| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 11:26
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Martyred to your cause | Sep 13, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
... if I request a woman doctor and get a cross-dressing male doctor, some may argue that’s fine, he has the same level of medical competence. I agree. Some would argue that the differences are too subtle to be worth arguing about. I disagree. I asked for a woman doctor because I expected that I would get a level of understanding that I personally don’t feel I would get from a male doctor. It’s my prerogative. It’s not just the vehicle that’s different, the end product is too. Let the client decide and let's stop patronising them with talk about educating them.
Suppose you had a rare disease (read a rare specialty requirement) and there are no female doctors treating that disease (read native language translators doing that specialty), you stand the risk of getting martyred to your cause, if you remain adamant about not being treated by a male doctor (read non-native translator).
I am sure you wouldn't want to be so dogmatic about your cause as to lay down your life for it.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:56
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Sorry but you're on the wrong track | Sep 13, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
... if I request a woman doctor and get a cross-dressing male doctor, some may argue that’s fine, he has the same level of medical competence. I agree. Some would argue that the differences are too subtle to be worth arguing about. I disagree. I asked for a woman doctor because I expected that I would get a level of understanding that I personally don’t feel I would get from a male doctor. It’s my prerogative. It’s not just the vehicle that’s different, the end product is too. Let the client decide and let's stop patronising them with talk about educating them. Suppose you had a rare disease (read a rare specialty requirement) and there are no female doctors treating that disease (read native language translators doing that specialty), you stand the risk of getting martyred to your cause, if you remain adamant about not being treated by a male doctor (read non-native translator). I am sure you wouldn't want to be so dogmatic about your cause as to lay down your life for it.
Once again, you've clearly misunderstood. Please refer back to my post on Urdu>Latvian translators.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:56
Hebrew to English
| Rubbish analogy....you're talking about highly unlikely exceptions again | Sep 13, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I am sure you wouldn't want to be so dogmatic about your cause as to lay down your life for it.
I think you've taken the analogy too far my friend (and somewhat twisted the original analogy).
Choosing between a native and non-native translator is not life-threatening....
And in the kind of medical scenario Lisa was imagining, I don't think refusing a male doctor would have led to her untimely demise, more likely that she'd have had to find a way to put up with the itching and burning sensations a while longer. ....that's all.
Returning to your words, what speciality is so rare as to not have ANY target native translators doing it?
Even if there is such a speciality, then surely you'd accept the situation and chalk it up to being one of those instances where non-native translation is a must (we have talked about these scenarios in great depth I believe).
[Edited at 2012-09-13 17:39 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 11:26
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | That is hardly tenable | Sep 13, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
... but there isn't a shortage of equally (am I allowed to say "perhaps more"?) competent native speakers in that language pair, nor is there in the Dutch > English pair in which there is apparently a huge amount of abuse. We're not talking Urdu > Latvian, or even Chinese > English. I don't see clients being "denied" anything.
If I understand you correctly, what you are arguing is, given a native translator and a non-native translator of comparable proficiency, preference should be given to the native translator.
On what grounds? This is highly untenable, and smacks of racism, if I may say so.
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| trying to get it right | Sep 13, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote:
In my suggestion for a questionnaire, there is an implicit definition. The system I proposed would accept any language you (reported that you) spoke as a child.
Now, this is too broad, and not very precise (I deliberately didn't define "child"), but that would be OK by me. Because my objective is not to get it *right* (everyone assigned to their correct native language), but to reduce the problem.
[Edited at 2012-09-13 16:56 GMT]
Hi Phil,
Okay. But shouldn't it also say that you continued to use/or (at least) used the language as an adult? If it doesn't, I'm not sure if one can get it right.
B
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 13:56
Chinese to English
Bernhard, I think you're worrying about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin here. The number of people who no longer speak their childhood languages at all is fairly small.
But I guess your point is right. So at the end of my questionnaire, the options it would give you for your native language would be those languages that you report speaking during childhood AND that you have reported as a working language.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:56
Hebrew to English
| Pulling out the racism card = ran out of arguments | Sep 13, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
... but there isn't a shortage of equally (am I allowed to say "perhaps more"?) competent native speakers in that language pair, nor is there in the Dutch > English pair in which there is apparently a huge amount of abuse. We're not talking Urdu > Latvian, or even Chinese > English. I don't see clients being "denied" anything. If I understand you correctly, what you are arguing is, given a native translator and a non-native translator of comparable proficiency, preference should be given to the native translator. On what grounds? This is highly untenable, and smacks of racism, if I may say so.
I fail to see how Lisa's post is racist in the slightest. The last time I checked "native" and "non-native" were not races. I also believe you have fundamentally misunderstood the post...
