| 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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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 16:10
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Phil Hand wrote:
Part of the problem seems to be that you're still confusing language systems with standard dialects.
Well, since I don't know what the difference between those two things are (I'm not saying they are the same), you're probably right.
Children take a non-language, a set of inconsistent signs, and turn them into a fully expressive linguistic system. It's an amazing thing.
It is indeed fascinating, but I'm no expert on language acquisition (not that I know nothing of it), so I have no way of telling whether what you say here is the norm or something interesting that occurred in a number of cases. I just wonder what all of this means for children who are not surrounded by perfect speakers of just one language... will they still have perfect native languages?
All of which is exactly why the designation "native" is meaningful.
What is your opinion on the following statement that I had made in a very recent post, as a summary of my opinion on a similar matter?
What makes a true native speaker so special is not the odds that he will know his language rules better, but the odds that he will be able to make a globally acceptable or compliant decision when faced with a language situation in which mere rules don't easily apply.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:10
Chinese to English
| To answer your question... | Sep 26, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
I'm sure there is a difference between creole and dialect, although they are both often defined as non-standard versions of a standard language. Apart from the fact that a dialect did not evolve from a language that is currently spoken, and a creole did evolve from a language (or languages) that is currently spoken, there is little difference of significance between dialect and creole . Both dialect and creole are "lesser" language variants spoken by speakers who (if they were educated) are considered to be able to speak the officially accepted variant of the language.
Depending on your definition of "creole ", my native language (Afrikaans) may be a creole (this is a hotly contested issue, though mostly for reasons of prestige -- what would your take be on that?).
With creole, this makes even less sense.
No, Afrikaans is not a creole, and that's not contested.
The difference between a creole and a dialect is that a creole is a new language, created from a pidgin by children. A dialect evolved as part of a language, with no intervening pidgin forms. They are defined by the history of their development. Creoles are much less comprehensible than other dialects of the same language.
Incidentally, "dialect" is often used to refer only to non-prestige forms. But of course a prestige form like Oxford English is just one dialect among many - it's just the one that happens to be favoured by the elite.
In imperialist history, both non-prestige dialects and creoles have been looked down on as inferior.
Pinker's "The Language Instinct" gives you a canter through all these issues. You can supplement with books from other traditions, of course, but Pinker's a very good writer.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:10
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Lisa, that is generally what I understood, yes | Sep 26, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
I don't think Tony is suggesting doing away with the native speaker badge in languages where it is not feasible to verify them, they simply won't have to be verified.
Yes, that is what I understood. I would have no objection to such an implementation.
The question is how to display verification without creating a system whereby it is only native English speakers who can display a verification badge and others can't ... and how will the meaning of the whole system be evident to the outsourcer while it is a "work in progress" (i.e. until everyone has been verified).
Well, the transition is always a problem, but I don't think we should even discuss the transition, because that is something that the designers of any system will deal with when they've decided what it is that they want to do in the end.
As for how to display it, how about this idea: Do away with the distinction between verified and declared, and make verification mandatory for certain languages.
That way, no English native can display his English nativeness unless he is actually verified. The way his native language is displayed on his profile page or searched for by clients will not be any different from any other non-verified language, except perhaps a little asterisk next to the language that leads to a footnote about whether the langauge is verified.
I'm sure many English translators will baulk at this, but the fact is that all English translators will be treated equally, so nothing is really that unfair in the greater scheme of things.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:10
Chinese to English
| The difference is... | Sep 26, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Phil Hand wrote:
Part of the problem seems to be that you're still confusing language systems with standard dialects. Well, since I don't know what the difference between those two things are (I'm not saying they are the same), you're probably right.
Just to give some examples from English non-prestige dialects: in Black English Vernacular (it's been given various names - what a lot of African Americans speak) the verb "to be" conjugates in a different way to General American or my Standard Southern British English. A black American can say "I is". This is not an error; it is a regular change in the way the verb works. It is rule-governed. "I is" is not acceptable in every sentence (can't remember the rules off the top), but there is a standard rule, which every speaker of BEV follows.
Or in the UK, the use of "ain't" is similarly rule governed for those who grew up with it. In some dialects, "be" is the correct subjunctive of "to be" - but not in mine.
