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<font face="Arial">Agreed. This is great. <b>what are we going
to do about it?</b><br>
<br>
</font><br>
On 6/9/2011 9:08 AM, Deirdre Williams wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTi=ewnqCaX7gjjb7kpx6PnvCD27UWg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Snap!
<div>Which in the language of a children's card game means
recognition that we both produced the same card :-)</div>
<div>We could use our collective will to create the lever which
would win us the game - if we wanted to strongly enough??</div>
<div>My apologies for the very mixed metaphors</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Deirdre<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 9 June 2011 09:47, Roxana Goldstein
<span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:goldstein.roxana@gmail.com">goldstein.roxana@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">Thanks TApani for your effort in telling
everybody your thoughts.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What I want everyone in this list to understand, is
that this -translation- is not a problem of a sole person
(a "one" or a "you"), but a problem of the whole society,
if you want.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I mean, it is an institutional problem how to allow
everybody to be heard in a governance process, with equal
opportunities to influence policies that are significant
for their own lives.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the way you think, is that huge groups of people are
underrepresented in the IG processes, an this is not an
individual problem, but a political problem -the whole
global, national, local societies are involved-.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Meaning this that is not a problem that each person
must solve alone, but a problem that institutions must
take into account and then put in place solutions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If society decides to implement the solution to
translation by automatic translators, it means that the
problem is not being faced in an adecuate way, as facts
show that they have not been enough to allow every group
in the global society to have equal opportunities to
participate and influence in the IG processes.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It is not only that each of us must decide alone if
she/he will run the risk of being understood or not in
her/his first language, on the contrary, it is a problem
of all of us to allow every group in this wonderful world
to be heard and to be understood and to have equal rights
to influence policy.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div>Roxana</div>
<div>
<div class="h5">
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2011/6/9 Tapani Tarvainen <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:tapani.tarvainen@effi.org"
target="_blank">tapani.tarvainen@effi.org</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt
0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204,
204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>On Wed, Jun 08, 2011 at 12:43:28PM -0400,
Deirdre Williams (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:williams.deirdre@gmail.com"
target="_blank">williams.deirdre@gmail.com</a>)
wrote:<br>
<br>
> I think each person should have the right,
recognised and<br>
> automatically accepted by others, to
express him or her self in the<br>
> language in which he or she feels most
comfortable.<br>
<br>
</div>
That is a beautiful ideal.<br>
<br>
I'm afraid, however, that it isn't all that useful
in practice.<br>
It works well in a true bilingual setting, but not
so well in<br>
larger, really multilingual environments.<br>
<br>
For what is the meaning of a right to use a
language that won't be<br>
understood?<br>
<br>
If you want to be understood, you must use a
language that your<br>
audience will understand, one way or another.<br>
<br>
You can use your own language, or one you're
otherwise fluent with,<br>
and take the risk it will be misunderstood due to
audience's<br>
poor skill at it and/or poor translation services,<br>
or use a language they understand, and take the
risk that<br>
your poor command of it may cause
misunderstandings.<br>
<br>
Which is better, depends on the respective
language<br>
skills of you and your audience (and translators).<br>
<br>
In general, however, at least in a context of
technical,<br>
political or such discussion, I find it is usually
better<br>
for the speaker to make an effort to make
understanding<br>
easier for the audience - speak their language if
possible.<br>
<br>
Moreover, counterintuitive though it may be, using
a language you are<br>
not too fluent with is frequently better, even (or
perhaps especially)<br>
when the listeners aren't all that fluent with it
either<br>
For the better your command of the language, the
more you will use and<br>
depend on nuances and subtleties that are likely
to be missed by your<br>
audience and machine translators alike.<br>
Trying to phrase your thoughts in a foreign
language may also clarify<br>
them to yourself, force the meaning of the words
to the surface so to<br>
speak.<br>
<br>
(It might be fun and perhaps constructive to
decide that<br>
everybody may use any language *except* their own.<br>
Any takers?)<br>
<div><br>
> There is also a danger in assuming English
to be a lingua franca.<br>
> This is because of the diversity of
cultural baggage that the<br>
> language has acquired during its global
spread.<br>
<br>
</div>
True, but that really applies to all languages,
and if I may be forgiven<br>
for saying so, Spanish and English share most of
the same baggage.<br>
<br>
As a simple example, I still find the
gender-specific pronouns<br>
and grammar constructs difficult - Finnish has no
grammatical<br>
gender nor different pronouns for sexes.<br>
That alone causes a surprising number of
translation problems,<br>
and indeed it forces me to *think* differently in
English,<br>
keeping people's gender in mind all the time (I
still occasionally<br>
fail at that, causing confusion by using wrong
pronouns).<br>
<br>
There are other similar things, words and
grammatical<br>
constructs which simply don't exist in other
languages<br>
and which cannot be easily translated without
losing at least<br>
some of the meaning, let alone the elegance of the
expression.<br>
<br>
Yet I prefer to use English myself, rather than
use Finnish with its<br>
gender-ambiguous and other powerful and finely
nuanced expressions<br>
that translators (even human ones) tend do strange
things with.<br>
<br>
Of course, I already speak English fairly well.
When I have to<br>
speak to an audience whose language I don't know
at all, I have to<br>
rely on translators - but then I make a deliberate
effort to use<br>
simple language, avoid elegant expressions I know
are likely<br>
to get watered down or become incomprehensible in
translation.<br>
<br>
But the level of language skill needed before
using a foreign language<br>
is more effective than sticking to your own and
relying on translation<br>
is not all that high. (Somewhere above my Spanish
at present, though...)<br>
<div><br>
> At a practical level this must mean that
the recipient of the<br>
> communication has the obligation to
translate, and we all have to<br>
> hope that the meaning arrives safely.
Automatic translation is a lot<br>
> better than it used to be. Most importantly
the recipient must be<br>
> willing to try to understand, and willing
to ask for clarification<br>
> as necessary.<br>
<br>
</div>
You are absolutely right in that that's the way it
should be, we<br>
should always strive to do that, to make a
determined effort to<br>
understand.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately it does not work so well in real
life, indeed it only works<br>
very rarely. After all, the recipient has no
obligation even to listen<br>
the message, let alone to make an extra effort to
translate it first -<br>
and the simple fact that time is limited
inevitably means people will<br>
ignore most messages that are difficult for them
to understand.<br>
(I confess to having skipped most of the Spanish
messagesin this<br>
thread, for example.)<br>
<br>
So in practice it tends to fall more on the
speaker to make sure he or<br>
she gets understood. That is especially so in
political and other<br>
comparable debates, where people really don't
*want* to understand<br>
anything that might contradict or shake their old
opinions, sometimes<br>
to the extent that they appear to make a
determined effort to<br>
misunderstand, even though it really is
unconscious.<br>
<br>
So, yes, by all means let's strive to make our
best to understand<br>
what others are saying, in whatever language.<br>
<br>
But also, let's make an effort to express
ourselves so as to be easily<br>
understood, and not pretend we can really use our
own language at all<br>
times without increased danger of being
misunderstood or not listened<br>
to at all.<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">Tapani Tarvainen<br>
</font>
<div>
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<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge"
Sir William Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979<br>
</div>
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