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Sat 10 Mar, 2007 06:01 pm
In Chinese, "buchangpeichang", which means also compensation for an injury, damage or loss, but the one who pays the money is definitely in the wrong, and he or an institution is required to pay by law. And maybe some other factors will be taken into account, such as a mount of money demanded for mental distress, etc.
My question is, please think of two different English words for the abovementioned situations. As you can see, when you have a set of synonyms, the definitions of which are in a circulatory manner, a non-native speaker of English usually will have trouble making the right choice. My tentative version is: compensation vs reparation. Can you native speakers of English see the difference implied by reading the two terms placed together in the way I did? Or can you think of two different adjectives to modify the head nouns?
Your two choices make perfect sense to me.
I cant see why you MUST have a single word translation.
Concepts are a difficult area of any language.
Plus, those single words aren't really on the mark. Neither of them really have anything to do with guilt or the need to pay. Many of these similar words are used more or less interchangeably so you'd have a hard time getting your point understood.
My view is that if compensation must be paid by law it matters very little if you are in the wrong or not.
If you are not in the wrong why pay compensation.
I think the word compensation substitutes for both because westerners dont differentiate between the two scenarios.
The only place I can think of where guilt or innocence matter in a matter of compensation is an out of court settlement. where one party believes they may lose a case and offers money to settle the case without a court based determination of guilt.
Perhaps the words you are looking for are compensation and settlement.
It would however be usual to state publicly that settlement is offered without admission of guilt.
Prostitution and marriage.
An example to show what I actually mean
Maybe I should give you another example. Suppose you are a developer, you want to use this area for constructing a building, so you pay for those who are to move to a diifferent place. In this instance you pay to make up for the loss incurred thereon. In another instance, you burned down a propery for which you are sued and you must pay for the loss too, but it's of a different nature. In the first instance you "buchang" ; but in the second instance you "peichang". So, what do you suggest? Will compensation and reparation do?
I found an article that uses the words.
Fighting over Peace Memorial Day: Politicians and February 28 Commemoration, Page 14:
Quote:DPP and Nationalist legislators fought over the amount of money to be given victims or their families, and whether such money was compensation (buchang) or reparations (peichang). Reparations, which indicated payment based on malfeasance, was rejected in favor of compensation. The final amount set for compensation in 1995 was 6 million New Taiwan dollars, despite the DPP's call for a 10 million dollar budget. In the context of the raucous partisan politics on the island, measures that might have appeared magnanimous in 1990 were derided as insufficient by 1995.
In April, Lee and the Executive Yuan began to implement the February 28 Incident Resolution and Compensation Regulations (Er erba shijian chuli ji buchang tiaolie). The Regulations provided the most concrete way for politicians to connect their agendas to the Incident. These rules called for the creation of an independent February 28 Incident Commemoration Foundation to develop methods to compensate victims of February 28, to document the cases of those imprisoned or killed, and to organize activities for Peace Memorial 28In 2006 a series of newspaper reports appeared that suggested Lee had been a communist sympathizer who cooperated with Xie Xuehong and others in armed resistance to the Nationalists. Lee has gone no further than toadmit that he belonged to an organization that was linked to the communists.
http://www.duke.edu/APSI/events/TEAC/2005_2006/phillips_paper.pdf
Re: An example to show what I actually mean
fansy wrote:Maybe I should give you another example. Suppose you are a developer, you want to use this area for constructing a building, so you pay for those who are to move to a diifferent place. In this instance you pay to make up for the loss incurred thereon. In another instance, you burned down a propery for which you are sued and you must pay for the loss too, but it's of a different nature. In the first instance you "buchang" ; but in the second instance you "peichang". So, what do you suggest? Will compensation and reparation do?
Paying for moving is called a taking or a civil condemnation of property. Paying for the burned down property is compensation or reparations (see, they're interchangeable there) or the payment of a settlement or verdict.
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