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Should “native language” claims be verified?
Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
Oliver Pekelharing
Oliver Pekelharing  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 22:26
Dutch to English
This is how one agency does it Sep 21, 2012

I just started filling in an agency's online freelancer form (they just posted a 'welcome all comers' type add on proz), and they use these categories:

Mothertongue [sic] ....

First language .... level .... (native/bilingual/fluent/basic)

Second language .... level .... (native/bilingual/fluent/basic)

etc.

I kinda like it coz its got something for everybody.


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to German
+ ...
what's your mother tongue then? I'm asking everyone. Sep 21, 2012

Olly Pekelharing wrote:

I just started filling in an agency's online freelancer form (they just posted a 'welcome all comers' type add on proz), and they use these categories:

Mothertongue [sic] ....

First language .... level .... (native/bilingual/fluent/basic)

Second language .... level .... (native/bilingual/fluent/basic)

etc.

I kinda like it coz its got something for everybody.




They posted an ad (mean no offense, typos happen).

Yes, it shows what's important to them and that mother tongue/native language is indeed a very important category and that a definition must be possible since it certainly is implied.

B


 
Oliver Pekelharing
Oliver Pekelharing  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 22:26
Dutch to English
Mother tongue Sep 21, 2012

Mine's English, since you ask, which is also my 'first language', which I declare to master at the 'native' level, while Dutch is my 'second language', which I declare to master at the 'bilingual' level. This agency obviously sees a distinction between 'mother tongue' and 'native language', and apparently they are aware of the fact that some native speakers weren't born that way (as it were) and are happy to give these people (the ones I call the exceptions) a chance. So everybody's happy, right... See more
Mine's English, since you ask, which is also my 'first language', which I declare to master at the 'native' level, while Dutch is my 'second language', which I declare to master at the 'bilingual' level. This agency obviously sees a distinction between 'mother tongue' and 'native language', and apparently they are aware of the fact that some native speakers weren't born that way (as it were) and are happy to give these people (the ones I call the exceptions) a chance. So everybody's happy, right?Collapse


 
Oliver Walter
Oliver Walter  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:26
German to English
+ ...
Swiss German is not Swiss German! Sep 21, 2012

Janet Rubin wrote (on 18 September):
German television viewers get subtitles for programs with speakers of Swiss German ... I wonder what exactly that implies?!

It's a consequence of the following: German TV viewers are given subtitles for programmes with speakers of Swiss German dialect ("schwyzertütsch").
Example: the Swiss TV programme "10 vor 10" is rebroadcast in Germany (in the channel 3sat) with subtitles for the dialect parts of the dialogue. Most of the programme is in Swiss standard German, which is about as similar to German standard German as American English is to British English, i.e. mostly identical, with a few different words and a different accent.

Oliver

[Edited at 2012-09-21 15:36 GMT]


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to German
+ ...
mother tongue IS THE SAME AS native language Sep 21, 2012

Olly Pekelharing wrote:

Mine's English, since you ask, which is also my 'first language', which I declare to master at the 'native' level, while Dutch is my 'second language', which I declare to master at the 'bilingual' level. This agency obviously sees a distinction between 'mother tongue' and 'native language', and apparently they are aware of the fact that some native speakers weren't born that way (as it were) and are happy to give these people (the ones I call the exceptions) a chance. So everybody's happy, right?


There is no difference between mother tongue and native language.
But there is a difference between mother tongue/native language and non-native language.

If you have one "mother tongue", it makes sense to call it that.
If you have two "mother tongues" , it makes more sense to refer to them as native languages - but only because you have just one mother. (We could agree to call them mother tongues, if there are two native languages you speak).

Now granted, you're only born once, and even "native" language usually means "one native language". But, because a person can possibly have two or, as some claim, even three native languages (= the language(s) they speak "the same way" other native speakers of a specific language speak /write it/them), we do use "native language/native speaker" rather than mother tongue/mother tongue speaker.

These are two words for the same thing.
No excuse. Native language means "mother tongue". There is no difference in the typical way you speak/write it if you say German is my mother tongue and English is my (another) native language of mine.

