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Should “native language” claims be verified?
Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 18:42
Chinese to English
1. There is no standard 2. Bilinguals matter Sep 21, 2012

Just to disagree with two points on this page:

@Ty - don't get sucked in. There is no such thing as the "standard". Strunk & White can write all the little screeds they want, but they have no authority to define a standard, nor Michael Swan nor anyone else. English is not defined by a standard; nor does English define a standard. Obviously any English-speaking group can define their own standards (AP style book; STE; the Sun's simplified language) - but these do not and cannot apply
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Just to disagree with two points on this page:

@Ty - don't get sucked in. There is no such thing as the "standard". Strunk & White can write all the little screeds they want, but they have no authority to define a standard, nor Michael Swan nor anyone else. English is not defined by a standard; nor does English define a standard. Obviously any English-speaking group can define their own standards (AP style book; STE; the Sun's simplified language) - but these do not and cannot apply to the language as a whole.

That's even more true of other languages, like Chinese. I know the French periodically try to define their own language, but they seem to be fighting a losing battle, don't they?

@Olly - I disagree that bilinguals are a secondary concern. My feeling is that worldwide, bilingualism is pretty common (I've said before, where I live, most people are at least bilingual), and just as a matter of common sense we'd expect a higher proportion of translators to be bilingual than in the general population. (Could be wrong of course, but it's a reasonable guess.)

Anyway, I don't think we disagree on anything of substance, just a point of rhetorical emphasis.
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Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
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Not really Sep 21, 2012

Olly Pekelharing wrote:

This is a round-a-bout way of saying some people are native in more than one language. I think most of us had already agreed with that, but the fact remains that these people are exceptions. I will happily support any system that can find a way to validate this select group of dual-natives, but I think this is less important than defining the rules for the rest of us.


I had anticipated your interpretation of my post, but I had thought that when this post of mine is read with my earlier post about the multi-lingual situation in India, it would become clearer that I am not talking here about people being native in many languages. But, I had not taken into account the fact that few people are actually reading my posts.

No, I am not talking here of people with multi native languages.

I can do no better than talk about English in India to illustrate my idea.

English is an official language of India and many schools teach it from kindergarten onwards and some teach it later from the fifth or even sixth year of schooling. The English is usually taught by teachers for whom English is an L2 language. The child's exposure to English is limited to what he is taught in school. English is not spoken at home, it is not spoken in the school outside the English classroom, nor in the community. So the exposure to English is not at the same level as the exposure to a native language. But the exposure is there, and it happens in childhood.

But the exposure is not sufficient to make the child fluent in English. The exposure is more subconscious with no visible effect of proficiency in English in most cases during childhood. Now some of these children who have had an early exposure to English enter higher education where English is more extensively used. During higher education which starts in their late teens (sixteen-seventeen) and can extend till end of their twenties they improve upon their English. A few of them get jobs in the government, private companies, educational institutions, etc., where English is even more prevalent. By continuous use, they further sharpen their English, and by the time they are, say, thirty or more, they have a fairly good command over English.

This trajectory of learning English is distinctly different from L2 learning where a person begins much later in life and intensively learns a language continuously for a few years. The main difference is, the learning process starts in early childhood and it continues in fits and starts till much later in adulthood.

I wouldn't call this process of learning English a native way of learning English for the simple reason that English is not spoken in India, though it is extensively used (mostly in the written form). But the fact remains, many Indians excel in English and I suspect that this early childhood exposure to English has a lot to do with it, which is why I am tempted to talk about an intermediate way of acquiring language which is located somewhat in between classic L1 acquisition and classic L2 acquisition.

The results of this intermediate acquisition process is better than classic L2 acquisition and people who learn a language in this way approach native-level proficiency in their later life.

And finally, this is not an exceptional case. English is universally taught in Indian schools and most Indians who attend decent schools have exposure to English very early in their childhood.

Now generalizing the Indian case, I suspect that this situation is to be found throughout the world wherever the colonial languages are used as official languages, and also in places like China where a great stress is being laid in teaching/learning English due to its international significance. In all these places, English (or the concerned European language) is taught very early in life by non-native speakers of the language, and the children grow up in societies and families where the language (English, etc.) is not spoken. Some of them nevertheless acquire high proficiency in English, etc., (by clearly a process that is different from standard L1 acquisition).

