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Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 11:55
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER | The case of international languages | Jul 18, 2012 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
And regarding different versions of English. As long as you are a true native speaker of any English variant, you are still an "English" native speaker. The differences are not as drastic as between, say, German and Dutch. And as far as the directory is concerned, you can search for English native speakers and specify location (US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc.) The same is true for German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). But Sarah already raised that point.
I think the international languages, particularly English, and may be also Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic, constitute a special case, mainly because these languages have traveled beyond their original linguistic borders, and are used extensively in different parts of the globe.
While American English has a clear-cut identity of its own, meriting a separate language status, mainly because of the soft and hard power of the US (to which Hollywood contributes in no small measure), the English of countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., is much less modified, but these countries too are fast turning multi-lingual owing to migration. To many of the new migrants, English may not be the native language in the same sense as it would be for a person from Scotland, for example, but his/her command over English, nevertheless, would be adequate for most purposes, provided of course he is well-educated. The same is true for the US too, visavis the new immigrants, which is what I was trying to point out in my lengthy post ("lecture" to one of the responders to this thread) on the linguistic status of the US. For example, an Indian child who goes to the US at say thirteen would not have the same native immersion into English, as say a German child, who to use your own phraseology, was exposed to the German language (even a dialect of it) from day one of his life. Yet, most people in this thread, would equate the nativeness of these two children in English and German respectively. By doing which they would be admitting that there could be grades of nativity but for practical purposes they could be clubbed together. Once you admit to grades of nativity, you open up a can of worms.
That now leaves countries like Phillipines, India, SriLanka, Pakistan, etc., where English has had a presence for a couple of centuries now, and even though no one (or very few) speak it as a first language, people have astonishing levels of command over the language (a language which as defined by the common wisdom in this thread is non-native for them). I don't need to cite examples, they are legion. But just to get you the idea, I will mention VS Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. The former is now a Nobel laureate in English literature and is acclaimed as the greatest living English writer of our times.
Admittedly, all people in these countries (India, etc.) don't get the kind of immersion into English that you would consider as essential for acquiring native level proficiency in English, but the fact remains that many people from India, etc., do excel, even to the extent of outpacing many natives of English, in their proficiency of English. And in both spoken and written forms of the language.
In the light of these observed facts, I think our set ideas about nativity need to be adjusted.
I am sure the same also applies to other international languages like Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc. There was one post in this thread itself where someone mentioned an old gentleman of 80 from Algiers who spoke French flawlessly, but self-admittedly was deficient in his command over his own native language (as generally defined here). To me it seems, his is not an exceptional case, but the norm with these international languages.
What I am trying to argue is that, international languages make a very strong case for being kept out of the nativity net.
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders. The German you mentioned in your post, is a typical case. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on where you come from, Germany entered the colonial race late, and before it could put together its army, the world was already taken up by the first movers, the English, the French, the Spaniards and others. So German is mainly spoken in northern Europe and you wouldn't easily find people outside Germany (or northern Europe) claiming nativity in German language, and it is relatively easy to ascertain nativity in German by looking at the map and pinpointing the place of the claimant. It is not so easy with the international languages.
Another point to consider is, perfect immersion into the native language could very well be of great academic interest, but it may not be that much relevant to the practical business of translation or writing.
I will again conjure up an English example - the much-referred to (in this thread) Conrad. He spoke English with a distinct Polish accent, yet his imperfect command over spoken English did not come in the way of producing some of the finest English prose, which are taught to the natives of England today as examples of good English literature and writing. Clearly, Conrad's brain miraculously configured itself correctly to the cadence of the English language, despite his imperfect pronunciation abilities! Now, one could take the easy route and say, Oh, Conrad is an exception, or be honest and admit that our language perceptions need looking into more closely.
All this only strengthens my suspicion that to many, the native tag has commercial significance, rather than professional significance, and its main use is in protecting the turf and keeping out competition.
