 管理. I think in the West this is just too direct a description for us. Our governments have communications strategies and spin doctors, but would they ever say they guide or manage our opinions? Here they 'help the public understand', 'influence attitudes and behaviours' (for our benefit, natch), but I can't imagine them ever explicitly guiding or managing.

 

But the odd thing about 舆论监督 is that it spins the direction round 180^{o - all oops let me get back down} All of a sudden the government is the one getting 监督ed: 

在我国，舆论监督主要指人民群众或新闻从业人员通过新闻媒体和各种宣传工具对社会行政管理机构进行的监督与批评。

Which I feel for us is something so commonplace we barely even have names for it. It's like when someone from North Korea asks you what you call it when you have a radio that tunes into different stations. "Er, a radio?" Our politicians might promise to listen to public opinion and fret about opinion polls, but do they ever stand up and undertake to accept supervision by the public and media?

 

But then, I look for the above links and I find this

舆论监督是新闻媒体拥有运用舆论的独特力量，帮助公众了解政府事务、社会事务和一切涉及公共利益的事务，并促使其沿着法制和社会生活公共准则的方向运作的一种社会行为的权利。

Which sends us right back to the media as the throat of the Party. 

 

For what it's worth, the first version is the one I'm used to, and I was surprised to see the other definition on Baidupedia, then further surprised to find it on People.com.cn. I haven't read either of these in detail, and if anyone wants to explain it all to me, that'd be just great .

[Guest realmayo]

http://cmp.hku.hk/2007/07/08/432/

 In some cases the term can be used, particularly by proponents of an independent and professional press, as a stand-in term for “press freedom

...

But “supervision by public opinion” has also been used frequently by officials in China to talk about the role of news media – under state control – in uncovering issues of official corruption and abuse of power on a range of issues, particularly at lower levels of the bureaucracy.

[li3wei1]

In which case 'oversight' might be the word we're looking for here.

[roddy]

Scrutiny might be another possibility (which I just heard on on the radio and thought, ah-ha!)

[Nathan Mao]

I'd like to see the whole paragraph it is in, or at least the complete sentence before giving my opinion. 

 

In my experience, there may be three related words in Chinese on a topic, and three related words in English on the same topic, but which one matches with which in translation will depend on context.  For instance: lover, companion, spouse, husband/wife...  Or: 想，要， and 想要.  Or: 让，使，要， 应该， and 该.  There are no one-for-one translations that work perfectly in every context.