[governance] MSism and democracy

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 10:47:36AM -0300, Roxana Goldstein (goldstein.roxana at gmail.com) wrote:

> 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.

Well, yes, although it really is both.

> 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.

Yes, I certainly agree that institutional measures are called for
(I presume you don't mean individuals don't need to worry about it at all).

> 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,

Here I must disagree, however, at least to a degree.

> 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.

That is true enough - automatic translators are still rather poor and
haven't solved the problem anywhere near adequately. But they've
improved so much that I'd never believed it possible when I first
started studying them some 30 years ago, and I can't really imagine
anything better to help speakers of small languages that could
actually happen in the foreseeable future.

There's simply no way we could make professional interpretation
available anywhere near as universally as machine translation
could easily be: insisting on that would, if it could be succesful,
severely restrict our communications rather than enhance them.

So if you are saying we should not devote resources on automatic
translators and their improvement, I strongly disagree.

But if you mean we should not consider the problem solved by them in
their present (or even foreseeable) state or forego other measures
while waiting for them to improve, I wholeheartedly agree.

Automatic translators are just one tool, which I hope and expect will
keep on getting better, but we do need to pursue other means as well.

> 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.

I think I'll suppress my cynicism/pessimism/realism here and
just say that I really love that.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen
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