[2012-07-18 03:30 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 14:25
Chinese to English
| Janet/Charlie/Samuel | Jul 18, 2012 |
I'm not sure how this idea would make things any better.
At the moment, the situation is this:
Agency A wishes to find a native speaker of X for a job.
They use Proz to find a suitable candidate. At the moment, they can set things up so that non-native speakers of X are filtered out within the site. You're proposing that that filtering doesn't happen in the site, but in Agency A's inbox - they will receive emails from Proz flagged with either *meets your cr... See more I'm not sure how this idea would make things any better.
At the moment, the situation is this:
Agency A wishes to find a native speaker of X for a job.
They use Proz to find a suitable candidate. At the moment, they can set things up so that non-native speakers of X are filtered out within the site. You're proposing that that filtering doesn't happen in the site, but in Agency A's inbox - they will receive emails from Proz flagged with either *meets your criteria* or *doesn't meet all your criteria*, and they are likely to just flush all the second group down the memory hole. To avoid that happening, some translators will still misreport their native language on Proz.
Ultimately, the agency is likely to stop using Proz, because they end up with a lot of rubbish in their inbox, and the filtering hasn't become any more effective. (I'm sure Proz regularly talks to corporate users to find out what they want, and I'm willing to bet that they want more filtering. This is an empirical question, we can ask.)
The problem is not that Proz filters for native language. The problem is that *agencies* want to filter for native language, and some translators want to get around that filter. Proz is really just an innocent bystander in the middle of this contest.
We can't appease the anti-native crowd by saying, well maybe Proz could be a bit less strict in the way it deals with the native issue. Haters gonna hate. Those who don't get or don't agree with the native thing are never going to be persuaded. But the native thing is a real thing, despite their increasingly bizarre arguments. The only question is how much Proz should and can enforce it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | wash and rinse thoroughly | Jul 18, 2012 |
Janet Rubin wrote:
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Wash, rinse, repeat.
[Edited - more pages than I thought! - And edited again because Samuel's quote highlighted where I had accidentally deleted words - d'oh!]
[Edited at 2012-07-17 19:24 GMT]
I'm with you on having people give more detailed information before they can officially declare their native language(s), and that might be all that's needed for "one" native language. The answers would definitely have to be reviewed by staff. If certain criteria are hard to fulfill for people (especially when it comes to the second, third etc. native language claim), then fraud is less likely to occur but not impossible.
In any case, I believe it's also important to clearly distinguish "verified" native speakers (so far the ones with the yellow dot) from "unverified" ones in the directory search (see my post above). I am not really concerned about the job bidding part because of the low rates that are prevalent. But applying for a job with false credentials is certainly wrong.
This thread is mainly important to me because nobody should claim something that isn't true.
PS: I like your "wash, rinse, and repeat" routine. Especially the "wash" and "rinse". Very important before you dare to repeat.
Bernhard
| | | | | Facts and the way you want to see things | Jul 18, 2012 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
And regarding different versions of English. As long as you are a true native speaker of any English variant, you are still an "English" native speaker.
This is an accepted fact in the field.
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
The differences are not as drastic as between, say, German and Dutch.
This is an accepted fact in the field.
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
And as far as the directory is concerned, you can search for English native speakers and specify location (US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc.) The same is true for German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
This is a method used by this platform to take the above facts into consideration.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I think the international languages, particularly English, and may be also Spanish, Portuguese, French and Arabic, constitute a special case,
This is an opinion
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
While American English has a clear-cut identity of its own,
This is an accepted fact in the field. American English is *already* identified as a separate variant of English.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
meriting a separate language status,
This is an (unsupported) opinion
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
mainly because of the soft and hard power of the US (to which Hollywood contributes in no small measure),
This (unverified) opinion has nothing to do with distinguishing a variant from a language
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
the English of countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., is much less modified,
This is an unsupported opinion, and vaguely formulated at that. "Much less modified" from what exactly, in comparison to what exactly?
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
but these countries too are fast turning multi-lingual owing to migration.
