Who translate Chinese academic works of the humanities and social sciences - a survey of the academic background of the government-funded translators

Bibliometric studies have mostly been concerned with journal articles, conducting surveys on the status quo of translation and interpreting studies in China. Very little research has been undertaken on a large scale to understand the practice-oriented projects funded by The National Social Science Fund of China. No study has been conducted on the academic background of the grantees of the projects, whom we call government-funded translators. Intending to fill this gap, this study presents a survey of the academic background of these translators in China. The analysis is mainly based on a survey of the projects funded by the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences between 2010 and 2021 (the latest year of release). Through quantitative and qualitative content analyses, we mainly examine the academic background of Chinese government-funded translators in terms of gender, age, affiliation, title, academic degree, subject of education, geographical location, and thematic trend. Not only does this study present a portrait of the Chinese Academic Translation Project (hereafter referred to as CATP), especially the status quo of the Chinese government-funded translators, but it also gives insights into other related areas, and for future research intending to do bibliometric analysis in terms of methodology.