You can't say my mother tongue is German and one of my other "native' languages is English and imply that you learned English after the formative years.

The ad said L1 and L2.

You would put Dutch as native under L1 yes?
What would you say for English under L2? Well, you wouldn't choose "native", correct?

If you were to put them both under "native" you would be implying that you speak/write them on a native speaker's level. that's the same as "mother tongue".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_tongue

A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth[1] or within the critical period ..."
--------------

The wikipedia article (and even the definition) goes on to say there are other definitions for mother tongue/native language. But for our purposes as members of a translation services portal, I would stop right after the part I quoted above.

B

N.B. "bilingual level" - quite a strange category for ONE language.


[Edited at 2012-09-21 17:39 GMT]


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to German
+ ...
Schwyzerdütsch Sep 21, 2012

Oliver Walter wrote:

Janet Rubin wrote (on 18 September):
German television viewers get subtitles for programs with speakers of Swiss German ... I wonder what exactly that implies?!

It's a consequence of the following: German TV viewers are given subtitles for programmes with speakers of Swiss German dialect ("schwyzertütsch").
Example: the Swiss TV programme "10 vor 10" is rebroadcast in Germany (in the channel 3sat) with subtitles for the dialect parts of the dialogue. Most of the programme is in Swiss standard German, which is about as similar to German standard German as American English is to British English, i.e. mostly identical, with a few different words and a different accent.

Oliver

[Edited at 2012-09-21 15:36 GMT]


It's Schwyzerdütsch.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwyzerdütsch


[Edited at 2012-09-21 16:31 GMT]


 
Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Duplicate post.
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to German
+ ...
if your NL peers say you are not a native, then that's it, you're NOT! Sep 21, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:

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 don't agree with respect to the verification procedure, although "looking for errors" is indeed an implicit but not intentional activity.

If I speak with someone who let's say is indeed a native speaker and wants to get verified, I am probably not going to look for errors as in grammatical or even non-native errors. I am just going to talk to him/her and ...

.. let's say have a talk regarding a few topics (weather, politics, favorite foods, cars, etc.) I will indeed be convinced that the person is a native speaker. I believe that no real native speaker can be taken for a non-native, at least by native language peers.

And I actually believe the opposite too, that no non-native can be taken for a native speaker. But the problem is that the non-native might still scream "I am a native speaker", even after he/she has been verified as a non-native.

But it was obvious that he/she isn't a native speaker. It just comes out in the way they build their sentences, in their pronunciation, in the words and phrases they use, in singular and plural forms, ... but wait, that is indeed "noticing" "non-native" errors. But if the person is fluent in that language, it's not so much about listening/reading for actual grammatical errors, it's about judging the way they use the language, the way a native would use it.

But if the person says at the end, after he/she is found to be a non-native "Prove me wrong," then he/she wants us to go beyond a mere judgment by two or more native speakers regarding the "nativeness" of their language. What do we do? Do we have to explain it? If there are some grave errors, then they are of the grammatical type, and it should be easy to show them. But that is not the purpose of that verification. It's all about the how one uses their language, not how many or how few mistakes they make.

The right thing to do is to accept the verdict of at least two accepted and designated native speakers.
Once you get into listing the mistakes, you are making room for what is acceptable and what is not, in grammatical terms. You can't tell an applicant "A native speaker would have said this but what you said is not typical for a native but it is grammatically correct." They're going to say, okay, I didn't say it this time. But next time I will.

I am afraid counting and documenting errors is not going to work.

Step 1 should be a definition. for native language such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_tongue

A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth[1] or within the critical period ..."

If you speak English and your language development does not fit that definition, you shouldn't be able to claim it as a native language. Ergo, no verification is possible, sorry.

Step 2:
You fit the definition and go through verification. Preferably by someone who learned the language close to the area where you learned that language.
If your peers find you to be a native, you are "verified". You get your badge.
If they say you are not, you are not. Simple as that. The judgment is final.
(Same would go for evaluations of a writing sample).