The point is that I speak a national standard (SSBE), and follow its rules. But someone who speaks Birmingham English is also following rules. Their phonology (accent) is slightly different; their grammar rules are just a bit tweaked. But what they say is just as regular and rule-governed as SSBE. They are not speaking a degenerate form of the prestige dialect.
I just wonder what all of this means for children who are not surrounded by perfect speakers of just one language... will they still have perfect native languages?
From before they are born, they can tell the sounds of different languages apart. Bilinguals have surprisingly little language interference, if they have had enough input to develop fully native forms of all their languages.
What makes a true native speaker so special is not the odds that he will know his language rules better, but the odds that he will be able to make a globally acceptable or compliant decision when faced with a language situation in which mere rules don't easily apply.
I disagree with the first part and agree with the second. A native speaker does know their rules better 99.9% of the time. And yes, they are certainly able to be creative and intuitive in their native language much better than a non-native would be.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:10
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Phil, on creoles and pidgins | Sep 26, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
I'm sure there is a difference between creole and dialect, although they are both often defined as non-standard versions of a standard language. Apart from the fact that a dialect did not evolve from a language that is currently spoken, and a creole did evolve from a language (or languages) that is currently spoken, there is little difference of significance between dialect and creole [in the sense that both] dialect and creole are [so-called] "lesser" language variants spoken by speakers who (if they were educated) are considered [by non-linguists] to be able to speak the officially accepted variant of the language. With creole, this makes even less sense.
I'm sorry that you feel that way. With "creole" instead of "pidgin" in my quote I still firmly believe in what I wrote.
Keep in mind that my comment about any similarities between creoles and dialects relate very specifically to what Ty had said. I would normally never use "creole" and "dialect" in the same breath, because they are not related, linguistically. Their only similarity is their relationship to a "higher" variant of the language.
[The only thing I wish I could do is to use a more precise term for what I've termed "dialect" and "official variety", since (as you also stated) the officially accepted or main variety of a language is just as much a dialect as the thing which users of it call "dialect". What terms for these things would you propose?]
Depending on your definition of "creole ", my native language (Afrikaans) may be a creole (this is a hotly contested issue, though mostly for reasons of prestige -- what would your take be on that?). No, Afrikaans is not a creole, and that's not contested.
It may not be contested by you, but among linguists who study creoles it is still a hot topic (even after a hundred years). I'm no expert on creoles but I think I know a little bit more about it than the average translator because of the [largely academic] relation to my native language.
Whether it is or isn't a creole depends a lot on one's definition of a creole (and that is part of all writing I've read about this particular issue), and although it is possible to come up with a simple definition of "creole", the devil is in the details.
The difference between a creole and a dialect is:
- A creole is a new language, created from a pidgin by children.
- A dialect evolved as part of a language, with no intervening pidgin forms.
I must say that that is the first time that I've heard that definition of "creole".
There is a school of thought that defines creoles as completely new languages that should not be examined in relation to any languages that they may have evolved from -- that the word "evolve" is indeed the wrong word. But there is also a school that defines creoles as languages that can trace their ancestry back to at least one origin language and that creoles should be studied in their relation to that origin language. My comments about creoles are largely consistent with the second school, but (I admit) quite incompatible with the first.
An argument for calling Afrikaans a creole is that the language it originated from is still widely used. Some would argue that both Afrikaans and modern Dutch are descended from an earlier form of Dutch, which would make Afrikaans a sibling of Dutch, not a daughter of Dutch. But the problem with that is that the Dutch that Afrikaans evolved from is very similar to modern Dutch (except for spelling and obviously some vocabulary).
True dialects, on the other hand, do not evolve from each other, but from a common (or nearly common) ancestor. Scots is called a "dialect" of standard English, but it would be a mistake to think that Scots had evolved from standard English -- no, both standard English and Scots had evolved from a common ancestor language.