[Edited at 2012-09-13 18:07 GMT]
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:56
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
... but there isn't a shortage of equally (am I allowed to say "perhaps more"?) competent native speakers in that language pair, nor is there in the Dutch > English pair in which there is apparently a huge amount of abuse. We're not talking Urdu > Latvian, or even Chinese > English. I don't see clients being "denied" anything. If I understand you correctly, what you are arguing is, given a native translator and a non-native translator of comparable proficiency, preference should be given to the native translator. On what grounds? This is highly untenable, and smacks of racism, if I may say so.
I really cannot fathom how you made that leap. I'm afraid I'll have to skip past that contribution.
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Phil Hand wrote:
Bernhard, I think you're worrying about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin here. The number of people who no longer speak their childhood languages at all is fairly small.
But I guess your point is right. So at the end of my questionnaire, the options it would give you for your native language would be those languages that you report speaking during childhood AND that you have reported as a working language.
That's a pretty good suggestion!
Bernhard
| | | | | Yes and indeed no | Sep 13, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote: 1) Charlie, you're looking for complexity that isn't there and doesn't need to be there: a) decide on the actual desired function of the field currently labelled "native" Could you not just accept that maybe it is what it says on the tin? The desired function of the field is to tell people what your native language is. What people do with that information is their own business, and beyond the scope of our discussion.
Would that it were that simple. If it were just a display field, I'd go along with that entirely. But it's not. It's used, by this website, for filtering for jobs, and that, as you have correctly pointly out previously, makes it a different kettle of fish (because it has a direct impact on some people's income - I paraphrase your words).
It now has a functional, not purely informative, role. I suggest that function is to reduce client risk by removing from the pool those without proficiency in the language filtered. Labelled "native" as an informative atribute, but functionally indicative of proficiency.
Hence, my suggestion to call it was it is, and then act accordingly.
Edit: "I obviously contend there is a valid argument at this stage that it may not be"
Please tell us what these arguments are, though. Look, at some point we've got to make some decisions. The time for "there are arguments" is past. Bring out the arguments now, or forever hold your peace.
I am doing, but you're so busy being rude and going all Daily Mail on our arses that you're not reading or addressing them properly.
Saying "native is native" is not really going to persuade me your position is right.
The time for making decisions is when everyone has broadly agreed on the nature of the problem and all possible solutions to that problem have been explored. Not just 'cos we've had over 2,000 posts and been talking about it since June. Completeness of information is what leads to proper decisions, not our reaching your boredom threshold.
I must say you are demonstrating a peculiar approach to life today; deciding your destination by deciding the route first, and now, seemingly, also by how long it takes to get there. What about where you actually want to go? Is that never a factor?
Despite what Mr B claims, and despite the comic Lilian, the problem is not being caused by people who sincerely *think* they're native in whatever, and would be corrected by a clear definition. The problem is being caused by people who don't care about the fact that they're lying.
True, but not the whole story. Let me just say that the people who are not proficient, those who are lying now, will still be lying under my proposal and will still be unvalidated (or whatever the sanctions turn out to be - I'd kick them off the website but we know that won't happen - banned from the jobs board, I guess).
The difference is, and seemingly of interest to the Portuguese into English community, is that people like JHL will get in, rightly in terms of proficiency and, therefore, client utility, in my view; wrongly if you like to see client choice restricted because of accidents of geography, as some seemingly do.
I can also think of couple of English natives (translators) of my acquaintance whose English is now so polluted by French that it is sometimes..... very idiosyncratic, shall we say? Sociologically as native as yours truly; in terms of quality of output - very much less so. Given my ultimate objective in this thread is to raise proz's reputation (as against, say, protecting my turf, or anyone else's), a step that helps give paying clients more of what they want and less of what they don't want is my aim. Enforcing "nativeness" (once defined) would do that, yes; but while we're tweaking the system, let's do it properly.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post. | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 13:56
Chinese to English
| In this post, I have been mostly making pessimistic comments on the human condition | Sep 13, 2012 |
If it were just a display field, I'd go along with that entirely. But it's not. It's used, by this website, for filtering for jobs
All fields can be used to filter for jobs. Working languages, country of residence, being a Pro network P, professional credentials, use of software.
Native isn't any different to any of those other categories in the way it's handled by Proz. So while you're obviously right that clients have some reason (probably related to proficiency) for using this selective function, I think it's beyond the scope of what we should be thinking about. We're inside the Proz bubble, they're outside it, and the interface is these few attributes that they can manipulate.
I think it's a bad idea to go beyond the surface nature of these attributes for two reasons.
1) There's a danger of infinite regress. You want a native because you want good quality? But why do you want quality? Is it just to please your boss? Have you really thought your life through lately?
I use Proz because I'm happy with what it offers. The level of specific detail (as opposed to an amorphous "I want good quality") is a positive, not a negative.