[2012-09-21 04:13 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]


 
Balasubramaniam L.
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Now that we have caught the attention of you know who... Sep 21, 2012

If some of the news leaks appearing in the recent posts are true and the site owner is indeed reviewing this thread, we should make use of this golden opportunity to push for a complete overhaul of the job access and translator selection process followed by the site.

This thread has shown that there are major issues with it and while we are about it we may as well fix them, as such an opportunity will not present itself again for another eon.

The major issues that need
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If some of the news leaks appearing in the recent posts are true and the site owner is indeed reviewing this thread, we should make use of this golden opportunity to push for a complete overhaul of the job access and translator selection process followed by the site.

This thread has shown that there are major issues with it and while we are about it we may as well fix them, as such an opportunity will not present itself again for another eon.

The major issues that need addressing as I see it are these:

1. The native language flag in effect favours a certain group of translators in each language pair and disfavours others. This is happening because of mixing up between native language and translation proficiency and trying to imply the latter on the basis of the former. This thread has demonstrated unanimously that native language is no guarantor of quality or proficiency and outsourcers are misguided when they use it for translator selection or restricting job access. So it is time to get rid of it.

2. Because the current system favours some translators and disfavours others, the latter group are forced to misrepresent on native language to level the playing field that has got tilted against them.

3. Taking courage from comptetent non-native translators who are forced to misrepresent their native language in order to “outwit the system”, many not-so-competent non-native translators too are resorting to misrepresenting on native language which is getting the goat of native language translators. (Hence the clamour for verification).

The above in a nutshell summarises the main issues of this thread.

Some have emphasied only point 3, giving a Nelson’s eye to the causes of it mentioned in points 1 and 2. Because of this, the solutions proposed by them fall far short of the expectations of most translators registered on this site.

A genuine solution that goes at the root of the problem and is fair to all translators would be as follows:

1. Delink native language from job access and translator selection. You may or may not substitute it with a proficiency based criterion, but that is a separate issue. The native language flag is unsatisfactory and discriminatory, and it should at all case be delinked from these two functions.

2. Define native language as a proficiency instead of as an identity or childhood acquisition.

3. There is no harm in verifying native language provided it is not used to discriminate against anyone, and it is there only as an additional attribute of translators, just like work experience, education, specialization, etc. That is, it should have no function to play in controlling job access or translator selection or ranking.

The first point above is necessary to counter the argument of “protecting the turf”.

The second point is necessary to address the issue of discrimination on this site on the basis of an individual ability or the lack thereof. Only proficiency has the potential of being fair to every one.

The third point may be needed to placate the pro-native camp.

Although there is much less consensus on point 1 above, I suspect that people have not really got round to thinking about why it is necessary. There is much more consensus on point 2 as most people have come around to agreeing that it is proficiency that really matters. They agree to native language because they see it as a proxy to proficiency. The question is why use the proxy when the real thing can be used?

If they really think about it, pro-native language people can have nothing against defining native language as a proficiency, because according to them complete proficiency in a language can only be attained when it is learned in childhood as native language. So a proficiency definition confirms to their own position.

The added advantage is that the other camp is also prepared to go with the proficiency argument, for it argues that proficiency in a language can also be achieved when it is learnt in a non-native way. Their position is not without merit (the example of Jose, et al). But the main thing is, while agreeing to a proficiency definition, the pro-native group can hold on to their identity/vanity value of native language, while the non-pro-natives can get a system that does not inherently discriminate against them. So both camps can be happy.

I think we should push for something like the above.



[2012-09-21 05:42 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]
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Oliver Pekelharing
Oliver Pekelharing  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 11:42
Dutch to English
Bilinguals matter Sep 21, 2012

@Phil - I'm not talking about bilinguals, of course they matter and of course they're common. I'm one myself. I'm talking about bi-natives, those who really master two (or more?) languages to the native level (and as translators, can do this on paper). No Dutch person would guess that I'm not a native Dutch speaker (at least not during casual intercourse), and I can write better Dutch than a lot of Dutch, but this is not because I'm a native speaker, but because I've got a good 'sense of languag... See more
@Phil - I'm not talking about bilinguals, of course they matter and of course they're common. I'm one myself. I'm talking about bi-natives, those who really master two (or more?) languages to the native level (and as translators, can do this on paper). No Dutch person would guess that I'm not a native Dutch speaker (at least not during casual intercourse), and I can write better Dutch than a lot of Dutch, but this is not because I'm a native speaker, but because I've got a good 'sense of language' (and because a lot of people simply can't write). When it comes down to translating into Dutch, I simply wouldn't make the grade because I wouldn't do it perfectly. That's what we're talking about here right? Not bilingualism or near-nativeness, but true native grasp of a language enabling the writer to write perfectly? I don't know about anyone else, but this is what my clients expect of me.Collapse