I realise, of course, that just as different people define "creole" differently, so do different people define "dialect" differently. I found an interesting statement on the Wikipedia page about English dialects -- not sure how well-founded it is, but it nonetheless shows how definitions can differ:
British linguists distinguish dialect from accent. [Therefore if grammar and vocabulary is the same, regardless of even stark differences in pronunciation, it is still the same dialect.] ... American linguists, however, include pronunciation differences as part of the definition of regional or social dialects. [Therefore, if accent is markedly different, even if grammar and vocabulary is the same, it is a different dialect.]
In addition to dialects there is the issue of regional variations in which the grammar is largely the same, but the vocabulary tends to favour local terms. Would that be a dialect? The jury's out.
Samuel
[Edited at 2012-09-26 10:46 GMT]
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:10
Chinese to English
| The literature's pretty clear | Sep 26, 2012 |
A few minutes' reading tells me that there is an argument put forward that Afrikaans is a creole, and the argument runs like this:
"Nowadays, the creolist hypothesis is perhaps most closely identified with the research programme of Hans den Besten...According to den Besten, the Khoekhoe 'could develop a pidgin of their own without int... See more A few minutes' reading tells me that there is an argument put forward that Afrikaans is a creole, and the argument runs like this:
"Nowadays, the creolist hypothesis is perhaps most closely identified with the research programme of Hans den Besten...According to den Besten, the Khoekhoe 'could develop a pidgin of their own without interference of other groups...'"
http://books.google.com/books?id=cqaGb_SEQHUC&lpg=PA79&ots=R3m79NJqMR&dq=afrikaans%20creole&lr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
To be a creole, there must have been a pidgin in there somewhere.
Apparently this hypothesis isn't that widely accepted - the standard references don't call Afrikaans a creole. You're right, though, that the debate exists - sorry - there is some history there that I hadn't understood. But it has nothing at all to do with the definition of creole. It is a controversy over the facts of history: did Afrikaans develop directly out of Dutch or via a pidgin?
Samuel Murray wrote:
[The only thing I wish I could do is to use a more precise term for what I've termed "dialect" and "official variety", since (as you also stated) the officially accepted or main variety of a language is just as much a dialect as the thing which users of it call "dialect". What terms for these things would you propose?
One common set of terms is the ones I've been using: prestige dialect and non-prestige dialect. You can also say "national standard", because in many countries they pick a single dialect to be the prestige dialect for the entire country.
it would be a mistake to think that Scots had evolved from standard English
The mistake would be to use the term "standard English". What's that when it's at home? There are a bunch of standards, which are more or less defined - one for England (I'd hesitate to include Scotland or Ireland), one for the USA, etc.
The point is that these standards are sometimes quite mythical. In the UK, there really are a bunch of people who speak the standard; in the USA as well. But in China, it's arguable that no-one is a native of Mandarin Chinese, because it was made up by fiat less than 100 years ago. Nevertheless, there are native speakers of Chinese whose dialects are so close to the standard that it's pointless to distinguish them. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks for suggestions -- we'll implement several | Sep 27, 2012 |
Thanks, Lisa, for this thread, and thanks to all contributors.
We know that the concept of "native language" is important in the industry. Just under twenty percent of ProZ.com site users (and members) report multiple native languages. We know that in some cases these claims can appear, or actually be, misleading -- sometimes because of varying definitions of what constitutes native language, and sometimes because of intentional misrepresentation. Obviously this is undesirable.
... See more Thanks, Lisa, for this thread, and thanks to all contributors.
We know that the concept of "native language" is important in the industry. Just under twenty percent of ProZ.com site users (and members) report multiple native languages. We know that in some cases these claims can appear, or actually be, misleading -- sometimes because of varying definitions of what constitutes native language, and sometimes because of intentional misrepresentation. Obviously this is undesirable.
The system we have in place here (it is described in the FAQ; it has aspects similar to some of the suggestions made in this thread) has proven better, in practice, than the more or less entirely open system we had previously. This thread suggests it is probably necessary to go further in "tightening" things.
There are some good suggestions that have been made here that could be implemented just by staff with only moderate effort (ex. provide the ability to report "native-level proficiency" (thanks, Kim), add some explanation that dissuades people from being too loose in their claims, and so on). We'll do some of those things. We'll update you as we do them.