If that's unacceptable, give someone a second chance to get verified. But that's it.


B

[Edited at 2012-09-21 18:27 GMT]


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:26
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
How scientists do it Sep 21, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:

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".

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.


That is not how scientists do it. A scientist makes hypotheses and then looks for evidence that confirms or disconfirms the hypotheses. Confirming evidence and disconfirming evidence do not have the same status. Confirming evidence may strengthen a hypothesis, but it does not prove it. Disconfirming evidence disproves the hypothesis. Disconfirming evidence is of much more interest to a scientist.





[Edited at 2012-09-22 01:51 GMT]


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:26
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
OT - Subtitles Sep 21, 2012

Oliver Walter wrote:

Janet Rubin wrote (on 18 September):
German television viewers get subtitles for programs with speakers of Swiss German ... I wonder what exactly that implies?!


It's a consequence of the following: German TV viewers are given subtitles for programmes with speakers of Swiss German dialect ("schwyzertütsch").
Example: the Swiss TV programme "10 vor 10" is rebroadcast in Germany (in the channel 3sat) with subtitles for the dialect parts of the dialogue. Most of the programme is in Swiss standard German, which is about as similar to German standard German as American English is to British English, i.e. mostly identical, with a few different words and a different accent.


Belgian Dutch TV programs are subtitled in the Netherlands, and European Portuguese TV programs and movies are subtitled in Brazil.

[Edited at 2012-09-21 18:41 GMT]


 
Oliver Walter
Oliver Walter  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:26
German to English
+ ...
Yes and yes Sep 21, 2012

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Oliver Walter wrote:
It's a consequence of the following: German TV viewers are given subtitles for programmes with speakers of Swiss German dialect ("schwyzertütsch").
Oliver

It's Schwyzerdütsch.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwyzerdütsch

Yes it is, and it's also what I wrote. The Wikipedia entry that you pointed to includes:
"Alle Mundarten beziehungsweise Dialekte im deutschsprachigen Raum haben eines gemeinsam: Es gibt für sie keine standardisierte Rechtschreibung." (All dialects in German-speaking areas have one thing in common: They have no standardised spelling.)
I have in my hands right now a little book entitled "Schwiizertüütsch - das Deutsch der Eidgenossen" (Schwiizertüütsch - the German of the Swiss), written by Isabelle Imhof who grew up near Zürich - yet another spelling.
Some speakers pronounce that letter the same way they pronounce a "d"; others pronounce it the same way as a "t".

Oliver


[Edited at 2012-09-21 23:01 GMT]


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to German
+ ...
yes Sep 22, 2012

Yes, not a problem.

I mostly refer to it as "Schwyzerdütsch" (630 000 GHits), but Schwyzertüütsch brings up 12 300 Hits. There are indeed many varieties. Important is that it refers to the dialect, not the "standard" Swiss German which can be used to communicate with anyone who speaks German.

B


 
sony novian
sony novian
Local time: 04:26
English to Indonesian
+ ...
in the end result counts Sep 22, 2012

In the end if you fake it people and your client will notice, you can fool a client once but but if the find out they will loose respect to you in an instant. And repetitive order is what personal (or at least me) count best

Does it really matter whether you're native or not? I never get this kind of question from my clients before

sony
www.makna.net


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 02:56
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Selective quoting achieves nothing... Sep 22, 2012

Bernhard Sulzer wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_tongue

A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth[1] or within the critical period ..."
--------------

The wikipedia article (and even the definition) goes on to say there are other definitions for mother tongue/native language. But for our purposes as members of a translation services portal, I would stop right after the part I quoted above.

B



[Edited at 2012-09-21 17:39 GMT]



It smacks of dishonesty to quote only that portion of a source that is in conformity with one's own views.

In the case of the above wikipedia article, it says much more than the above with reference to mother tongue. It in fact even defines mother tongue as the language in which one is most competent, and also as the language one uses most.