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
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Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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How we evaluate nativeness, vs how scientists do it Sep 21, 2012

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
I have not met one person who learned German as an adult and has become indistinguishable from a native speaker. You argue that it is possible, at least in certain other, even more formalized languages? How long would it take me to pick up Afrikaans and become indistinguishable from other native speakers of Afrikaans? You say if I am motivated enough, I can achieve it. Let's say that's possible, could I ask you to verify me as a native speaker of Afrikaans then?


I think we're confusing two things here. If a scientist and a translator each examines a speaker for nativeness, the scientist will evaluate how much the speaker complies with the standard, but the translator will evaluate how much the speaker departs from the standard.

Essentially, the translator will look for "errors" and the scientist will look for "perfection". On the one hand, spotting an error is far simpler than spotting perfection (which is why some translators believe they can spot non-natives by simply looking for errors), but on the other hand, a good non-native speaker will know his weaknesses and will deliberately avoid errors, which makes the translator's evaluation method prone to false postives.

If you ask me to evaluate a person for nativeness, I will look for errors. I believe the same applies to most if not all participants in this thread. I realise not everyone wants to admit it, but when we evaluate people for nativeness, we assume nativeness until proven otherwise. No scientist would do that.

I am concerned that if we say that anyone can lay claim to any native language and, furthermore, not carry out any verification, we will not change the status quo on this site.


I believe it is important that the distinctions on this site be useful for clients (and for fellow-translators), which is why I'm satisfied that arbitrary decisions are made that may not be wholly consistent with linguistic research in this field.

Such arbitrary decisions may include:
* Allowing only 2 native languages (or a certain limit per country)
* Insisting that your native language is a language that you work in
* Enforcing an Anglo-Euro-centric definition of nativeness

Wouldn't you agree that it is indeed very likely that you would be able to distinguish such a non-native speaker from a native speaker? Especially if they came from the region where you grew up?


If the non-native speaker has a poor command of Afrikaans, I'll spot him very quickly. But if the non-native speaker has a good command (or even average) command of Afrikaans, and is careful to avoid making errors, then I won't be able to spot him.

So, just like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, I too favour verification -- in person e.g. telephone, using spontaneous speech. Such verification will not be accurate enough to determine for certain whether someone is a native speaker, but it will be sufficient to catch out anyone who can't speak the language properly, which by the future ProZ.com definition of native language would mean that he can't possibly be a native speaker.

To reiterate: If we assume that all native speakers will at least be able to speak the language properly, then we can catch out the worst of the frauds, because they will not be able to speak the langauge properly. We can't guarantee nativeness, but we can guarantee non-nativeness.

Samuel


 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 18:42
Chinese to English
Difference in terminology Sep 21, 2012

Olly Pekelharing wrote:

@Phil - I'm not talking about bilinguals, of course they matter and of course they're common. I'm one myself. I'm talking about bi-natives, those who really master two (or more?) languages to the native level (and as translators, can do this on paper). No Dutch person would guess that I'm not a native Dutch speaker (at least not during casual intercourse), and I can write better Dutch than a lot of Dutch, but this is not because I'm a native speaker, but because I've got a good 'sense of language' (and because a lot of people simply can't write). When it comes down to translating into Dutch, I simply wouldn't make the grade because I wouldn't do it perfectly. That's what we're talking about here right? Not bilingualism or near-nativeness, but true native grasp of a language enabling the writer to write perfectly? I don't know about anyone else, but this is what my clients expect of me.


Sorry, I didn't define what I meant: when I say "bilingual", I mean bi-native. Where I live, everyone is bi-native.

I disagree with some of what you say there. I can't make the distinction that you do between "I can write better Dutch than a lot of Dutch" and "I wouldn't do [translation] perfectly".

