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Something smells in deal for pirated dictionaries
By Ni Tao |
May 9, 2013, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CCTV reported recently that 3.2 million copies of a widely used Chinese dictionary that education authorities in Hubei Province had purchased to give away free to primary school students were found to be pirated.
The pirated Xinhua Zidian, a primer for pupils learning to read and write, are printed with shocking shoddiness. They bear no names of editors, the content is gleaned from other dictionaries and lumped together without much clarity.
The errors in those dictionaries are 20 times the allowable national limit. The most outrageous news is that the inferior dictionaries sell for 6 yuan (97 US cents) more than standard, copyrighted dictionaries.
Dictionaries introduce children to a world described in their mother tongues. If they are full of mistakes, all they can do is undermine literacy. Reputable lexicologists are very strict and fastidious about working with words, intolerant of the smallest error.
But the serious business of compiling, publishing and distributing dictionaries is reduced to an afterthought by money-grubbing pirate publishers and local education officials. To some extent, educators should shoulder more blame. Did they, as the supposed guardians of students' interests, ever bother to fulfill their responsibility in duly checking the quality of their purchase?
An investigation ought to be launched into how they came to buy pirated dictionaries priced higher than authentic ones. It's highly likely that some decision makers in the Hubei Education Administration received inducements to approve the deal.
Over the years, there are quite a few cases in which education officials were brought down for accepting bribes from textbook publishers whose bids were accepted.
Amid the national campaign against piracy, the government should set an example in standing up to the scourge.
The pirated Xinhua Zidian, a primer for pupils learning to read and write, are printed with shocking shoddiness. They bear no names of editors, the content is gleaned from other dictionaries and lumped together without much clarity.
The errors in those dictionaries are 20 times the allowable national limit. The most outrageous news is that the inferior dictionaries sell for 6 yuan (97 US cents) more than standard, copyrighted dictionaries.
Dictionaries introduce children to a world described in their mother tongues. If they are full of mistakes, all they can do is undermine literacy. Reputable lexicologists are very strict and fastidious about working with words, intolerant of the smallest error.
But the serious business of compiling, publishing and distributing dictionaries is reduced to an afterthought by money-grubbing pirate publishers and local education officials. To some extent, educators should shoulder more blame. Did they, as the supposed guardians of students' interests, ever bother to fulfill their responsibility in duly checking the quality of their purchase?
An investigation ought to be launched into how they came to buy pirated dictionaries priced higher than authentic ones. It's highly likely that some decision makers in the Hubei Education Administration received inducements to approve the deal.
Over the years, there are quite a few cases in which education officials were brought down for accepting bribes from textbook publishers whose bids were accepted.
Amid the national campaign against piracy, the government should set an example in standing up to the scourge.
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