2) Specifically the way you're pushing on what native might mean (proficiency) leads us into areas testing proficiency, and you know I don't fancy that. And you seemed to be saying a few posts ago that you don't fancy it, either. Well, taking "native" at face value allows us to completely avoid opening that can of worms. Bonus!
Completeness of information is what leads to proper decisions, not our reaching your boredom threshold.
I think you misunderstand the nature of human decision making.
What about where you actually want to go? Is that never a factor?
All our journeys have but one end.
The difference is, and seemingly of interest to the Portuguese into English community, is that people like JHL will get in, rightly in terms of proficiency and, therefore, client utility,
Yep, but there's another way to achieve the same end: I've always been after incremental improvement rather than absolute native-or-die rule. A gentle tightening of some rules, with a bit of testing or a bit of challenging will help us to get rid of the irritants while not affecting JHL types, and without having to get into the vexed issue of client psychology.
I can also think of couple of English natives (translators) of my acquaintance whose English is now so polluted by French that it is sometimes..... very idiosyncratic, shall we say? Sociologically as native as yours truly; in terms of quality of output - very much less so...let's do it properly.
I can't get behind that - I just think that's an intrinsically much harder problem.
Firstly, it's not a native issue, and so it shouldn't be dealt with under the native rubric. Even if I were to accept your point that native is quality-related, that doesn't mean that we should use the native category to attack all quality issues.
Secondly, is it a language issue or a translation issue?
Thirdly, it's a quality problem, which are inherently hard. We can define attributes here and enforce or not. But quality is always a contested issue, and difficult to measure.
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Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 22:56
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Paths to language competence | Sep 13, 2012 |
Native language is not solely a matter of proficiency. It is also about the path that lead to that proficiency. The path may not have been as straight and narrow as some have suggested, but it always includes a period of childhood natural language acquisition.
How did the native/non-native dichotomy arise? Its origin is found in the observation of a basic reality, a reality grounded in human biology/psychology.
The first part of that reality is that a child acquires a l... See more Native language is not solely a matter of proficiency. It is also about the path that lead to that proficiency. The path may not have been as straight and narrow as some have suggested, but it always includes a period of childhood natural language acquisition.
How did the native/non-native dichotomy arise? Its origin is found in the observation of a basic reality, a reality grounded in human biology/psychology.
The first part of that reality is that a child acquires a linguistic system from his/her environment, a linguistic system that is shared with those from whom it was acquired, and which is identifiable as being the same linguistic system.
The second part of that reality is that when a linguistic system is acquired post-childhood, the linguistic system acquired will not be indistinguishable from the linguistic systems of those who followed the childhood acquisition path.
Because the acquisition outcomes differ, and the difference is directly related to the paths followed to reach the outcomes, terms for these different paths/outcomes have arisen — native and non-native.
Imagine a different reality. A reality with a different human biology/psychology. In this imaginary world the childhood path and the post-childhood path lead to indistinguishable outcomes. In this imaginary world there would be no need for the terms native and non-native.
The native/non-native controversy arises when individuals who have not followed the childhood acquisition path have, believe they have, or want to claim that they have achieved the same outcome as those who have followed the childhood acquisition path*.
* I think it is still an open question whether it is possible for some individuals who have followed the post-childhood acquisition path to achieve an outcome that is indistinguishable across the entire linguistic system from the outcomes of those who have followed the childhood acquisition path.
[Edited at 2012-09-13 19:51 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 07:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Hold the boat, I'm falling off! | Sep 13, 2012 |
G'day everyone
This thread is in high gear, and I suspect that it's not going anywhere useful (I'm not accusing anyone, mind you). So allow me to restate my position, and I hope we can move forward along the original track.
Definitions
The issue of a definition has been discussed extensively. When I cry for a definition, it is not because I feel we haven't discussed i... See more G'day everyone
This thread is in high gear, and I suspect that it's not going anywhere useful (I'm not accusing anyone, mind you). So allow me to restate my position, and I hope we can move forward along the original track.
Definitions
The issue of a definition has been discussed extensively. When I cry for a definition, it is not because I feel we haven't discussed it enough yet, but because I want the main petitioners to decide on one (or on a set), so that we can move forward beyond the definition.
I maintain that simply "it is what it is" isn't a valid definition on its own. So I thank those who have been reopening the definition issue, but it was not my intention to let us rediscuss it in fine detail (much of which is the same as the last time).
Three facts about definitions that are important, in my opinion: 1. No matter what definition you decide on, you can't guarantee that clients using the site will have the same definition. 2. Unless translators are actively made aware of the official definition, many of them will remain ignorant of it and simply continue to use their own definitions. 3. Users who are dishonest and lie about native language will not care about the definition, and imposing any definition will not help reduce the number of liars and cheats.
