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Should “native language” claims be verified?
Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
LilianNekipelov
LilianNekipelov  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:55
Russian to English
+ ...
See Wikipedia for details or any current linguistic journal Jul 1, 2012

Where am I coming from? I am a linguist -- that's all, and many things which are contrary to the most current linguistic theories, especially if they can potentially become the source of prejudice bother me. It has nothing to do with me personally. You can check linguistic journals for more contemporary definitions of a native language. In the US this term is almost never used, except by the US Defense Department (for linguistic purposes) and some voice-over companies, a few other places, perhap... See more
Where am I coming from? I am a linguist -- that's all, and many things which are contrary to the most current linguistic theories, especially if they can potentially become the source of prejudice bother me. It has nothing to do with me personally. You can check linguistic journals for more contemporary definitions of a native language. In the US this term is almost never used, except by the US Defense Department (for linguistic purposes) and some voice-over companies, a few other places, perhaps. You just don't ask people what their native language is -- you may ask what their preferred language is or the language they are most comfortable with. Some people here, not you, have somewhat nationalistic ideas that a doctor proficient in a second language, or a bio-physicist can produce a translation that is hardly bearable to someone who has never left his or her small town. This is really biased. Some of you are really putting down many talented people. Would Indian English be considered native English to you? I doubt it. What about Cockney? What about Irish English? Scottish English? Do you realize that many people may be illiterate in their first language, if they moved to a different country at an early age?

By the way, Wikipedia's linguistic articles are written by linguists, and they use the most current linguistic research material.






[Edited at 2012-07-01 22:21 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 10:55
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Lilian -- how about these options? Jul 1, 2012

LilianBoland wrote:
The best option would be to do something, so certain people don't lie about their native language to be able to quote on jobs they are capable of doing.


Well, if you remove the "native language" criterium, you need to give clients a way to drill down to translators who are more suitable than others, based on something similar to "nativeness".

I suppose one thing a client could do to increase his chances of getting a "more native" person would be to select translators who live in a certain countries. This is not an ideal option at this time, since a client can select only one country in the search options, and the country drop-down list is very long, which means lots of scrolling to find the right country.

One change to work around these problems may be to allow clients to select multiple countries in the searches. A possibly better idea may be to add the countries where the target language is mainly spoken to the top of the country dropdown list, so that it become easier for a client to select the right country without having to scroll through a very long list.

What do you think? Do you think doing these things will make up for the lack of a "native language" option in the searches?


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:55
Spanish to English
+ ...
The site's risk-benefit analysis Jul 1, 2012

DavidMTucker wrote:

There is also the cost/benefit question for the site itself. How many members would the site be willing to lose if a verification process were put into place? How much to charge for said verifications to cover the costs? Would it be a benefit to have an "open enrollment Proz," as is now where anyone may join, and a "closed" Proz," where members pay a substantial fee to have all of their items verified, etc.?

In other words, the question proposed is simple and a good question. The answer, though, is not as cut and dry as it appears.


To my mind, it would be fair for the site to charge for such verification procedures. As with any other purchasing decision, individual members who wish to legitimately claim more than one native language would then decide whether paying for this service is worth their while.

As for members leaving the site if such verification were instituted, I really think that proz.com needs to take the stance that this is something worth doing because it is the right thing to do in terms of upholding widely accepted professional standards. In other words, any risk-benefit analysis that management of this site conducts needs to be of the broadest possible scope, taking into account how much its reputation will suffer if it chooses to do nothing (or, perhaps more likely scenarios, if it makes changes that don't adequately address the problem or goes into permanent "evaluation mode" regarding the issue).

For that matter, this site ought to consider how many members it might lose if it does not take adequate measures to curb misrepresentation, and which class of members/users it would prefer not to alienate....



[Edited at 2012-07-02 00:13 GMT]


 
DavidMTucker (X)
DavidMTucker (X)
United States
Local time: 02:55
Spanish to English
Fair, and necessary Jul 2, 2012

Robert Forstag wrote:
...
To my mind, it would be fair for the site to charge for such verification procedures.
....