This is an unsupported opinion, and personally, I dare say a huge stretch of anything resembling the truth.
I am a native speaker of American English but currently live in Australia. I can assure you that this country is NOT "multi-lingual". English is the language used in the schools and used for business and government purposes. Everywhere. If there are exceptions because immigrants cluster into regional areas and send their children to private schools where English is not taught at all (hard to imagine, but I am not familiar with the entire country), that would not mean by any definition that the "country" is "multi-lingual". The same holds true for America or any other country that accepts immigrants, really.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
To many of the new migrants, English may not be the native language in the same sense as it would be for a person from Scotland, for example,
This is an opinion based on facts observable to other people, it is something close to fact.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
but his/her command over English, nevertheless, would be adequate for most purposes, provided of course he is well-educated.
This is an unsupported opinion and a sweeping generalization.
You cannot possibly know what the status of the English used by "new immigrants" (all new immigrants?) is, or whether they even learned English even if they are "well-educated", and you do not know the purposes for which they need to apply their command of English.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The same is true for the US too, visavis the new immigrants,
Same as above.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
an Indian child who goes to the US at say thirteen would not have the same native immersion into English, as say a German child, who to use your own phraseology, was exposed to the German language (even a dialect of it) from day one of his life. Yet, most people in this thread, would equate the nativeness of these two children in English and German respectively.
Without a poll of "most people in this thread", this remains an opinion.
However, even if the poll produced the results you are looking for, that Indian child's L1 would depend on his/her particular background up to that point - if indeed she/he spoke English at home and had been educated in English in school or otherwise immersed in English, then that child's native language could very well be English, albeit the Indian variant. Otherwise, this is a highly debatable premise.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
By doing which they would be admitting that there could be grades of nativity but for practical purposes they could be clubbed together (which would connect up to my arguments below later on).
This begs the question. You have presumed your own premise to be true without actual proof.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
That now leaves countries like Phillipines, India, SriLanka, Pakistan, etc., where English has had a presence for a couple of centuries now, and even though no one (or very few) speak it as a first language, people have astonishing levels of command over the language (a language which as defined by the common wisdom in this thread is non-native for them).
This leaves them where? If English is an official language of a country, if a young person is brought up speaking the language at home and/or in school, is formally educated in that language, and/or is immersed in that language during the formative years in some other (demonstrable) way, (I posit) the consensus would be that that person has that language as "an" "L1" - in the variant of that region - a native language. There is a variant of English spoken and taught in India, everyone recognizes it as such. Not every Indian can claim the same level of immersion, so not every person in India can claim English as a native language. Perhaps most can't. But that does not change the fact that one person is a native speaker and another isn't - the factors can be easily discerned. As for the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, "etc.", I do not know if English is one of their official languages and/or is used in (all) schools there and/or used in official jobs there, and I don't have the time right now to check. My instinct tells me this is not the case. If so, they are not native speakers of English. That simple.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I don't need to cite examples, they are legion.
Whatever it is you are trying to prove, I do think you would need to cite examples.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
But just to get you the idea, I will mention VS Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. The former is now a Nobel laureate in English literature and is acclaimed as the greatest living English writer of our times.
While it is not clear to me what we are supposed to "get the idea" of, I would say that this is an opinion. While I'm quite sure that *someone* has acclaimed this person as "the greatest living English writer of our times", I doubt that you would get native speakers (or anyone, really) to agree on such an epithet for any one person. (I had not even heard of VS Naipaul).
Incidentally, IMHO it is rather inane to cite published authors as "great writers of English" in the sense that we are talking about, simply because - as mentioned previously in this thread - published works are usually edited to within an inch of their lives. If the author made "non-native errors" or even just continuously used run-on sentences, we would never know.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Admittedly, all people in these countries (India, etc.) don't get the kind of immersion into English that you would consider as essential for acquiring native level of proficiency in English,
This is a fact.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
but the fact remains that many people from India, etc., do excel, (in their proficiency of English)
This is a fact.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
even to the extent of outpacing many natives of English, in their proficiency of English. And in both spoken and written forms of the language.
