| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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This still going?
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
I am not quesitoning the term 'native',
Why not? We're not discussing the overhaul of the Ten Commandments. Nothing is necessarily sacred here. It's just a label used as shorthand for an expectation of a standard of output. Talking of which...
If I personally, as a native Dutch speaker, am looking at a text, and I notice some very very bad mistakes (word order), then I go, 'Hmmm, maybe this person shouldn't be translating.' Still, if it's a good text, but it's done by a non-native speaker and there is somewhere a tiny mistake, I go, 'Ah, caught you. But, wow, your Dutch, well done.'
This is where we all came in, I think. This would be my yardstick, were I in charge. The first person may wear clogs, live in a windmill and eat nothing but Edam, and still not get the verification (or whatever we're calling it!). The second person, why not, if the output is up to scratch.
Aw man, now look. I said to myself "don't post in that bloody thread after your holiday" and see what's happened now. And I note over the last few pages that in fact the hardcore are indeed debating the pros & cons of actual nativeness per se and not the implications of that nativeness, so perhaps my views (that we should focus on what nativeness is intended to indicate to clients, and whether that can in fact be demonstrated more effectively, anyway) are on a different page. Whodathunkit.
Although just getting the site to enforce its own rules would do for me.
[Edited at 2012-09-04 18:51 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | That is exactly the point | Sep 4, 2012 |
Texte Style wrote:
(...and the non-natives who don't claim to be native, like Nicole and Samuel, ironically seem to be those with the best command of English!)
And that is why native language verification is no solution to anything - it is just an added administrative nuisance as has been pointed out in this thread.
Language proficiency (from a translation point of view) has nothing to do with being native in the language; it is a much, much more complex phenomenon.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:31
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | You have misunderstood | Sep 4, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Texte Style wrote:
(...and the non-natives who don't claim to be native, like Nicole and Samuel, ironically seem to be those with the best command of English!) And that is why native language verification is no solution to anything - it is just an added administrative nuisance as has been pointed out in this thread. Language proficiency (from a translation point of view) has nothing to do with being native in the language; it is a much, much more complex phenomenon.
Unless i'm very much mistaken Texte Style is not suggesting that Nicole and Samuel's English is better than the real native speakers, but that it is better than those falsely claiming to have English as a native language.
| | | | | @Ty and Sheila | Sep 4, 2012 |
Sheila Wilson wrote: Ty Kendall wrote:
there simply isn't that much variation in the written language. It's not that I consider UK English as a standard for all native speakers of English, it's that I see hardly enough differences in the others to consider them altogether different. Absolutely! We see the differences for what they are: variant forms, no better, no worse. I evaluate sample translations submitted by applicants to TWB. I'm not told the origin of the translator, nor do I need to be told. It's clear to me from the translation. The applicant may be (A) a 100% British native speaker (as I am); (B) a native of another variant (I can't always say which); (C) a native-equivalent (often using a mix of variants, but writing totally natural English); (D) a non-native speaker with an imperfect command of English. I give all this information to TWB to use as they see fit. I only reject a text if it contains errors, whether in comprehension or expression. Sometimes I note that the translation has been performed by a native speaker with a most uninspired writing style - I leave it to TWB to decide whether to take them on. What I'm trying to say is that a native speaker CAN identify another native-level speaker. I don't have a unique skill in this area, believe me. And I believe that those with native-equivalent writing skills should be allowed to tick the second box on their ProZ.com profile if they choose. If they have reached such a high standard in the language then let them have recognition for that, even if they didn't happen to live in the right place at the right time. I believe they are relatively few, anyway. When I recommend TWB to reject an application it's because I think there's a real risk of major errors and/or such poor quality texts that the credibility of the client NGOs will suffer. For the ProZ.com profile, we aren't considering quality (although potential clients should be!), but we are conscious of the credibility of the site. Of course, I wouldn't expect TWB to depend solely on my opinion: applications are evaluated by several people before being finally accepted or rejected by TWB. Couldn't the same sort of thing be implemented here? I wouldn't mind giving a few minutes of my time to review short English texts. I propose a non-detailed evaluation by as many known native speakers as possible. If 25 "yes" votes out of 30 are required for native speaker verification, then I think we'll see the credibility of the site improve.