For a given job, I'm sure you are capable of doing a "perfect" job. I think I can write a "perfect" translation into Chinese - i.e. a translation with no language errors which accurately reflects the meaning of the original. I've put perfect in scare quotes there because, of course, no translation is ever perfect. I'm using it here to mean "has no problems which can be unequivocally defined as errors".

Problems: I can't necessarily control perfectly for tone and register in the way that a native can; I can't innovate in Chinese in the way that a native can. It takes me much longer to achieve quality Chinese output than it does a Chinese native. And I cannot act as my own quality control in Chinese, in the way that I can in English. As such, my Chinese is always a subset of Chinese: that part of Chinese that I've learned and can check.

But I'm firmly in the "native is an (unchangeable) attribute" camp, and being native has only a probabilistic relationship to quality. I wouldn't feel comfortable making an absolute statement like "natives can write perfectly, non-natives can't".


P.S. Even during "casual intercourse"? That's some excellent undercover skills you're sporting!

[Edited at 2012-09-21 07:02 GMT]


 
Ty Kendall
Ty Kendall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:42
Hebrew to English
The Indian experience....in Europe Sep 21, 2012

Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I can do no better than talk about English in India to illustrate my idea.
The English is usually taught by teachers for whom English is an L2 language. The child's exposure to English is limited to what he is taught in school. English is not spoken at home, it is not spoken in the school outside the English classroom, nor in the community. So the exposure to English is not at the same level as the exposure to a native language. But the exposure is there, and it happens in childhood.
But the exposure is not sufficient to make the child fluent in English.


And here I was thinking India was a special case - different in some way...but you've just described the L2 language learning process of every child in Europe!

It even describes my own experience! - I was taught German at school here by mostly L2 speakers of German, my exposure to it was limited to what I was taught at school (with the exception of a few school trips to Austria & Germany), German was not spoken at home, it was not spoken in the school outside the German classroom, nor in the community (except for WW2 oriented bigoted epithets)...and no, the exposure wasn't enough to make me fluent in German either - far from it. (I did pick it up again in my early 20s but it has since fell by the wayside).

So, if anything, you have just made the case for India being treated the same as everywhere else.

[Edited at 2012-09-21 09:28 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
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Balasubramaniam's hypothesis Sep 21, 2012

Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The major issues that need addressing as I see it are these...
...
The above in a nutshell summarises the main issues of this thread.


Your "summary" is actually a hypothesis about why there is so much lying about native language. If I understand your hypothesis correctly, you're saying that it is a chain reaction. Translators who would otherwise not have lied are forced to lie because of unfair advantaged gaines by other liars.

According to the hypothesis, large numbers of non-proficient (and proficient?) translators realised that since nativeness and proficiency go hand in hand, claiming nativeness is a much quicker way to indicate profiency than other methods (e.g. trying to convince the client using paragraphs of convincing arguments on the profile page, submitting details of translator training, gathering more KudoZ points, getting references, etc). Then, translators who previously laboured to gain exposure in the honest way (e.g. by tweaking their profiles) realised that it is a lost cause and that the only way to regain their competitive advantage over the non-proficient non-native native-claimers would be to claim nativeness themselves. And so the circle repeats itself.

Simply claiming nativeness catapults a translator into the lime light in a way that only lots of effort would otherwise have achieved. Thus, the ease with which nativeness can be claimed, coupled with the disproportionately boost in exposure gained from nativeness, has resulted in the large numbers of false native claims, even by those who would otherwise have preferred to be honest.

I see two categories of ways to break this chain reaction, namely:
* Reduce the ease of claiming nativeness
* Reduce the advantages gained from nativeness

Most of the solutions offered in this thread fall into either of these categories. Balasubramaniam's proposed solution is to remove the advantage gained from nativeness, but that is severe, and I would rather see solutions that merely restrict or temper the advantages gained from nativeness.

Samuel


 
Oliver Pekelharing
Oliver Pekelharing  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 11:42
Dutch to English
Problems Sep 21, 2012

@ Phil. I think your 'control' (including quality control) and capacity to 'innovate' could nicely describe the difference, as I see it, between bilinguals and bi-natives. I think that translators without this control and innovative capacity shouldn't be claiming nativeness.