This remains an opinion because it is unfounded (unsupported). It could be true, however we have no idea of the statistics of such a claim, or how, even, reasonable people could agree on what constitutes "outpacing", and what qualities would have to be evaluated to produce such "outpacing".
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
In the light of these observed facts,
This appears to be the problem. Most of these are not facts. They are observations - by yourself but not necessarily others - based upon which you have drawn conclusions. There is hardly watertight logic occurring here.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I think our set ideas about nativity need to be adjusted.
This is a fact. It is indeed, based on all the evidence, what you think.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I am sure the same also applies to other international languages like Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc.
This is a fact. You are indeed, based on all the evidence, sure of this. However, many others lack your certainty.
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders.
This is an opinion. Others may share it. IMHO, many (most) do not.
[SNIP]
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
All this only strengthens my suspicion that to many, the native tag has commercial significance, rather than professional significance, and its main use is in protecting the turf and keeping out competition.
The major problem for me - and I believe several others here - is that I don't actually see any relevance of your "suspicion" (opinion) with regard to the actual purpose of this thread, which is to out those lying about themselves and/or to discourage and/or to forcibly end such practice.
You have every right to your opinion on the value of "nativeness", and even whether you believe such exists. But the people who are "on topic" in this thread are not assessing this value.
The people who are "on topic" in this thread can show and have shown that other so-called professional linguists afforded an international presence by this very platform for "professional" linguists are claiming to be native speakers of languages of which they are not native speakers. Those people believe there is no need to evaluate the "commercial significance" of such practice, only to acknowledge (as all but a very few have) that it is dishonest, unprofessional, unethical, and that the easy opportunity for such dishonest behavior should be removed.
[Edited at 2012-07-18 11:36 GMT]
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:25
Hebrew to English
| Please Balasubramaniam, stop veering way off topic. | Jul 18, 2012 |
After reading your last post, I can tell you now that this thread is NOT about:
• the post-colonial status of various international languages
• American English (or anything to do with Hollywood)
• Migration patterns in English speaking countries
• Naipaul or Salman Rushdie (neither of them particularly good writers – OPINION!)
• Elderly people from Algeria
• the colonial history of Germany
• Yawn! CONRAD! Let’s face it, h... See more After reading your last post, I can tell you now that this thread is NOT about:
• the post-colonial status of various international languages
• American English (or anything to do with Hollywood)
• Migration patterns in English speaking countries
• Naipaul or Salman Rushdie (neither of them particularly good writers – OPINION!)
• Elderly people from Algeria
• the colonial history of Germany
• Yawn! CONRAD! Let’s face it, he’s not Shakespeare, so let’s just get over that! His writing contained Polish influenced non-native-isms? (Is that a word? – Anyway, if you go back and look someone posted a link).
[Edited at 2012-07-18 05:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:25
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | VS Naipaul's bio | Jul 18, 2012 |
Janet Rubin wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
But just to get you the idea, I will mention VS Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. The former is now a Nobel laureate in English literature and is acclaimed as the greatest living English writer of our times. While it is not clear to me what we are supposed to "get the idea" of, I would say that this is an opinion. While I'm quite sure that *someone* has acclaimed this person as "the greatest living English writer of our times", I doubt that you would get native speakers (or anyone, really) to agree on such an epithet for any one person. (I had not even heard of VS Naipaul).
Indian parents, born and bred in Trinidad (an English-speaking country). Educated at Oxford. Been living in Britain for the past 6 decades (or thereabouts). Native English speaker. Salman Rushdie's bio is not wholly dissimilar.
| | | | Cetacea
Switzerland
Local time: 08:25
English to German
+ ...
When I noticed that this thread is now on page 59, I couldn't stop myself from having a look into what could possibly have been said on the last few pages that hadn't been said a gazillion times before. A little like touching a sore tooth with your tongue to see if it still hurts...