Thanks Ty and Sheila for the interesting discussion!
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Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | No, that is too simplistic | Sep 4, 2012 |
Michele Fauble wrote:
There is no world standard. The idea that "standard" implies a world standard is the source of your confusion. There is standard written UK English, standard written American English, etc. There are national standards.
In a country like India, the English that is used in different parts of the India vary greatly. Any Indian (who knows English) can make out between Bengali English versus Punjabi English versus Tamil English versus Gujarati English, etc.
So it is entirely incorrect to say there are national standards of English. At least in India that does not apply. There are as many varieties of English in India as there are Indian languages, for the simple reason of interference between English and these Indian languages.
This just highlights the fact that the native language issue is not as simple as some people here would like to make it, that it can be verified by a questionnaire here or a voice sample there.
Then there are cases of people who have lost their native language due to immigration during their language learning phase (this is an ever growing section due to the increasing trends of migration of people), as Ambrosia Li has pointed out in his posts.
We can't have systems on an international site like this that would leave out whole sections of members.
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Don't take it personal, Bernhard | Sep 4, 2012 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Don't keep flooding this thread with outlandish ideas. Don't keep ignoring valid arguments of the majority of posters. This could certainly be interpreted as trolling!
Please stop!
Bernhard, the problem as I see with your approach is that you are taking it at a personal level.
Be receptive to ideas that are different to your own. It is perfectly ok for people to have different views from your own. You will sleep well if you don't try to convert them to your point of view.
If you don't agree with someone's view, don't respond to it. That would be the most sensible thing to do.
Regarding the majority you claim, I have been following this thread right from the start, and there have been as many contrarian views expressed here as supportive views. So which majority view are you talking about?
As for trolling and stopping, the question asked in this thread is, "Should native language claims be verified?"
If you take it too literally, there are just two answers possible to it "Yes" and "No". Anything else that is said can be tarred as trolling, including your own posts. Won't you agree?
But we are all intelligent members of this site and we know that the topic is not to be interpreted in this narrow way, and like all complex topics, there are many ramifications and undercurrents to discuss, and that is exactly what we have been doing.
[2012-09-05 03:16 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:31
Hebrew to English
| WRITTEN standard | Sep 4, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
In a country like India, the English that is used in different parts of the India vary greatly. Any Indian (who knows English) can make out between Bengali English versus Punjabi English versus Tamil English versus Gujarati English, etc....There are as many varieties of English in India as there are Indian languages, for the simple reason of interference between English and these Indian languages.
Yes, but most of them can be described as "non-native English" and I suspect they all WRITE a more standardised form than they SPEAK.
So it is entirely incorrect to say there are national standards of English.
"Entirely incorrect"? Fraid not. It's more like it's "overwhelmingly correct" ....with the exception of India (perhaps - because I'm not convinced all these Indians are running around writing English however they feel like it based on their L1 intereferences.)
We can't have systems on an international site like this that would leave out whole sections of members.
We can.
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | There is no single WRITTEN Indian English standard either | Sep 4, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
In a country like India, the English that is used in different parts of the India vary greatly. Any Indian (who knows English) can make out between Bengali English versus Punjabi English versus Tamil English versus Gujarati English, etc....There are as many varieties of English in India as there are Indian languages, for the simple reason of interference between English and these Indian languages. Yes, but most of them can be described as "non-native English" and I suspect they all WRITE a more standardised form than they SPEAK. So it is entirely incorrect to say there are national standards of English. "Entirely incorrect"? Fraid not. It's more like it's "overwhelmingly correct" ....with the exception of India (perhaps - because I'm not convinced all these Indians are running around writing English however they feel like it based on their L1 intereferences.)
No, even the written variety varies. In fact it is about the written variety that I am talking here. Most Indians don't "speak" English, but many of them can and do write it very well. Even in their cases, source language interference is quite significant and noticeable.
I don't know whether you follow Indian English TV channels, but if you do, and if you had happend to hear Pranab Mukherji speak English, you will know what I mean. He speaks a distinct Bengali version of English, and writes it more or less like that too.
While on the topic, you might also be quite interested to know that there is no single standard of written English in India as it appears in the press.
