5月16日，北京发了一个关于2017年中国留学生的调查

[Ori_A]

My question was not about the OP's context, and I understand that context very well. After his question had been answered, I was curious about other readings of the sentece, given other contexts. That's all, and I'm sorry if it wasn't clear from my question. 

[陳德聰]

If I wanted to say issued a survey, I would say 發(布)了調查問卷, 9 times out of 10, the other one time being if I made an online survey form and wanted to post it to social media or email it to respondents or whatever, in which case I can see myself saying just 調查.

 

What Publius is saying about context is revealing. This is not a uniquely Chinese issue. In translation, beyond understanding the semantics and syntax of a given sentence, one also needs to take pragmatics into account. That is, how language is used in reality, outside the vacuum of 1:1 correspondence. 發布調查 hypothetically could have meant "issue a survey" if meaning were derived purely from the composition of a phrase but it simply isn't.

 

If you mean to ask "is there a hypothetical where '發布...調查' could form some combination with a context and it would mean issue a survey", the answer is yes. But even in that situation such a meaning is only possible if forced by the context. In the absence of this context, we all have our own personal accumulation of statistical knowledge (another kind of context, really), and if you held a gun to my head and told me I had to tell you what OP's sentence said, I'd assume I would die if I translated it as "issued", and while I don't speak for the majority, I believe the pretty well instinctual assumption is that 發布調查 is most likely to mean 發布調查結果 or 發布調查報告, and much less likely to mean 發布調查問卷.

 

Edit: The absence of certain clues can also be a clue. Note that if the OP's sentence says "Beijing" did this (putting aside the fact that using Beijing to refer to China's government is something we do in English, but not so much in Chinese), the question becomes "who was the survey issued to?" and the scenario in which Beijing issued a survey about Chinese international students becomes more and more in need of specific context to be possible. If I wanted to take it to the extreme, did Beijing issue a survey to the people of Beijing about their attitudes toward Chinese international students? If that is relatively outside the realm of plausible real life situations, it's a very unlikely translation.

[imron]

22 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

"the issue of promissory notes by the bank" for example. Sounds fine to me

That sounds perfectly fine to me too (well, as a half completed sentence anyway), however that is not even close to the same wording as your translation.

 

22 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

I occasionally hear people refer to the govt as Beijing. I hear it in film and tv shows a lot too.

I hear it all the time too, but not without some other sort of context which is lacking here.

 

22 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

If you want to add and say Beijing/Chinese govt go for it

I don't, at least not straight away, but when I come across something like this that feels slightly off then that would be my cue to research it further and find out exactly what was meant so that I could provide an accurate translation (this is what I talked about when I said it's important to develop the skill for knowing when things feel off), and kudos to 陳德聰 for doing just that and finding out it wasn't 'Beijing' who did the survey.

 

21 hours ago, JerryG11 said:

God this place is full of trolls

More and more by the day it seems.

 

5 hours ago, Ori_A said:

then if I'd want to say "issued a survey", how would I say it?

My guess is that if you insisted on using 发 it would be 发了一个调查表 or similar.  Edit: 陳德聰 beat me to the punch with 调查问卷

[imron]

24 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

putting aside the fact that using Beijing to refer to China's government is something we do in English, but not in Chinese

Is it? I could have sworn I've heard people using Beijing as a proxy for the Chinese govt, maybe on something like 锵锵三人行 or similar, or maybe I'm misremembering based on English speaking habits.

 

Edit: see for example here.

[陳德聰]

3 minutes ago, imron said:

Is it?

 

Honestly I went back and edited it again afterward because I was just throwing out bold statements and it seemed less true after I hit save  it definitely happens. I get this weird vibe off it that it is a newer thing influenced by the way international news refers to state governments by the name of their capital, but I admit I have not done very deep sleuthing over it.

[Ori_A]

Thank you for the explanation.
I'm aware of the role pragmatics has in language, whether translation or normal speech. Context is everywhere, but while it is a crucial tool for our communication, context (or lack thereof) can cause misunderstandings, which is a very fun part about language in my opinion. It is also a good place for discussion regarding the semantics of the language.
Let's say that my field of work or study is related to international Chinese students (if there is such a thing. Go with me here). My friend, who knows that, sends me the following message: 北京发了一个关于2017年中国留学生的调查
No context, no link to any article, nothing. While sending text messages, being easy and cheap (well, free..) as it is, these situations can happen very often. Before I respond or ask for clarifications, I'd guess (not scientifically based, obviously) that I would go through two lines of thought regarding that sentece (not necessarily in this order):
1. How many grammatically correct readings are there here, and what are they? (This would be a very quick and probably subconcious step for any native or fluent speaker of the language)
2. What's my intuition here? Which one is probably right, based on my previous experiences, and intuitions as a speaker of the language? (Again, much more accurate for native speakers)

I personally don't have any strong intuition regarding this sentence, and my question was regarding the actual grammatically correct options here, outside of any context. I would probably add the 调查结果 or 调查问卷 if it was me writing this. But I guess it is redundant given a clear context.

I believe that looking at sentences out of context, while not helpful in communication, can help us as learners get an idea of how we understand the grammer, as well as how we feel the language. It's an interesting thing, at least in my opinion.

[JerryG11]

@Ori_A

6 hours ago, Ori_A said:

 

Context is important when we want to understand what the original meaning was. I wasn't talking about that, but rather about understanding what possible meanings could be considered correct, given different contexts, or maybe given no context. 

Someone here suggested that it might mean "to issue the survey". Since no context was given in the question, I wondered if it's possible to get this meaning from this specific sentence.

 

I (think) I understand from you that yes, both meanings are correct, given different contexts.

So thank you for the answer.

 

 

 

It's a losing battle Ori_A don't try to fight them on this

[Flickserve]

9 hours ago, Ori_A said:

I believe that looking at sentences out of context, while not helpful in communication, can help us as learners get an idea of how we understand the grammer, as well as how we feel the language. It's an interesting thing, at least in my opinion.

 

three factors come into mind. The translation itself and its various possibilities, experience of the language to filter out and then the context.

 

take away context and you rely on experience to narrow down the possibilities.

 

if you want to take away all ambiguities, then call in the lawyers!