Talk about going off topic! I admit I myself questioned the thread's potential of doing anything to improve the quality problem rampant on ProZ, but a native language is a native language is a native lan... See more When I noticed that this thread is now on page 59, I couldn't stop myself from having a look into what could possibly have been said on the last few pages that hadn't been said a gazillion times before. A little like touching a sore tooth with your tongue to see if it still hurts...
Talk about going off topic! I admit I myself questioned the thread's potential of doing anything to improve the quality problem rampant on ProZ, but a native language is a native language is a native language.
However, the points raised by some posters to defend their personal opinions boggle the mind to an extent I really didn't think possible, not even on a site open to all. The U.S. still a colony of England? Monolingual translators? And--with all due respect for the religious fervor such a discussion may bring out--nativity?!
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders.
Sorry, but the "concept of nativity" is not relevant to any language at all. Nativity refers to birth, especially the place, conditions, or circumstances of being born, and, in particular, to the birth of Jesus or a representation, such as a painting, of Jesus just after birth.
What the poster means (or I think he means) is "nativeness", i.e. "existing in or belonging to one by nature; innate." Now why do I find this so infuriating when, obviously, I am able to infer what the poster is trying to say? Because we're supposed to be linguists, that's why! We're supposed to know language and take care of it.
In my humble opinion, translation is all about communication, and you can't communicate with anyone if you (ab)use established terms to mean whatever you want them to mean. Nobody will understand you. And after a little while, nobody will even bother to try. By definition, there is no such thing as a monolingual translator. Translate means "to express the sense of words or text in another language".
If you want to create your own universe, you need to create your own language as well. Twisting the meaning of established terms to suit your own preferences won't do. It certainly won't do anything to improve the reputation of your chosen profession.
Edited to add the following:
By the way, my dear Balasubramaniam, not all European countries are monolingual. There's this tiny little nation called Switzerland that has four official languages, with English fast becoming an inofficial fifth. Does that mean that every Swiss has several native languages or even speaks several languages fluently? Err, no, not really...
Edited to make it perfectly clear to Samuel:
So if you want to discuss monolingual translators
I do not want to discuss monolingual translators. There is no such thing. If a person wants "monolingual" to mean "mononative", then he/she should use that term. "Monolingual" means one thing, and one thing only. It's really easy to say "I didn't mean it that way" every time somebody refutes your argument. But I'm afraid it's an excuse I don't accept from anybody past the age of five.
[Edited at 2012-07-18 08:33 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-18 08:49 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-18 09:21 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-18 09:55 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-18 10:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I think the problem Lisa, with your jobs being stolen | Jul 18, 2012 |
is your profile. You are a highly qualified professional, but your profile is very confusing, and this might be the reason why some of the jobs you are capable of doing go to other people. Some outsourcers may think you are 18 if they go by the picture. Then you are saying that you have lived for 25 years in Brazil and for 10 years in France. Some people may have the impression that you never lived in England. Then your major in translation is Russian, and as far as I remember you translate most... See more is your profile. You are a highly qualified professional, but your profile is very confusing, and this might be the reason why some of the jobs you are capable of doing go to other people. Some outsourcers may think you are 18 if they go by the picture. Then you are saying that you have lived for 25 years in Brazil and for 10 years in France. Some people may have the impression that you never lived in England. Then your major in translation is Russian, and as far as I remember you translate mostly from Portuguese. I think this might be the real problem that you are confusing some of the outsourcers yourself. This this just to help to find the problem; it is not meant as criticism of any sort.
[Edited at 2012-07-18 08:51 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| The problem is... | Jul 18, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote:
At the moment, the situation is this:
Agency A wishes to find a native speaker of X for a job.
They use Proz to find a suitable candidate. At the moment, they can set things up so that non-native speakers of X are filtered out within the site. You're proposing that that filtering doesn't happen in the site, but in Agency A's inbox - (...). The problem is that *agencies* want to filter for native language, and some translators want to get around that filter. Proz is really just an innocent bystander in the middle of this contest.
