Announcers on China Central Television (CCTV) will need to do some fast talking to replace the popular English acronyms(首字母缩略词) they’re now forbidden to use. Shanghai Daily reports that “anchors at China Central Television [CCTV] have been banned from saying the English acronyms NBA, CBA, GDP, and the like in their programs
.”
The replacement for those handy acronyms? Chinese presenters must use the full Chinese name, standardized by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
Although CCTV (oops, we mean China Central Television) presenters must already have a score of at least 94 in their government-rated oral Mandarin proficiency exam（普通话等级考试）, saying the full name of organizations like the CBA or WTO ― 10 and 6 charac
ter’s long separately ― is sure to challenge even the most skillful anchors. CCTV sports anchor Sun Zhengping tells Shanghai Daily, “A full Chinese explanation of the English acronyms must be followed if my tongue slips. It is a little trouble but a necessary one because not every audience member can understand the acronyms.”
Although the government isn’t giving any official explanation for the shift, it is believed to have to do with a proposal (提案) by Huang Youyi, director of the China International Publishing Group, at March’s NPC meeting. In his sp
eech, Huang said, “With more and more publications mixing Chinese with English, measures and regulations should be adopted to avoid English invading Chinese. If we don’t pay attention and don’t take measures to stop the expansion of mixing Chinese with English, Chinese won’t be a pure language in a couple of years.”
Although China is far from the first country to take measures to protect local languages (the French and Québécois beat them to it by a long way), acronyms are more about saving time than they are about corrupting a language, we would think. Good luck to the CCTV anchors.
1. CCTV anchors have to “do some fast talking” because they can no longer ______.
A．speak as slowly as they like
B．mix English into Chinese
C．use shortened Chinese expressions
D．have so much time for their program