It would not only be fair, it would in all likelihood be the only way to implement such a procedure. There are already benefits that "paid members" have that are not afforded to non-paying members. The individual members currently decide if the benefits of a paid membership are worth the cost. Could not the same apply for verification of claimed items, such as native language? Everyone would not be obligated to have verification, as it might not be worth the cost depending upon their individual needs. Those that do want the verification, and feel it is worth the cost, could pay a special fee for this service. Then, of course, there is still the question of how to verify and what would be a reasonable cost for such a service? Is $25 reasonable, or is $1000 reasonable? I am guessing that cost will depend upon the depth of the verification process, etc.

Overall, though, it appears that only a small (very small) percentage of members have spoken up in this thread, so it is really hard to gauge the concern of total membership of this issue. To me it is dollars and cents, and although I do believe that the majority that have spoken up here would never place false claims, native language or otherwise, on their profiles, I am not sure how many of the same would be willing to pay to have their native language, or anything else for that matter, verified by Proz. I personally would not pay because I don't view Proz as an authoritative body, nor do I believe they have indicated they wanted to be, but I could be wrong. I view, and have viewed, Proz as a central gathering place for translators and interpreters to share ideas, ask questions, look for jobs and promote themselves, etc., and I think Proz is very good at this.

As someone who has contracted translators in the past, I always felt it was my responsibility to verify the claims made by the translator before entering the contract, not Proz or any other organization. And, as a side note, many eliminated themselves in their initial introductory letters due to, politely put, non-native use of x, y or z language.


David Martin Tucker (Spanish Interpreter)
http://www.spanishdavid.com
https://www.facebook.com/SpanishDavid
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmartintucker
http://www.twitter.com @DavidMTucke

*Edited to correct tense error. There are probably more. I was in a hurry while typing. Sorry!


[Edited at 2012-07-02 00:29 GMT]


 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 17:55
Chinese to English
Coming round to David & Robert's way of thinking Jul 2, 2012

Things I've learned over the past week:

1) Verification, even of just second languages, would be a massive task, if applied to all members.

2) The current "challenge" system is not obviously functional - Robert, you said give them a month, and that's fair, so I'm not rushing to judgment. But thus far, no sign that it is working.

3) The current challenge system is repellent. Snitching on fellow translators is such an ugly thing that people aren't going to do
... See more
Things I've learned over the past week:

1) Verification, even of just second languages, would be a massive task, if applied to all members.

2) The current "challenge" system is not obviously functional - Robert, you said give them a month, and that's fair, so I'm not rushing to judgment. But thus far, no sign that it is working.

3) The current challenge system is repellent. Snitching on fellow translators is such an ugly thing that people aren't going to do it a lot. There would have to be a formal mechanism to make it more palatable. But a formal mechanism may well create a hostile environment because...

4) We can't be trusted to judge nativeness ourselves. After Shiya on this thread, and Marina's rather elegant experiment in her own thread, it is obvious that asking broader Proz users to comment on nativeness just invites accusations based on subjective criteria.

All of which is a bit of a problem. This leads me to think about two options.

I) Verification as a paid-for member service. This would take the pressure off the site staff.

II) An option I suggested right back at the beginning of the thread: do verification of second native languages by verifying a credential. You can have a second native language if you show you have a university degree earned in the country of your second language. Not perfect, but would solve a part of the problem (specifically my part - wouldn't do anything about a Dutch translator claiming English as their sole native language).

Comments?
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Alan Wang
Alan Wang  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 17:55
English to Chinese
+ ...
near native allowed? Jul 2, 2012

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:

anyone wishing to read/comment would be put off having to wade through pages and pages of what has gone before.


wow, this is quickly becoming such a thread. I should say already. I didn't read beyond.

To make my contribution, what about claims of "near native speaking". Is this allowed? I am lately given to the tantalizing delusion that I might qualify for "near native status" when it comes to translating from Chinese to English. This claim certainly has its relevance, as there are far fewer real natives available for the relevant market demand.

There are at least two reasons for having not enough natives for the C/E demand. One is that the real masters of both languages wouldn't care to do translation. They simply have higher aspirations (if not, i'd doubt their sanity sooner then give them other credits) The other reason is that those who do manage to countenance the reward wouldn't stand the prices of the developing market.

Well, I think i have made my point.