The above three facts bring me back to an old suggestion, namely to that in addition to stating their native language, translators must also state why they regard that to be their native language. This means that clients can still believe whatever they want about "native", but translators are forced to think about their reasons for claiming to be native, and clients who have special requirements can check the profile pages of candidates. I favour a list of given options that the translator must choose from, with an optional free text form for variant definitions.
Liars and cheats
The issue of issue of liars and cheats won't be resolved by a definition, or by any mechanism that relies on self-declaration or self-evaluation. There are only two ways to solve the problem of liars and cheats, and they are: 1. access limitations based on earned criteria, and 2. whistle blowing.
One proposed example of earned access is my "excellence" option, which is based on WWA and references. There is no quick cheat to get lots of WWA and references, so unless the cheater is hard-working and persistent, the amount of effort to beat the system will be more than any benefit from a successful cheat. The proposal has shortcomings, but it has the advantage of being non-personal and automatic. There doesn't seem to be much support for it, so I won't bang it.
Whistle blowing seems to be the only viable option to deal with liars and cheats. Many people would oppose it or dislike it, but I don't see any other way to deal with genuine liars and cheats. I don't think we have discussed whistle blowing extensively enough. Outright lying about native language isn't a problem in all languages, but in some languages it is a very serious problem. I think this should be one of the main items on the petition.
Verification
Despite the various objections that one might have against verification, it remains a highly useful mechanism to distinguish between genuine native speakers and doubtful native speakers. It goes hand in hand with whistle blowing (especially if nativeness is self-declared and self-defined), but it is also useful by itself.
I do think it is important to set guidelines about how to verify someone, and not simply let verifiers answer the question "do you think the bloke is native?". I would favour a test of both speech and writing, and consider the person native if he passes either of the tests, even if he fails the other. The method of verification that I favour most is having three to five peers give their opinion on the fluency of the candidate's speech. A candidate's writing can be judged by his existing writing.
Petition
Phil, what do you think of my post that the petition should contain inter alia a list or description of the problems we have, as opposed to a set of proposed suggestions?
Samuel ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Decent explanation at least | Sep 13, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote: If it were just a display field, I'd go along with that entirely. But it's not. It's used, by this website, for filtering for jobs All fields can be used to filter for jobs. Working languages, country of residence, being a Pro network P, professional credentials, use of software. Native isn't any different to any of those other categories in the way it's handled by Proz. So while you're obviously right that clients have some reason (probably related to proficiency) for using this selective function, I think it's beyond the scope of what we should be thinking about. We're inside the Proz bubble, they're outside it, and the interface is these few attributes that they can manipulate.
Fair enough. I think (given my basis for supporting the OP) it's within our scope.
And, as explained, I do think native language has extra connotations. I know treating everything the same has the bonus of keeping things simple (hurrah!) but when simple is inadequate, we mebbe have to consider alternatives.
FWIW, I'd also come down like the proverbial ton of b.s of anyone caught misrepresenting any of those fields.
1) There's a danger of infinite regress. You want a native because you want good quality? But why do you want quality? ...
Well, I know you're a man who likes guidelines and fundamental principles (e.g. proz doesn't measure quality) to guide our decisions, so here's one I like to take as given: "good quality is intrinsically better than quality of a level lower than good". (!).
Reductio ad things is never a brilliant argument anyway
If you disagree with my rather niftily put statement (ahem), take it up with ISO or the BSI or someone. Especially ISO, the hoops they made me jump through in the late 80s....grrr.
2) Specifically the way you're pushing on what native might mean (proficiency) leads us into areas testing proficiency, and you know I don't fancy that. And you seemed to be saying a few posts ago that you don't fancy it, either. Well, taking "native" at face value allows us to completely avoid opening that can of worms. Bonus!
That must be a misunderstanding. Since my hols, I've definitely been on the side of proficiency as the thing to verify.
I can also think of couple of English natives (translators) of my acquaintance whose English is now so polluted by French that it is sometimes..... very idiosyncratic, shall we say? Sociologically as native as yours truly; in terms of quality of output - very much less so...let's do it properly. Firstly, it's not a native issue, and so it shouldn't be dealt with under the native rubric.
But I am coming at it from the angle that native is the 'wrong' term and output proficiency is the function and what should be verified. If natives w/out any French can't grasp some of their meaning, they'd fail my test. They'd pass yours by waving a birth certificate and an O-level at you. 'My' clients would be happy. 'Yours' would run around saying proz members are all lying bastards about what languages they can write....
Secondly, is it a language issue or a translation issue?
I mentioned their job to include them in the potential proz population and hence our scope (just so you know it's not some reverse-Conrad example I'm dragging up. This is just stuff like emails, not translation.
Thirdly, it's a quality problem, which are inherently hard. ...and difficult to measure.
True, and proz has been running away from it for years, and look where it has got us. The world's biggest translators' website, but also with the crappiest reputation. Well done, all you quality rejectors!
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