Trust in Chinese–English bilingual documents: a heuristic for typographic decision-making

Tam, K. (2017) Trust in Chinese–English bilingual documents: a heuristic for typographic decision-making. In: Typography Day Colombo 2017, 24–25 Feb 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Abstract/Summary

This paper explores the notion of trust in bilingual documents. A heuristic is presented, examining various levels of decision-making carried out by the producer and designer of a bilingual document that will influence the perception of trust on the reader’s part. The seven interrelated considerations are (1) producer (2) script (3) reader (4) context (5) genre (6) content (7) production. Although some of these decisions are purely strategic and invisible to the reader, this paper argues that they can always be inferred in a bilingual document’s graphic presentation. Decisions on graphic presentation work across all seven levels of consideration, establishing the status relationship between two languages as well as providing cues for readers to access a document’s rhetorical structure in myriad ways. Examples of Chinese–English bilingual documents from Hong Kong are used to illustrate the discussions. The heuristic aims to promote further discussions and research on bilingual document design issues as well as to guide practice.

Item Type	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/69732
Refereed	No
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Typography & Graphic Communication
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