[Edited at 2012-07-02 02:49 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-07-02 05:58 GMT]


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
This would be implicit from your working languages Jul 2, 2012

Alan Wang wrote:
To make my contribution, what about claims of "near native speaking". Is this allowed? I am lately given to the tantalizing delusion that I might qualify for "near native status" when it comes to translating from Chinese to English.


I'm in the black and white camp when it comes to a native language. Either it is or it isn't and there just really aren't many fuzzy, in-between cases. "Near-native", "native proficiency", "As near as dammit native" and all those other labels would be implicit from your working languages. Those who feel that their non-native language really is up to scratch are more than welcome to translate into it, nobody is stopping them from doing that. At least, that is not what this thread is about .

Edited for quote.

[Edited at 2012-07-02 07:48 GMT]


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Got it already Jul 2, 2012

Phil Hand wrote:

All of which is a bit of a problem. This leads me to think about two options.

I) Verification as a paid-for member service. This would take the pressure off the site staff.


I suppose it's what they have already (of sorts) in the form of the Certified Pro programme. The problem is that it's very unclear what the ultimate goal of the programme is, nor do I see any clear distinction between Certified Pros and everyone else at the moment. I doubt outsourcers do either.

Edited for quote. Sorry, Monday morning, keep picking the wrong quote.

[Edited at 2012-07-02 07:50 GMT]


 
Catherine GUILLIAUMET
Catherine GUILLIAUMET  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:55
English to French
+ ...
In memoriam
Comments Jul 2, 2012

Phil Hand wrote:

Things I've learned over the past week:


3) The current challenge system is repellent. Snitching on fellow translators is such an ugly thing that people aren't going to do it a lot. There would have to be a formal mechanism to make it more palatable. But a formal mechanism may well create a hostile environment because...


Ah ! More than sincerely happy to read that, at last !!! ProZ must not become the Stasi, nor the KGB. A trend that was underlying some of the posts I could read here and that I found very frightening.

4) We can't be trusted to judge nativeness ourselves. After Shiya on this thread, and Marina's rather elegant experiment in her own thread, it is obvious that asking broader Proz users to comment on nativeness just invites accusations based on subjective criteria.

So right !!!

All of which is a bit of a problem. This leads me to think about two options.

I) Verification as a paid-for member service. This would take the pressure off the site staff.

Problem: Since this paying verification will certainly generate the creation and awarding of a particular symbol/logo to the verified translators, visible next to their name in the directory, this procedure will obviously mean giving a competitive advantage to "verified" colleagues; which means that people like me - whose maiden and married names are typically French, born in Paris (France), grown up in Paris (France), living in France, writing in French all over Internet, etc. - will also have to pay in order to prove that they really are what they say they are, just to obtain the same symbol/logo than "verified" colleagues in order to be considered on an equal footing by the clients. This is not acceptable.

II) An option I suggested right back at the beginning of the thread: do verification of second native languages by verifying a credential. You can have a second native language if you show you have a university degree earned in the country of your second language. Not perfect, but would solve a part of the problem (specifically my part - wouldn't do anything about a Dutch translator claiming English as their sole native language).


Again the university degrees, etc... This point has already been reasonably and intelligently developped before by other colleagues

Comments?


Here are mine. Would be glad to read some from colleagues.

Have a great week ... of work (unmistakably the best way to prove who we actually are )
Catherine

[Edited at 2012-07-02 07:53 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-07-02 08:18 GMT]


 
Catherine GUILLIAUMET
Catherine GUILLIAUMET  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:55
English to French
+ ...
In memoriam
Excellent point ! Jul 2, 2012

Alan Wang wrote:

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:

anyone wishing to read/comment would be put off having to wade through pages and pages of what has gone before.


wow, this is quickly becoming such a thread. I should say already. I didn't read beyond.

To make my contribution, what about claims of "near native speaking". Is this allowed? I am lately given to the tantalizing delusion that I might qualify for "near native status" when it comes to translating from Chinese to English. This claim certainly has its relevance, as there are far fewer real natives available for the relevant market demand.

There are at least two reasons for having not enough natives for the C/E demand. One is that the real masters of both languages wouldn't care to do translation. They simply have higher aspirations (if not, i'd doubt their sanity sooner then give them other credits) The other reason is that those who do manage to countenance the reward wouldn't stand the prices of the developing market.

