Ambiguity about numbers

[Jim]

Something I've often puzzled over is the habit of being vague about numbers I regularly encounter in Chinese texts I translate (more so than i recall in conversation). In a story, there will be a number of children playing and the text will say 五六个 when the author clearly knows, or is in a position to know, exactly how many there are. What prompted this post was how it also occurs when giving an age, a character is described as 才十一、二歲，卻長得黝黑高大. Again, the author knows which it is, so why the ambiguity?

I searched and found a couple of academic papers on the topic, e.g. On the Cultural Factors in the Vagueness of Numbers in English and Chinese | Semantic Scholar but couldn't access the full text. Would be interested if anyone here has any other studies or insights to share.

[fakemushroom]

Native speaker here. This is the equivalent of “few” and “several”. In this case the author is probably painting a scene for the reader, rather than exactly counting. For example you would say “a crowd of people cheered” instead of “thirty-two people cheered”. Does that make sense?

[fakemushroom]

Sorry didn’t see your quote. In this case the author is essentially saying “pre-teen”. 

[Xtuphe]

It means that the author is not quite so sure about the exact number so the author just throw a number he/she think it might be,  for example, when my wife says “等我一二十分钟”, what she means is just wait for a while, it could be waiting for 10 or 20 minutes, and I won't be surprised if I end up waiting like 60 minutes as it happened so many times?

[Jim]

Thanks! I'm aware of the usage you describe, but am also encountering it contexts where it still seems a little puzzling, in that otherwise it's a specific situation and group being referred to, but then when we get to the number, the ambiguity comes in. I'll stick up examples when I encounter them, as I realise my post itself is also a bit vague.

[Jim]

@Xtuphe Again, what's made me ask is these are situations when the writer does know, so it's different from the usage you describe. It seems to be a rhetorical device of some sort, as alluded to in the abstract of that paper I linked, but aimed at what effect I'm still unsure.

[Xtuphe]

Speaking of rhetorical devices I came up with the famous poem written by LiBai "飞流直下三千尺, 疑是银河落九天(The waterfall cascades three thousand feet straight down, as if the Milky Way descends from the ninth heaven)"

the number "三千" is hyperbole, by giving an exaggerated number makes reader feel how magnificent the waterfall is

 

 Also the idiom "千钧一发", a thousand jun of weight hang by a single hair, gives reader a picture of how unstable or dangerous the situation is. The idiom is derived from 《列子 仲尼》“发引千钧 势至等也”, the ancient Chinese writings are pretty difficult even for natives, so you should not bother why it's "千钧" instead of "百钧" or “万钧”. But the idiom "千钧一发" is commonly used. It's funny that I saw a comment before which says the Chinese idioms are like hyperlinks before internet was invented. 

 

Hope this is what you are looking for.

[Jim]

It is interesting to consider how numbers are used rhetorically, and why sometimes it's, e.g. 百病不生 but then 千钧 in your example. That's a separate question though, I think.

Flicking through the current thing I'm working on, I think it's that the examples are both specific and then made vague by this ambiguity. Here's an example: 

臺灣總督府已經統治臺灣六、七年，對於「不馴分子」極盡嚴酷的消滅手段

The author is writing this when he's also given a specific date for events so knows whether it's been six or seven years, and yet if the idea is something equivalent to the English 'half a dozen' as a vaguer period, the narrow range seems quite precise. That came up searching on the text 六、七, but then in other cases it's 七、八 or 八、九 etc. suggesting the author does has something more precise in mind. Another example from the first search:

就在第三天——昭和4年1月15日拂曉，以鍾益紅、李勝丁這兩個宿世冤家為首的六、七個武裝巡查，突然從菅草叢裡冒出來。

Again, can see how it might be saying 'half a dozen' cops, but you can find similar passages elsewhere where the number changes. So again, both vague and precise!

Perhaps it's just that Chinese likes its vagueness not to be too vague.

 

Another one encountered just:

這是在中壢留置場七、八個月中深思熟慮的結論

Seems odd to be vague about the length of a fixed term of detention.

[realmayo]

Now you mention it, I think I've noticed this kind of thing too. I started wondering if e.g. 7-8 years was to account for the fact that - depending on the month - it would be 7 or 8 years and the writer doesn't want the reader to think he's gone to the trouble of actually working back to check what month ... but I'm probably overthinking it.

 

On 12/15/2023 at 2:54 AM, Jim said:

Perhaps it's just that Chinese likes its vagueness not to be too vague.

 

Or that for stylistic (as you propose) reasons, writers are uncomfortable with too much precision because it seems unnatural, and they would rather preserve some kind of naturalness in their written narration.

 

Interesting that Chinese doesn't usually like an "or" between "7 or 8 people", I wonder if there is a slight conceptual difference when our ears hear "seven eight" rather then "seven or eight".

 

Also interesting that in classical Chinese, 3 tends to mean 'several'.

[Jim]

@realmayo That wasn't the only paper turned up when I searched, which suggests it is a 'thing' if studies have been made, but sadly none of them gave more than the abstract. Not searched in Chinese yet though, will try that.

[sanchuan]

Despite standard translation practice (and any grand academic theory built upon in...), there's actually no overt disjunction in the Chinese.

 

I would argue that's no oversight: the juxtaposition is often meant more as a range than as a disjunction ("between X and Y", rather than "X or Y"). Crucially, a range is, or at least is intended to be, far more accurate than a disjunction (which would indeed sound pointedly vague in most contexts).

 

For example, to state that a boy is between 11 and 12 is almost always more, not less, accurate than saying he's either 11 or 12 to the day (which is the expedient approximation we all otherwise use in common parlance). Likewise, to say that detention will be "between 7 and 8 months" may be an attempt to give a slightly more, not less, accurate measure of its duration: neither 7 months nor 8 months but, to be precise, 7 and a half months or thereabouts. It's still approximate, but not as deliberately vague as saying "either 7 or 8". So in these cases, chances are the writer is not deliberately speaking in "vague disjunctions", as it were, but likely trying to express figures in an elegant & concise range so as to avoid decimals or clunky "more than"/"less than" constructions, especially in formal writing.

 

I'm less certain of this when it comes to giving figures for a known number of people, in which case it could either be a narrative expedient (to describe a scene from the point of view of a non-omniscent onlooker) or simply a habit derived from the usage described above. Either way, I'd be wary of attempts to ascribe some sort of significance to this (or to insist it's always disjunctive and hence "vague"). Even if it translates vague, the intention may be anything but. 

[Jim]

Lot of merit in that first part @sanchuan though I still think there's a little more going on, not least because the same author does use precise ages and time periods etc. at other points in the book. Didn't have much joy with finding any papers in Chinese, searches brought up more general discussions off the use of numbers.

[cncorrect]

On 12/16/2023 at 1:11 AM, sanchuan said:

I would argue that's no oversight: the juxtaposition is often meant more as a range than as a disjunction ("between X and Y", rather than "X or Y").

I agree. It's a range. “已经统治六、七年" means 'has ruled for six years and several months'. The author wants to descible the big picture, because details do not matter here. I know some Chinese scholars consider the Chinese language as a traditional Chinese brush painting compared to English. It lacks much details. But the overall picture is enough.