[Edited at 2012-09-21 08:35 GMT]


 
Tony M
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My two ha'p'orth Sep 21, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:

To reiterate: If we assume that all native speakers will at least be able to speak the language properly, then we can catch out the worst of the frauds, because they will not be able to speak the language properly. We can't guarantee nativeness, but we can guarantee non-nativeness.


I tend to agree with Samuel here: all that really matters is whether or not the translator has sufficient proficiency for the requirements of the job, and the concept of 'native speaker' tends to raise issues of national pride that are probably counterproductive to all.

I'd like to make a few points, which may well have been made before (but I haven't got time to go back and plough through the whole of this thread, sorry!)

1) I recently had occasion to evaluate around 25 short IT > EN translation tests performed by translators all claiming to be native EN speakers. It was immediately clear that at least 50% of them certainly were not! It's not difficult to differentiate between the type of errors commonly made by non-native speakers (often clearly betraying their real native language group) and the type of errors that might be made by a careless or not very proficient native speaker.

2) It must be said that in very many cases, people claiming 2 native languages on ProZ.com often really mean "my husband / wife is a native speaker of X and can check my work" — which is not really quite the same thing!

3) I recently had the occasion to check a translation from a person claiming to be a native speaker of English (as it happens, it turned out in the end that this person is from India). The translation into EN was simply appalling, not only an inaccurate translation of the source language, but almost gibberish in EN. When I tried to tactfully point this out to the person, they got very huffy and said "Well, my EN is perfect here in India, which is where my customer is, so it doesn't matter!" Well, quite apart from the fact that I seriously misdoubt that such gibberish is actually acceptable even in India, this person is still flagged up on the site as being a native speaker of EN, and thus could well be engaged to translate for a Western customer, for whom the gibberish certainly would NOT be good enough!

So should we be looking at different regional variants of (say) EN — "I am a native speaker of Indian EN"?!

4) It is perfectly obvious from the level of questions sometimes asked on KudoZ and the very way those questions are asked (or answered)that there are many people out there lying about their native-speaker level of proficiency; what is astonishing is that they do not even realize they are betraying themselves in this way! And don't let's forget: customers also follow KudoZ with interest!

Another thing that always gives people away is the way they react to any even implied suggestion that they might not be ENS (I only speak for EN, as it is the only language in which I am in any way qualified to judge); blustering anger and running to cry to Mummy are tiresomely common reactions.

5) I am rather in favour of Balasubramaniam's suggestion of removing altogether the 'advantages' obtained through the 'native language' setting. Any serious translation customer ought to do their own 'due diligence' anyway, and if I claim to be a native EN speaker in my profile, then the rest of my text will easily show if that is true or not — and while we're about it, have you noticed how many supposedly native EN speakers claiming to translate into EN as a target language have appalling errors on their profile pages? And clearly the kind of errors that even a careless ENS would not make.

I believe that it will be difficult to recover from the current situation while the stakes are so high, and so the first step should be to reduce those stakes.

6) Whilst I do believe, like others, that the only way to make the native language status meaningful is to make it verifiable, I can see that the logistics of this would be virtually impossible. And after all, do those of us who are honest really want our ProZ.com subscription money wasted on weeding out the dishonest liars and fraudsters?

Perhaps the onus should be on those wishing to have their native language status verified to pay for that service; now doing it that way round might perhaps be more feasible?

But surely the more cost-effective solution would be simply to remove the advantage they might gain by lying. That way, the native language verification becomes a one-on-one issue between the individual customer and service provider. And after all, surely respectable translation agencies (one cannot perhaps say the same for direct customers) have a duty to their end customers to do more than just take people's word for it? I think this whole issue highlights fundamental problems in the translation quality control process — which is always a thorny problem, given that the agency and/or customer may well not themselves be proficient in the language concerned.

[Edited at 2012-09-21 08:38 GMT]


 
XXXphxxx (X)
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Keep them coming I say Sep 21, 2012

Tony M wrote:

I'd like to make a few points, which may well have been made before (but I haven't got time to go back and plough through the whole of this thread, sorry!)


You are certainly forgiven for not reading the whole thread and I would not expect anyone (apart from Henry) to do so at this stage. This just to say that I personally would like to see contributions from as many people as possible so please don't be afraid to say your bit


 
Oliver Pekelharing
Oliver Pekelharing  Identity Verified
Netherlands
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Dutch to English
Here it is again Sep 21, 2012


Problems: I can't necessarily control perfectly for tone and register in the way that a native can; I can't innovate in Chinese in the way that a native can. It takes me much longer to achieve quality Chinese output than it does a Chinese native. And I cannot act as my own quality control in Chinese, in the way that I can in English. As such, my Chinese is always a subset of Chinese: that part of Chinese that I've learned and can check.