I will cite the case of the Times of India, which is the largest selling English broadsheet in the world, with readership far in excess of that of the New York Times or the Times. It is published from several city centres like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, etc.
A curious decision that this paper has taken is not to capitalize the first person pronoun "I" in any of its editions. So we get sentences like "Sachin Tendulkar says i won't be retiring from cricket in the near future".
The argument it puts forward is, no other pronoun of English is capitalized, so why should only "I" be capitalized? It is highly egotistic to do that, and is just an idiosyncrasy of the English language which need not be pandered to!
But this is not something that any of the other large papers like Hindu or the Hindustan Times do, nor is it followed by the Indian English publishing industry. Yet such a widely circulated and read paper doing this can be eventually expected to affect the Indian standard of English in some way.
So these kinds of quirks can exist in one paper but not in the other, and we can't take any of the papers as the "standard" of Indian English.
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Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | But we are digressing... | Sep 4, 2012 |
The latter part of this thread has veered off to discussing the specific cases of English. I think we should refocus on all languages. English is just a particular case, though the most important.
But the problems or issues of English may not also be problems of other languages.
May be to keep things simple, as Samuel had suggested, we should keep English and other international languages out of the discussion, and talk only about the non-international languages, where ... See more The latter part of this thread has veered off to discussing the specific cases of English. I think we should refocus on all languages. English is just a particular case, though the most important.
But the problems or issues of English may not also be problems of other languages.
May be to keep things simple, as Samuel had suggested, we should keep English and other international languages out of the discussion, and talk only about the non-international languages, where the fuzziness of native language can be expected to be much less. ▲ Collapse
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:31
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Simple... but a waste of time | Sep 4, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
May be to keep things simple, as Samuel had suggested, we should keep English and other international languages out of the discussion, and talk only about the non-international languages, where the fuzziness of native language can be expected to be much less.
You simply won’t find the same problem with other “non-international languages”. The market for translation into those languages will not be the same, very simply because the demand will not be the same and the propensity for people to lie about their native language is therefore not comparable. You simply won’t find hordes of people on this site lying about Finnish (for example) being their native language.
| | | | | Ok, let us find a solution | Sep 4, 2012 |
It seems there are some in this forum still heavily supporting the idea that Proz should verify the nativeness of its users.
Let us stop discussing everything else, we should be looking for workable solutions.
Ok, how do you want it to be handled?
Suggestions please, what are the general conditions that should be met to qualify as being native in a given language?
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:31
Hebrew to English
| I believe...... | Sep 4, 2012 |
Siegfried Armbruster wrote:
It seems there are some in this forum still heavily supporting the idea that Proz should verify the nativeness of its users.
Let us stop discussing everything else, we should be looking for workable solutions.
Ok, how do you want it to be handled?
Suggestions please, what are the general conditions that should be met to qualify as being native in a given language?
........people have already made suggestions. The problem is that there is more than one opinion on how to do it and the moment two or more native speakers suggest two different methods for verification, the detractors descend like a pack of wolves, seize upon the opportunity and use it as an excuse to say "see!, it's not workable, even native speakers can't agree on how to test other native speakers" etc etc, the thread gets derailed and before you know it 30 pages of a tangent have passed.
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| Let me know when you agreed on a method | Sep 4, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
...even native speakers can't agree on how to test other native speakers"
If this is the case, fine with me, I'll check again in a few days.
| | | | | Native isn't vague? | Sep 5, 2012 |
It seems it was an error to try to introduce some rationale, from my point of view, into this discussion.
As a response I get back the queer argument that the condition of being "native" is not being discussed regarding translation competence, however those same voices expect proz.com to verify that condition of being "native" as a way to stop some translators from offering their services in that pair of languages.
Please be honest, you are trying to lobby and join fo... See more It seems it was an error to try to introduce some rationale, from my point of view, into this discussion.
As a response I get back the queer argument that the condition of being "native" is not being discussed regarding translation competence, however those same voices expect proz.com to verify that condition of being "native" as a way to stop some translators from offering their services in that pair of languages.
Please be honest, you are trying to lobby and join forces to reduce competition.
I have read some absurd arguments, like: if someone is born somewhere he is a native of that place. That might be correct in a legal sense, but this post started out regarding translators that used the concept "native" (and I underline and emphasize "concept") as a means to market their services in translating towards English without having the necessary competences and QUALITY.
