[governance] MSism and democracy

Thu Jun 9 10:29:28 EDT 2011

Hi,

Perhaps it is optimism, but I beleive that society is working on a solution.  I think we currently have a hybrid solution in effect.  To some extent, and generally only in the 6 UN languages, important documents are being translated professionally by organizations more often.  In some organizations, comments can be sent in multiple languages to be professionally translated.  The automatic translators improve all the time and are in languages beyond the few that are professionally translated.   And of course some people learn multiple languages, at least for reading.

I personally think it would be great if people used languages other than English to express their ideas on this and other lists. Especially in cases where they feel that they did not achieve their goal in English, include both.  Technology tends to be responsive to use.  And while there are translators now, we cannot click text in place in most applications and get a translation, we have too cut and paste.  Also the more we use the translators the better they will get.  And that collected activity is society doing something about it, a person at a time.

I also find using the translators helps me start to learn the languages that are cognates of languages i already know, so that use is also a capacity builder.

a.

On 9 Jun 2011, at 09:47, Roxana Goldstein wrote:

> Thanks TApani for your effort in telling everybody your thoughts.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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-.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Best regards,
> Roxana
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2011/6/9 Tapani Tarvainen <tapani.tarvainen at effi.org>
> On Wed, Jun 08, 2011 at 12:43:28PM -0400, Deirdre Williams (williams.deirdre at gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > I think each person should have the right, recognised and
> > automatically accepted by others, to express him or her self in the
> > language in which he or she feels most comfortable.
> 
> That is a beautiful ideal.
> 
> I'm afraid, however, that it isn't all that useful in practice.
> It works well in a true bilingual setting, but not so well in
> larger, really multilingual environments.
> 
> For what is the meaning of a right to use a language that won't be
> understood?
> 
> If you want to be understood, you must use a language that your
> audience will understand, one way or another.
> 
> You can use your own language, or one you're otherwise fluent with,
> and take the risk it will be misunderstood due to audience's
> poor skill at it and/or poor translation services,
> or use a language they understand, and take the risk that
> your poor command of it may cause misunderstandings.
> 
> Which is better, depends on the respective language
> skills of you and your audience (and translators).
> 
> In general, however, at least in a context of technical,
> political or such discussion, I find it is usually better
> for the speaker to make an effort to make understanding
> easier for the audience - speak their language if possible.
> 
> Moreover, counterintuitive though it may be, using a language you are
> not too fluent with is frequently better, even (or perhaps especially)
> when the listeners aren't all that fluent with it either
> For the better your command of the language, the more you will use and
> depend on nuances and subtleties that are likely to be missed by your
> audience and machine translators alike.
> Trying to phrase your thoughts in a foreign language may also clarify
> them to yourself, force the meaning of the words to the surface so to
> speak.
> 
> (It might be fun and perhaps constructive to decide that
> everybody may use any language *except* their own.
> Any takers?)
> 
> > There is also a danger in assuming English to be a lingua franca.
> > This is because of the diversity of cultural baggage that the
> > language has acquired during its global spread.
> 
> True, but that really applies to all languages, and if I may be forgiven
> for saying so, Spanish and English share most of the same baggage.
> 
> As a simple example, I still find the gender-specific pronouns
> and grammar constructs difficult - Finnish has no grammatical
> gender nor different pronouns for sexes.
> That alone causes a surprising number of translation problems,
> and indeed it forces me to *think* differently in English,
> keeping people's gender in mind all the time (I still occasionally
> fail at that, causing confusion by using wrong pronouns).
> 
> There are other similar things, words and grammatical
> constructs which simply don't exist in other languages
> and which cannot be easily translated without losing at least
> some of the meaning, let alone the elegance of the expression.
> 
> Yet I prefer to use English myself, rather than use Finnish with its
> gender-ambiguous and other powerful and finely nuanced expressions
> that translators (even human ones) tend do strange things with.
> 
> Of course, I already speak English fairly well. When I have to
> speak to an audience whose language I don't know at all, I have to
> rely on translators - but then I make a deliberate effort to use
> simple language, avoid elegant expressions I know are likely
> to get watered down or become incomprehensible in translation.
> 
> But the level of language skill needed before using a foreign language
> is more effective than sticking to your own and relying on translation
> is not all that high. (Somewhere above my Spanish at present, though...)
> 
> > At a practical level this must mean that the recipient of the
> > communication has the obligation to translate, and we all have to
> > hope that the meaning arrives safely. Automatic translation is a lot
> > better than it used to be. Most importantly the recipient must be
> > willing to try to understand, and willing to ask for clarification
> > as necessary.
> 
> You are absolutely right in that that's the way it should be, we
> should always strive to do that, to make a determined effort to
> understand.
> 
> Unfortunately it does not work so well in real life, indeed it only works
> very rarely. After all, the recipient has no obligation even to listen
> the message, let alone to make an extra effort to translate it first -
> and the simple fact that time is limited inevitably means people will
> ignore most messages that are difficult for them to understand.
> (I confess to having skipped most of the Spanish messagesin this
> thread, for example.)
> 
> So in practice it tends to fall more on the speaker to make sure he or
> she gets understood. That is especially so in political and other
> comparable debates, where people really don't *want* to understand
> anything that might contradict or shake their old opinions, sometimes
> to the extent that they appear to make a determined effort to
> misunderstand, even though it really is unconscious.
> 
> So, yes, by all means let's strive to make our best to understand
> what others are saying, in whatever language.
> 
> But also, let's make an effort to express ourselves so as to be easily
> understood, and not pretend we can really use our own language at all
> times without increased danger of being misunderstood or not listened
> to at all.
> 
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
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