Experts in the Industry: Suki Chung, Chinese and English translator and interpreter

Suki Chung is a Chinese and English translator and interpreter working mainly in the field of political and social development issues. Suki recently completed a Masters in translation at Aston University after more than five years of professional experience in Hong Kong, which included translating international news reports for publications such as the Oriental Daily. She will present a paper on the relationship between translation and ideology in British news reports on China at the session for recent graduates on 16th May.

Check out the rest of the ITI Conference programme here.

1. In two sentences, please describe what you’ll be talking about at the conference, and what translation and interpreting (T&I) professionals will gain from hearing it.

The interrelationship between translation and ideology in news reporting of the British media about China. To raise the awareness of the T&I professionals about the important but always invisible role of translation in writing about a foreign reality in the news discourse.

2. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to make your workplace more sustainable, what would you do?

I would change my workplace into a very cozy, homely environment with all sorts of necessary back-up to aid my translation work, in order to make my translation ‘life’ more ‘sustainable’.

3. Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?

Aung San Suu Kyi

4. To what degree do you feel involved in and supported by your professional community, and why?

Somewhat. Being a home-based freelancer, I do not often get in touch with my fellow professionals.

5. Freeform – here’s where you are free to riff on anyone or anything, good or bad, or just share a pearl of wisdom.

Many people still think that translation is just transferring one language into another, and that bilingual speakers are able to do translation as long as they have good use of a dictionary and ‘Google’. Are translators professionals, as doctors or lawyers alike? I would definitely say ‘yes’. But there are many sloppy translation service agencies producing too many bad translations that make our profession not ‘decent’.

Thanks Suki, and hope you enjoy the conference.

This is the seventh in a series of short interviews run in the lead-up to the ITI International Conference on 16th – 17th May.