I'm reposting this because I really feel it puts the finger on what I think describes the difference between a native and a near-native grasp of a language. Of course near-natives will be more suitable than their native speaker competitors for many a translation because other qualities will be more important and/or because the 'highest' level of nativeness simply isn't required, but that doesn't make them native speakers, which is what I though was being discussed here. In those cases where the outsourcer wants a native speaker they should surely be able to get what they want (if one is available).


 
XXXphxxx (X)
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Most definitely agreed Sep 21, 2012

Olly Pekelharing wrote:


Problems: I can't necessarily control perfectly for tone and register in the way that a native can; I can't innovate in Chinese in the way that a native can. It takes me much longer to achieve quality Chinese output than it does a Chinese native. And I cannot act as my own quality control in Chinese, in the way that I can in English. As such, my Chinese is always a subset of Chinese: that part of Chinese that I've learned and can check.


I'm reposting this because I really feel it puts the finger on what I think describes the difference between a native and a near-native grasp of a language. Of course near-natives will be more suitable than their native speaker competitors for many a translation because other qualities will be more important and/or because the 'highest' level of nativeness simply isn't required, but that doesn't make them native speakers, which is what I though was being discussed here. In those cases where the outsourcer wants a native speaker they should surely be able to get what they want (if one is available).


While I understand attempts at finding a solution to the current misrepresentation by removing the native category from job searches, I do think that would be a gross disservice to clients, and it will most definitely not stop people from claiming that they are native speakers on their profiles. In fact, I suspect the misrepresentatioon will get worse; we'll all have to change our profiles to explain at length how and why we are native speakers of X language and a hefty contingent will continue to stretch the truth. I can assure you that outsourcers are not, en masse, going to decide overnight that they can do away with native target translation and they will not be interested in trawling through tedious prose on profiles. They'll just go to other sites where profile information has been verified, filter for what they want and conduct due diligence on that select sample.


 
Samuel Murray
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Agree and not agree Sep 21, 2012

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
While I understand attempts at finding a solution to the current misrepresentation by removing the native category from job searches, I do think that would be a gross disservice to clients, and it will most definitely not stop people from claiming that they are native speakers on their profiles.


Yes. This is why I don't support removing the option altogether, but limiting the scope of its impact in various ways.

In fact, I suspect the misrepresentatioon will get worse; we'll all have to change our profiles to explain at length how and why we are native speakers of X language and a hefty contingent will continue to stretch the truth.


Well, if the category is removed altogether (from searches), I don't see why the misrepresentation would get worse. The situation is likely to improve, in fact -- if we accept the hypothesis that many misdeclarations take place because of the prominence of native language in searches.

I admit that such a reduction or removal would affect the way we design our profile pages, but I don't think the effect would be very great.

I can assure you that outsourcers ... will not be interested in trawling through tedious prose on profiles. They'll just go to other sites ... and conduct due diligence on that select sample.


What you're saying is is a contradiction, though, isn't it? Due diligence includes trawling thorugh prose on profile pages.


 
XXXphxxx (X)
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Embellishment Sep 21, 2012

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
In fact, I suspect the misrepresentatioon will get worse; we'll all have to change our profiles to explain at length how and why we are native speakers of X language and a hefty contingent will continue to stretch the truth.


Well, if the category is removed altogether (from searches), I don't see why the misrepresentation would get worse.


It would get worse because to stand out from the crowd the lies would get more elaborate. As we've seen on this very thread.

Samuel Murray wrote:
I can assure you that outsourcers ... will not be interested in trawling through tedious prose on profiles. They'll just go to other sites ... and conduct due diligence on that select sample.


What you're saying is is a contradiction, though, isn't it? Due diligence includes trawling thorugh prose on profile pages.


If I had to chose between conducting due diligence on a sample of 3 (duly filtered) or a sample of 30 I know which I'd opt for.

Edited to sort quotes out. Sorry, can't see why they're not working. I'm sure you know what I mean

[Edited at 2012-09-21 12:27 GMT]


 
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