[governance] MSism and democracy
Devon Blake
devonrb at gmail.com
Thu Jun 9 11:05:05 EDT 2011
I don't know that there is any single solution to this problem. On the one
hand we have the persons sending the message and encoding it so that there
message can be understood at the receiving end. At the other end is the
receiver who decodes the message and gets an understanding based on,
knowledge of the language used, inherent traits that colour and bring bias
to perceptions, economic and social background, the subject being addressed
and other such variables. The medium is the internet which has facilities to
translate the message from one language to another, howbeit imperfectly.
What we have is a compromise that is based on interaction between the
messenger and the recipient. It is in this interaction that will ensure an
understanding of sorts, not perfect but enough to facilitate progress.
There is the other group however who cannot even take part in this dialogue
and to me this is the priority area, to give every body a level playing
field so we can all express ourselves and thus have a chance of being
understood. We all know the obstacles here,
. The need for free and universal access to the Internet in all
countries
. The need for adequate infrastructure effectively utilizing the
various line and wireless technologies to the last mile.
. The need for adequate communication tools so that the educated as
well as the uneducated can use the internet as a means of expressing their
thoughts and ideas.
. The need for protection and privacy.
. The need to be integrated in the Internet Economy.
. The need for freedom of speech and freedom of browsing (within
prescribed legal framework).
. And this for me is also critical that each person own a piece of
the internet by having their own domain. (like owning your own land.
If we focus on solving these then the process itself will answer many of
these issues we are now grappling with.
Regards.
Devon
From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf
Of Ginger Paque
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 10:30 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Deirdre Williams
Cc: Roxana Goldstein
Subject: Re: [governance] MSism and democracy
Agreed. This is great. <b>what are we going to do about it?</b>
On 6/9/2011 9:08 AM, Deirdre Williams wrote:
Snap!
Which in the language of a children's card game means recognition that we
both produced the same card :-)
We could use our collective will to create the lever which would win us the
game - if we wanted to strongly enough??
My apologies for the very mixed metaphors
Deirdre
On 9 June 2011 09:47, Roxana Goldstein <goldstein.roxana at gmail.com> 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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