.... that we are still all talking at cross purposes about what the underlying problem is. You've just explained the nature of a problem, and I see your point entirely. When I've outsourced work on here, I haven't been anywhere near the search function. So any search function based solution alone is not going to help me, and I'm still theoretically liable to get caught out by a liar. I imagine I am not alone, although it never does to assume or project.
And I'll just say it again, the underlying problem for me is this blurring of the boundary between the descriptions of the services to which a profile gives access and the personal attributes of the profile owner. And so when I agreed with Janet, it was with her seeming to also see a separation between the two.
Hence when I said "why do people lie?" I mean I'm looking for answers more general than "to show up higher in the search ranking", e.g. "because it helps me earn money". And I'm afraid that thus far, unless we ask some of these liars why they lie, a general answer of that kind is as good as we're going to get, and the general answer always points back to the root cause being the "N" on the profile, the profile being the lynchpin of the whole shebang, whether it is via proz search functions, posting jobs direct & viewing profiles of respondents, google searches for key terms that throw up profiles.... for me, it always leads back to the profile.
And the problem with the "N" on the profile is that neither its meaning nor its purpose are clear to everyone (clearly there is some overlap between those 2 aspects), and even those who seem fairly clear don't agree . It would be extremely interesting to hear, say, Henry's view on what the purpose of the "N" is, what he thought it represented it when he invented it (I'm guessing it was him!), and it's presumed relationship with the working language pairs list, and whether that still holds true today.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 08:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Ty (relevance) | Jul 18, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
After reading your last post, I can tell you now that this thread is NOT about...
If something is not relevant, then simply don't respond to it. If you respond to it, you keep it alive, and the poster is encouraged to write some more of it. If you don't respond to it, it dies a silent death, keeping the thread cleaner than it could have been.
Surely it would make more sense to respond to the posts that are broadly on-topic and for which responses would likely generate fruitful discussion?
[Edited at 2012-07-18 09:28 GMT]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:25
Hebrew to English
| This particular beast is self-nourishing | Jul 18, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Ty Kendall wrote:
After reading your last post, I can tell you now that this thread is NOT about... If something is not relevant, then simply don't respond to it. If you respond to it, you keep it alive, and the poster is encouraged to write some more of it. If you don't respond to it, it dies a silent death, keeping the thread cleaner than it could have been. Surely it would make more sense to respond to the posts that are broadly on-topic and for which responses would likely generate fruitful discussion?
I don't need to feed it for it to keep going, it does so regardless. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope in me which thinks the message may eventually sink in, however doubtful that is.
If I thought silence would tame the beast then trust me, I'd have done it.
It could also be argued that responding to a response of an irrelevant post is also keeping it alive
In addition, there's nothing wrong with trying to nudge people back on topic. Completely ignoring them seems somewhat harsh, no matter how outlandish their posts are.
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You know how in the cartoons, people get bubbles above their heads with ideas?
Cetacea wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders. Sorry, but the "concept of nativity" is not relevant to any language at all. Nativity refers to birth, especially the place, conditions, or circumstances of being born, and, in particular, to the birth of Jesus or a representation, such as a painting, of Jesus just after birth.
Every time I read BL's posts, I was getting constant bubbles, featuring the Madonna and Child as shown on Christmas stamps the world over, popping up. It was the only thing saving me from throwing my laptop out of the window in frustration. So I didn't mention it. I'm not in the mood for laptop shopping.
What the poster means (or I think he means) is "nativeness",
I thought he meant that too. The word appears on practically every page of a thread he claimed to have read in its entirety. 'Nuff said.
[Edited at 2012-07-18 09:21 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 08:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| @Crustacea (terminology) | Jul 18, 2012 |
Cetacea wrote:
The U.S. still a colony of England? Monolingual translators? And--with all due respect for the religious fervor such a discussion may bring out--nativity?!
Before you question the phrase "monolingual translator", first figure out what the issues really are. In one way, both Lilian's and Balasubramaniam's use of the term relate to the same thing, but they exist in two different, separate arguments.