Someone that translates towards English (or any language) must prove two things: a) he is competent in the languages, and b) he is competent as a translator, it matters very little where he was born (or the legal sense of "native") if he is competent.
On the other hand we work in different fields and different types of English: General topics and literature (typically a field for "natives" that know a lot of jargon and local culture); technical fields (where academic, well structured English is a must - no place for college dropouts); legal texts (where the main point is perfect knowledge of legal systems, jargon and concepts of both countries/languages); scientific (similar to technical but more specialised); marketing and advertising (local culture and jargon is a must); and so on.
So if you are a "native", because you were brought up in your first 5 to 10 years speaking only English (or most of the time), but because you don't "master" the current jargon or certain cultural features, you feel insecure, that is no reason you can't be competent in certain fields if you work up developing your competences.
I feel this discussion is full of prejudice, prejudice that is flamed by the apparent need to reduce competition no matter what, and with no consideration to the individual differences people have.
I agree verification is needed, I promote this need not only in translation, but this must be directed to competence, not infinite excuses for discrimination and exclusion.
[Edited at 2012-09-05 02:23 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-09-05 02:24 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 14:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Revisiting the definition of native language | Sep 5, 2012 |
A large part of the vagueness is due to different perceptions about native language in people’s mind. I am listing the various definitions that seem to be in currency in this thread so that we can arrive at a consensus definition, which will be the first step of any verification process, as you can only verify something that can be clearly defined.
1.
The language spoken in your family/by your parents.
2.
The language spoken in your neighbourhood during yo... See more A large part of the vagueness is due to different perceptions about native language in people’s mind. I am listing the various definitions that seem to be in currency in this thread so that we can arrive at a consensus definition, which will be the first step of any verification process, as you can only verify something that can be clearly defined.
1.
The language spoken in your family/by your parents.
2.
The language spoken in your neighbourhood during your childhood (childhood not clearly defined; and language spoken by parents/family can be different.)
3.
The language spoken in your neighbourhood during your childhood, that is, up to 5 years (parental language can be different).
4.
The language spoken in your neighbourhood during your childhood, that is up to 15 years (parental language can be different).
5.
The language of your schooling (the language of your parents and the language of your neighbour hood can be different).
6.
The language spoken by your parents which is the same as the language of your schooling (the language of the neighbourhood can be different).
7.
The language spoken by your parents which is the same as the language of your schooling which is the same as the neighbourhood language.
8.
Definition 7 + the language of your higher education.
9.
Definition 8 + the language of your professional activity (but does not include continued residence in an area of your native language).
10.
Definition 9 + continued residence in an area of your native language.
The definitions are in the order of increasing rigourousness.
Few posters of this thread would qualify as native language speakers if we apply Definition 10. But if our aim is translation quality, there is no reason why we should not be applying this definition.
This diversity of definitions is the reason why this topic has generated so much heat, because almost anyone can be excluded or included by carefully choosing one of the above definitions. Hence the accusation of restricting competition using the stick of native language.
And this is the reason why the site has very wisely left it to each member how s/he defines native language.
Since the site has not defined native language itself and has left it to members to define it themselves, it is really disingenuous to accuse other members of dishonesty in the matter of declaring native language. They might simply have used a definition from the above set which is different from the definition that the accuser has in mind.
Or, s/he might have had an altogether different definition in his/her mind, like this one:
11.
The language in which you are professionally trained to translate.
Or a grey one like this:
12.
That language from among the languages a person knows that has more promise of producing work.
Definition 12 may seem dishonest, but we must not forget that proz.com is not a professional site in the sense of an ATA, but a market place where we are primarily there to bid and get jobs. If there is not much translation happening in a particular language, then there is little point in declaring that as your native language, especially when certain jobs are restricted to those who have declared a particular language as their native language; and there is a lot to gain by making the right choice visavis the native language.
So one way to stop abuse is to delink native language from job applications. Then there would be no incentive to be dishonest. But as long as native language is used to restrict job access, you can expect this sort of behaviour.
[2012-09-05 02:16 GMT पर संपादन हुआ] ▲ Collapse
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