Here is a fuller version of the above article:


A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the terms native language or mother tongue refer to the language of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language. Sometimes, there can be more than one mother tongue, (for example, when the child's parents speak different languages). Those children are usually called bilingual.

By contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than one's first language.

Sometimes the term native language is used to indicate a language that a person is as proficient in as a native individual of that language's "base country", or as proficient as the average person who speaks no other language but that language.

Sometimes the term mother tongue or mother language is used for the language that a person learned as a child at home (usually from their parents). Children growing up in bilingual homes can, according to this definition, have more than one mother tongue or native language.

In the context of population censuses conducted on the Canadian population, Statistics Canada defines mother tongue as "the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census." It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a speaker's dominant language. This includes young immigrant children, whose families have moved to a new linguistic environment, as well as people who learned their mother tongue as a young child at home (rather than the language of the majority of the community), who may have lost, in part or in totality, the language they first acquired (see language attrition).

"The origin of the term "mother tongue" harks back to the notion that linguistic skills of a child are honed by the mother and therefore the language spoken by the mother would be the primary language that the child would learn."--this type of culture-specific notion is totally a misnomer. The term was used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, in stead of Latin, when they are "speaking from the pulpit". That is, the "holy mother of the Church " introduced this term and colonies inherited it from the Christianity as a part of their colonial legacy, thanks to the effort made by foreign missionaries in the transitional period of switching over from 18th C. Mercantile Capitalism to 19th C. Industrial Capitalism in India.

In some countries such as Kenya, India, and various East Asian countries, "mother language" or "native language" is used to indicate the language of one's ethnic group, in both common and journalistic parlance, rather than one's first language. Also in Singapore, "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's ethnic group regardless of actual proficiency, while the "first language" refers to the English language that was established on the island through British colonisation, which is the lingua franca for most post-independence Singaporeans due to its use as the language of instruction in government schools and as a working language.

J. R. R. Tolkien in his 1955 lecture "English and Welsh" distinguishes the "native tongue" from the "cradle tongue," the latter being the language one happens to learn during early childhood, while one's true "native tongue" may be different, possibly determined by an inherited linguistic taste, and may later in life be discovered by a strong emotional affinity to a specific dialect (Tolkien personally confessed to such an affinity to the Middle English of the West Midlands in particular).

The first language of a child is part of their personal, social and cultural identity. Another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting.

To a person his mother tongue is a “blessing in disguise”. It is not merely a time-table subject in his education but is forced upon him from all sides. It is learned by both the direct or conscious and the indirect or unconscious method. The direct method supplements and regulates the knowledge gained by hearing.[citation needed] The mother tongue is an indispensable instrument for the development of the intellectual, moral and physical aspects of education. It is a subject thought and by which other subjects can be tackled, understood and communicated. Clarity of thought and expression is only possible when one has a certain command over the mother tongue. Weakness in any other subject means weakness in that particular subject only, but weakness in the mother tongue means the paralysis of all thought and the power of expression. Deep insight, fresh discoveries, appreciation and expansion of ideas are only possible when one understands the subject through being able to assimilate and be stimulated by the ideas of the subject.

One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which these languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, a French-speaking couple might have a daughter who learned French first, then English; but if she were to grow up in an English-speaking country, she would likely be proficient in English. Other examples are India, Malaysia and South Africa, where most people speak more than one language.

Defining mother tongue

Based on origin: the language(s) one learned first (the language(s) in which one has established the first long-lasting verbal contacts).

Based on internal identification: the language(s) one identifies with/as a speaker of;

Based on external identification: the language(s) one is identified with/as a speaker of, by others.

Based on competence: the language(s) one knows best.

Based on function: the language(s) one uses most.




[2012-09-22 05:31 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]


 
finnword1
finnword1
United States
Local time: 17:26
English to Finnish
+ ...
polygamy, perhaps? Sep 22, 2012

In many languages the term is "mother tongue". Perhaps these translators claiming two or more native languages actually grew up in a polygamous home where each "mother" spoke a different language. Sounds like fun.

 
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Should “native language” claims be verified?






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