Lilian used the term "monolingual translator" to mean "mononative translator" here (but she defined her use of the term in her post, so there's no misunderstanding unless you really want to misunderstand).
Balasubramaniam also mentioned monolingual recently, for example here and here but his argument is very different from Lilian's. Balasubramaniam is from a country where multinativeness is commonplace (India), and this means that any mononative translator's expertise in his second language is very little by comparison. Hence Balasubramaniam's statement that many translators who learnt their second language late in life can actually be called monolingual, since they "have" only one language (their second language is just a skill).
So if you want to discuss monolingual translators, be sure to quote something, so that we know which of these two arguments you are attempting to participate in.
Charlie Bavington wrote: Cetacea wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders. Sorry, but the "concept of nativity" is not relevant to any language at all. Nativity refers to birth, especially the place, conditions, or circumstances of being born, and, in particular, to the birth of Jesus or a representation, such as a painting, of Jesus just after birth. Every time I read BL's posts, I was getting constant bubbles, featuring the Madonna and Child as shown on Christmas stamps the world over, popping up.
The term "nativity" does not only refer to Jesus. In fact, "nativity" is a valid synonym for "nativeness" (at least for those who subscribe to the "critical-period" definition of it), and since we're talking about native languages here and not about God, it should be clear to anyone (who does not specifically want to misunderstand) what "nativity" means. See here for the definition of "nativity". Nothing wrong with smiling each time you hear it, though.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 14:25
Chinese to English
| Don't agree? | Jul 18, 2012 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
the general answer always points back to the root cause being the "N" on the profile, the profile being the lynchpin of the whole shebang
Yes, it's definitely all about the profile. No disagreement on that.
when I said "why do people lie?" I mean I'm looking for answers more general than "to show up higher in the search ranking", e.g. "because it helps me earn money".
Don't understand. Why would there need to be any answer other than that? I was talking about it over on the Chinese thread, and that's the answer everyone agreed on there.
And the problem with the "N" on the profile is that neither its meaning nor its purpose are clear to everyone (clearly there is some overlap between those 2 aspects), and even those who seem fairly clear don't agree
Then I have definitely missed something. I mean, I might disagree on some details (though I don't actually think I have a detailed view on what native language means), but in terms of the rough definition we'd need to set up to make Proz work better, I honestly haven't seen any disagreement between you, me, Lisa, Ty, Nani, Robert...
It would be extremely interesting to hear, say, Henry's view on what the purpose of the "N" is, what he thought it represented it when he invented it (I'm guessing it was him!), and it's presumed relationship with the working language pairs list,
I thought the point was that it's all contingent. At the moment, in the site, there is no connection between working pairs and native language. The meaning of native (and all the other info on your profile) is no more and no less than what the users of the site make it.
Users of the site lend a certain amount of trust to the information published here, so the ability to publish more advantageous information has value. But that value comes from site-external sources (the credence of clients). No amount of twiddling with site settings will alter it - unless Proz becomes so riddled with inaccurate profiles that all Proz info becomes worthless to outsourcers/clients.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:25
Hebrew to English
Charlie Bavington wrote: You know how in the cartoons, people get bubbles above their heads with ideas? Cetacea wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
The concept of nativity is of relevance only to those languages which have never traveled much beyond their natural borders. Sorry, but the "concept of nativity" is not relevant to any language at all. Nativity refers to birth, especially the place, conditions, or circumstances of being born, and, in particular, to the birth of Jesus or a representation, such as a painting, of Jesus just after birth. Every time I read BL's posts, I was getting constant bubbles, featuring the Madonna and Child as shown on Christmas stamps the world over, popping up. It was the only thing saving me from throwing my laptop out of the window in frustration. So I didn't mention it. I'm not in the mood for laptop shopping.
Just noticed I slipped into using it too (although always in response to BL).
Talk about L2 interference (by proxy)!
[Edited at 2012-07-18 09:41 GMT]
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