Pinfan Zhu, PhD

Biography

Pinfan Zhu, a full professor of technical communication and rhetoric in the English Department of Texas State University, earned his Ph. D in 2004 from Texas Tech University. All through his academic career, he made many academic achievements. Major ones are as follows:

When he worked as a senior technical translator and editor in China, he interpreted for the UN officials and Guilin government on several important occasions of international technical communication and was the editor-in-chief for the academic journal The Planner circulated nationwide in China. At the same time, he published many translated articles on urban planning and architecture in the journal of The Planner, such as “Non-linear Architecture,” “Putting the Urb in the Suburbs” and “Research into Sustainable Architecture” to name a few. During the same period, he published three books through the Li River Press such as Guilin Foreign Trade in Brief, Rough Outline of Guilin, and A Famous Tourist City of History and Culture ─ Guilin through Asian Publishing House. While teaching as an Associate Professor in Guangxi Normal University, China, he also published two books: Flower Season of the Youth Blessing and a translated novel titled Madness Delusion by Charles Makey and two academic papers titled “Emphasis with Sentences” and “Study of Syntactical Emphasis in English,” carried in College English.

 In the teaching area, he developed two graduate courses like Technical Translation and Applied English. He also was accorded Excellent Award for Young Professors by the university there. Teaching as a professor of technical communication in Texas Tech University, Pinfan Zhu developed graduate courses like International Technical Communication, Writing Across Cultures, and Discourse Analysis while teaching other graduate courses like Visual Rhetoric, Digital Media and Web Design, and Writing Software Documentation. Students gave high evaluations on his teaching and course design. In the research area, he continued to keep an excellent record of publication. In two of the top journals in the field of technical communication, he published more than fifteen articles such as “Taking Traditional Chinese Medicine International and Online: An Examination of the Cultural Rhetorical Factors Affecting American Perceptions of Chinese Created Web Sites” in Technical Communication, “Cross-Cultural Blunders in Professional Communication from a Semantic Perspective,” “Cross-Cultural Blunders in Professional Communication from a Semantic Perspective,” and “Language Problems to Be Coped with in Web Localization” in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, to name few.

In addition to the above-mentioned two top journals in the field of technical communication, Zhu also published some articles in international academic journals. For example, “Problematic Graphics That Affect International Business” and “Translation Problems in International Business and Their Counter-measures” were published in Journal for Global Business Education; “Against Cultural Influence on Structuring a Discourse for Cross-Cultural Communication” in International Journal of Liberal Arts & Social Science; and “Best Strategy for Translating Technical and Business Information” in International Journal of Education and Social Science. Some of these articles were so well received by practitioners and professionals that they sent many emails to request these articles for use as the guidelines for their work. Also, because of these articles, Zhu received many letters from abroad that invited him as a member on their editorial boards. Right now, he is serving on the editorial boards for Journal of Media and Communication Studies, Britain, Chinese Traditional Medicine, China, Business Administration and Management, Singapore, and Universe Scientific Publishing Pte. Ltd. Singapore. Finally, Pinfan Zhu has attended numerous national and international conferences and read his papers in all these conferences such as those of 4Cs, National Council of Teachers of English, American Translation Association, and Society of Technical Communication, and International Organization of Social Science and Research. He is now in the completion process of his second book Business and Technical Communication Across Cultures.

Contact Information

pz10@txstate.edu

Phone: 512-245-2163

Publications

BOOKS

Zhu, Pinfan, Communicating Traditional Chinese Medicine across Cultures. Saarbrucken, Germany: Scholar s Press, 2013. Print.

TRANSLATIONS

Mackey, Charles. Madness Delusion. Ed. & Trans. Pinfan Zhu et al. Guilin, China: Li River Press, 2000. Print.

EDITOR CREDITS

Wang, Yulan. Flower Season of the Youth Blessing. Ed. & trans. Pinfan Zhu. Guilin, China: Li River Press, 1998. Print.

UPCOMING BOOK

2022 - Business and Technical Communication Across Cultures (under revision)

ARTICLES

Zhu, Pinfan, “Audience and Purpose as a Means for Improving the Acceptability of Technical Translation” International Journal of Linguistic, Literature, and Translation. Vol. 4 No. 7 (2021) online.

Zhu, Pinfan, “Translation of Traditional Chinese: Gains vs Losses” International Journal of Linguistic, Literature, and Translation. Vol. 4 No. 8 (2021) online.

*Zhu, Pinfan, “Nabokov’s Art of Translation: Effective Means to Attract a Wide Readership.” International Journal of Linguistic, Literature, and Translation. Vol. 3 No. 12 (2020) online.

*Zhu, Pinfan, “Well-Received Chinese Rhetorical Strategies as Identified in the Public Speeches and Reports by Chinese Leaders.” Journal of Media and Communication Studies. Vol.12(4), pp. 46-53, October 2020. 5B8FED865476 online.

*Zhu, Pinfan, “Impact of Business Cultural Values on Homepage Design That May Hinder International Business.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 46.1 (2016): 105124.

*Zhu, Pinfan, “Against Cultural Influence on Structuring a Discourse for Cross-Cultural Communication.” International Journal of Liberal Arts & Social Science. 3.3 (2015): 1-10. Print.

*Zhu, Pinfan. “Best Strategy for Translating Technical and Business Information” International Journal of Education and Social Science. 45. 3 (2015): 183-187. Print.

*Zhu Pinfan. “How Translation Criteria May Affect International Business.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 45. 3 (2015): 299-322. Print.

*Zhu, Pinfan. “Translation Problems in International Business and Their Counter-measures.” Journal for Global Business Education. 11 (2012):113-18. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan, and Junhua Wang. “" Cultural Values Carried in International Business Homepages That Failed to Accommodate the Needs of Cultural Audiences." Journal for Global Business Education, 10 (2011): 35-39. Print.

Wang, Junhua, and Pinfan Zhu. “Linking Contextual Factors with Rhetorical Pattern Shift: Direct and Indirect Strategies Recommended in English Business Communication Textbooks in China.” Print. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 41.1(2011): 83-107. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan, & Kirk St. Amant. “An Application of Robert Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction to the Teaching of Website Localization.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 40.3 (2010): 286-302. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Problematic Graphics That Affect International Business.” Journal for Global Business Education 10 (2010): 1-10. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Cross-Cultural Blunders in Professional Communication from a Semantic Perspective.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 40.2 (2010): 179-196. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Semantic Problems That Affect International Business.” Journal for Global Business Education 9 (2009): 11-20. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Language Problems to Be Coped with in Web Localization.” Journal of Technical Writing & Communication 39.1 (2009): 57-78. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan, and Kirk St. Amant. “Taking Traditional Chinese Medicine International and Online: An Examination of the Cultural Rhetorical Factors Affecting American Perceptions of Chinese Created Web Sites.” Technical Communication 54.2 (2007): 171-186. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Emphasis within English Sentences” College English (China) 7 (1999): 55-57. Print.

Zhu, Pinfan. “Study of Syntactical Emphasis.” College English (China) 4 (1997): 23-25. Print.