I'll post separately on the bigger challenge of actually verifying. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Actually verifying - we'll have another go at it | Sep 27, 2012 |
OK, regarding actual verification of native language. It would be useful to have a process for verifying native language for at least two reasons:
1) The service would be useful to some who have two (or more) native languages, and would like third-party verification of those for purposes of reassuring clients. (Opt in basis.)
2) We would have a means of asking someone to "prove" their native language (in the unique cases where such a challenge might be necessary and jus... See more OK, regarding actual verification of native language. It would be useful to have a process for verifying native language for at least two reasons:
1) The service would be useful to some who have two (or more) native languages, and would like third-party verification of those for purposes of reassuring clients. (Opt in basis.)
2) We would have a means of asking someone to "prove" their native language (in the unique cases where such a challenge might be necessary and justified, of course.)
We did a form of peer-based verification in the past (~ten years ago) and believe it or not, it was useful. We had to suspend the program only because it did not scale; we did not have the resources to continue it. (Cassette tapes were involved. )
Based on this thread, from which we can conclude that there is both a need and a willingness on the part of the community to do something about it, I think it is worth taking another stab at it. There are new technologies available today and it just might be doable at this point.
We'll mock something up and get back to you all on this point as well. ▲ Collapse
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XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:10
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for your reply Henry and thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
I suppose the question on everyone’s lips is “When can we start seeing some of these ideas rolled out?” Can we please get a concrete commitment from you on the start of implementation?
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Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Thank you for your reply Henry and thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
I suppose the question on everyone’s lips is “When can we start seeing some of these ideas rolled out?” Can we please get a concrete commitment from you on the start of implementation?
After the next contest gets underway.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:10
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Contest dates | Sep 27, 2012 |
Okay, someone will have to help me with this. If I look at the "Contests" page the only information on "current contests" is this: -http://www.proz.com/?sp=contests&sp_mode=current
The most recent is/was in 2009.
[Edited at 2012-09-27 11:24 GMT]
| | | | | If most, so called, native speakers had fluency close to perfection, there would not | Sep 27, 2012 |
be anything to do for high school English teachers, newspaper editors, book editors, etc.
How many excellent writers were there in the history of the English language? 100, 200, maybe 300 -- most likely no more than 1000, in my opinion. This is over ten centuries, not to even mention the same time periods.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:10
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| I think Henry was making a little joke | Sep 27, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Okay, someone will have to help me with this. If I look at the "Contests" page...
I think the joke here is that people have been complaining that the "next" contest has been underway for quite some time now, and every time we ask for a timeline, the answer "soon". I'm not sure if Henry really meant that it would be after the next contest (that's just my interpretation of what he said).
| | | | | Executive summary | Sep 27, 2012 |
Selectively quoting, which this thread just lurves....
Henry Dotterer wrote:
We mock you all.
And the evidence is there:
Henry Dotterer wrote: After the next contest gets underway.
And let me take you back to page 1:
On June 21, Charlie Bavington wrote:
Am damn sure nothing is going to change now.
...it probably wouldn't do to get too worked up about potential improvements, no matter how warranted.
We've just been given the regal middle finger..... haven't we?
(Edit to add smileys and stuff to take off the rough edges - although I still have my doubts about both the purpose and wisdom in this thread of referring to a feature that may never happen again...)
[Edited at 2012-09-27 12:10 GMT]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:10
Hebrew to English
| Total misunderstanding | Sep 27, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
If most, so called, native speakers had fluency close to perfection, there would not be anything to do for high school English teachers, newspaper editors, book editors, etc.
How many excellent writers were there in the history of the English language? 100, 200, maybe 300 -- most likely no more than 1000, in my opinion. This is over ten centuries, not to even mention the same time periods.
You are totally misunderstanding the use of the word "perfect" in terms of native language acquisition...but that's ok, why change the habit of a lifetime. I'm also not sure what the number of "excellent writers" in this history of the English Language has to do with, well, anything.
Henry's Appearance
...As for Henry's comments, I'm pleased that he agrees with us that it is "useful to have a process for verifying native language" but I would find them more reassuring if he hadn't made that little joke about the timescales (although it did make me smirk - not sure if that was because I found it funny or expected)
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