Well, I think i have made my point.


[Edited at 2012-07-02 02:49 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-07-02 05:58 GMT]


Excellent point, good and very interesting explanation
Have a great day
Catherine


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Which just goes to prove my point Jul 2, 2012

Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote:

Problem: Since this paying verification will certainly generate the creation and awarding of a particular symbol/logo to the verified translators, visible next to their name in the directory, this procedure will obviously mean giving a competitive advantage to "verified" colleagues; which means that people like me - whose maiden and married names are typically French, born in Paris (France), grown up in Paris (France), living in France, writing in French all over Internet, etc. - will also have to pay in order to prove that they really are what they say they are, just to obtain the same symbol/logo that "verified" colleagues in order to be considered on an equal footing by the clients. This is not acceptable.


The Certified Pro system has been in place for how many years (?) and yet this very regular and long-standing site user isn't aware that this distinction is already there.

[Edited at 2012-07-02 08:03 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 10:55
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Lisa: black and white Jul 2, 2012

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
I'm in the black and white camp when it comes to a native language. Either it is or it isn't and there just really aren't many fuzzy, in-between cases. ... At least, that is not what this thread is about .


Sorry if this sounds like a stuck record, but you can't have a black-and-white take on this issue if you don't define "native language" much more clearly than just "you should know if you are". And no-one is going to commit to a process if they don't know for certain if they themselves will be affected by it. I mean, would you (and Phil, etc) be happy here if such a system is designed and it turns out that you end up as being classified as "non-native"? I'm sure you would be very unhappy. The same applies to most other people who currently claim to be native speakers by their own definitions.

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote:
Since this paying verification will [etc]...

The Certified Pro system has been in place for how many years (?) and yet [Catherine, who is a] very regular and long-standing site user isn't aware that this distinction is already there.


I had the impression that Catherine's comment related to having to pay extra specifically for native language verification.


[Edited at 2012-07-02 08:10 GMT]


 
Catherine GUILLIAUMET
Catherine GUILLIAUMET  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:55
English to French
+ ...
In memoriam
@ Lisa : :-D Jul 2, 2012

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:

Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote:

Problem: Since this paying verification will certainly generate the creation and awarding of a particular symbol/logo to the verified translators, visible next to their name in the directory, this procedure will obviously mean giving a competitive advantage to "verified" colleagues; which means that people like me - whose maiden and married names are typically French, born in Paris (France), grown up in Paris (France), living in France, writing in French all over Internet, etc. - will also have to pay in order to prove that they really are what they say they are, just to obtain the same symbol/logo that "verified" colleagues in order to be considered on an equal footing by the clients. This is not acceptable.


The Certified Pro system has been in place for how many years (?) and yet this very regular and long-standing site user isn't aware that this distinction is already there.

[Edited at 2012-07-02 08:03 GMT]


Dear Lisa,

If you had read my previous posts, you would have seen that I was the first one to mention the Certified Pro system in this thread

But, it has nothing to do with the new verification of "nativeness" procedure that you are asking for.
If it has something to do with your present demands, then why all this fuss ? Applying for the Certified Pro system should be sufficient, but it is not, apparently.
Catherine


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 02:55
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Near-native only Jul 2, 2012

Phil Hand wrote:

You can have a second native language if you show you have a university degree earned in the country of your second language.


I have that, but it doesn't make me a native speaker.


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Please stop misunderstanding and attacking others who are not attacking you. Jul 2, 2012

Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote:

But, it has nothing to do with the new verification of "nativeness" procedure that you are asking for.
If it has something to do with your present demands, then why all this fuss ? Applying for the Certified Pro system should be sufficient, but it is not, apparently.
Catherine


My comment was not directed at you but was a comment on the site. You misunderstood. My issue is with the lack of distinction between a Certified Pro and the rest and the fact that everyone on this site should actually be a "Certified Pro" (as a minimum) otherwise the name of the site is a complete misnomer.

It has everything to do with verification of "nativeness" but I believe site rules don't allow me to discuss this any further so there it must end, Jared touched upon it in his contribution to this thread.


 
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Should “native language” claims be verified?






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