| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Translating into a non-native language – survey Thread poster: Attila Piróth
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Phil Hand 
China
Local time: 16:29
Chinese to English
| Thank you, Attila | Jan 7, 2015 |
I've just received the final document by email, and I'd like to thank Attila and everyone else who worked on it for doing such a thorough job, and including such a wide and illuminating range of quotes.
I have two favourite bits which I'd just like to share.
First, a quoted comment:
"My customers rave about my translations into English and all but call me a goddess." That's how translators ought to feel!
Second, a very interesting statistic:
"... See more I've just received the final document by email, and I'd like to thank Attila and everyone else who worked on it for doing such a thorough job, and including such a wide and illuminating range of quotes.
I have two favourite bits which I'd just like to share.
First, a quoted comment:
"My customers rave about my translations into English and all but call me a goddess." That's how translators ought to feel!
Second, a very interesting statistic:
"Misunderstanding of the source text Target non-natives make more: 38.60% About the same: 38.45% Target natives make more: 22.95%"
I.e. in the experience of the respondents to the survey, on the one criterion where source natives might have really come into their own, they still on average tend to make more errors than target natives. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 01:29
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Definitions and claims | Jan 7, 2015 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote: Michele Fauble wrote: LilianBNekipelo wrote:
what you mean by a non-native language, non-L1, non-mother tongue, non-dominant, a language other than the language of the country where you live, the language you don't speak at home. There has been more and more problems with the term "native'--"non-native" in the modern world, and with English becoming more of a lingua franca.
[Edited at 2014-03-01 10:30 GMT] "For people who were born and raised in a monolingual environment until the end of their studies, the concept of native language is straightforward. For the purposes of this survey, any other person who can justifiably claim to possess indistinguishable language skills from such educated native speakers are also considered native speakers. " You're trying to say that one who is not a native speaker can be indistinguishable from a native speaker? And there are people who can justifiably claim that? How?
That is not my position on the the matter. I think the jury is still out. I just quoted the definition that was given in the survey.
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I received the results of the survey. I had forgotten about it. Well done! Very good work, and very extensive too. I liked many things, but the comment about the pilot brought a smile and the comment from the Italian who is no longer living in Italy is also very true and very perceptive. One of the few surveys that we fill in but never get feedback then, so much appreciated.
[Edited at 2015-01-07 09:32 GMT]
| | | | Attila Piróth
France
Local time: 10:29
Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Survey report published | Jan 7, 2015 |
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that we have published the survey report on translation into a non-native language. Many thanks to the 780 participants who had completed the survey, offering a multitude of different viewpoints and sharing deep insights. The full 77-page report is available at http://tinyurl.com/NN-survey-report . It is a long read and I hope you’ll find it wor... See more Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that we have published the survey report on translation into a non-native language. Many thanks to the 780 participants who had completed the survey, offering a multitude of different viewpoints and sharing deep insights. The full 77-page report is available at http://tinyurl.com/NN-survey-report . It is a long read and I hope you’ll find it worthwhile. Your feedback is welcome. We will soon publish an overview of the policies that translator associations have adapted on translation into a non-native language.
Kind regards,
Attila ▲ Collapse
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 10:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Bernhard Sulzer wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
No, read it again: the survey definition tries to say that one who is a native speaker who didn't grown up in a monolingual environment until after his studies can be indistinguishable from a native speaker who did. I'm not sure if that's what the survey was trying to say...
Well, to be true, the survey didn't try to say either of our two things. The survey simply tried to define a "native speaker", and the survey's definition is "any post-grad who grew up monolingual or anyone whose language skills are just as good as a post-grad who grew up monolingual". The survey definition doesn't intend to say that non-native speakers can have language skills that are just as good as a post-grad who grew up monolingual. The survey merely makes room for people who are native speakers but who grew up non-monolingual.
Native speaker:
Option 1: German person, born and raised in Germany, went to school and university in a Germany speaking country (yes, I agree)
Option2: Any other person who can justifiably claim to possess indistinguishable language skills from such educated native speakers are also considered native speakers. (not possible, says I).
Let me give you an example of option 2 which would comply with the definition:
German person, born to German mother and Turkish father, raised in Germany, spoke both German and Turkish at home, had both German and Turkish friends, went to school and university in a German speaking country, uses German as his first language, can also speak some Turkish. This person did not grow up "monolingual" but it is not improbable that his German skills are at the same level as his next-door neighbour who had two German parents and who had only German friends. This the person that is meant by the study definition.
Are you saying that this person should not be considered a native speaker?
The survey definition is not meant to include people who merely *think* that they are just as good as monolingual speakers but whose language is in reality not really just as good. The survey does require participants "think", but that is unavoidable, unless you want to make the definition extremely long and complex.
[Edited at 2015-01-07 10:53 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 13:59
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Comments on survey report | Jan 7, 2015 |
Thank you, Attila, for this survey and the link to the survey report. I downloaded and read it.
I notice that although more than 700 people did participate in it, most of the translators are from mono-lingual countries. I might exclude Russia, but I think after the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia in its current form is as much a monolingual country as the other European countries, with Russian being the dominating language.
As such the experience as related in this... See more Thank you, Attila, for this survey and the link to the survey report. I downloaded and read it.
I notice that although more than 700 people did participate in it, most of the translators are from mono-lingual countries. I might exclude Russia, but I think after the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia in its current form is as much a monolingual country as the other European countries, with Russian being the dominating language.
As such the experience as related in this survey by translators might not accurately reflect the experience of multilingual regions of the world and the experience of translators from these regions.
The survey also does not recognize or reflect the peculiar reality created by international languages like English which have more non-native speakers than native speakers. The translators into English, and perhaps other international languages like Arabic, Spanish, French, etc., may not confirm to the experiences related by translators from monolingual regions.
As such the survey results may not be wholly representative of the real situation in the translation field.
But it is a commendable exercise nevertheless, which will educate people on the issue and exorcise the native-only dogma employed by many players in the translation business - both agencies and translator professionals.
Some of the reference documents mentioned in the survey report further highlight the above point and I quote here from the document "The Native Speaker Principle and its Place in Legal Translation" by Karen Rueckert:
The findings indicate that non-native speakers of the target language can indeed produce adequate legal translations, that these must not necessarily be inferior in terms of fluency and, most interestingly, that native speakers of the target language themselves do not always produce fluent, let alone adequate, translations. The paper therefore concludes that, given its very individual nature, translation competence is too complex to be subject to a principle as arbitrary as the native speaker principle and highlights the pitfalls and problems of an ethical nature of applying the native speaker principle as a blanket principle when commissioning legal translations.
[Edited at 2015-01-08 02:06 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks - I am going to enjoy reading it properly! | Jan 7, 2015 |
Thanks, Attila and Maria - thorough work like other contributions I have seen from you.
I have not had time to read it properly yet, but have to make a journey soon... when some food for thought wil be very welcome.
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Samuel Murray wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
No, read it again: the survey definition tries to say that one who is a native speaker who didn't grown up in a monolingual environment until after his studies can be indistinguishable from a native speaker who did. I'm not sure if that's what the survey was trying to say... Well, to be true, the survey didn't try to say either of our two things. The survey simply tried to define a "native speaker", and the survey's definition is "any post-grad who grew up monolingual or anyone whose language skills are just as good as a post-grad who grew up monolingual". The survey definition doesn't intend to say that non-native speakers can have language skills that are just as good as a post-grad who grew up monolingual. The survey merely makes room for people who are native speakers but who grew up non-monolingual.
Yes, that makes sense and you would expect people to interpret it that way. But to me, option 2 also leaves open the opportunity for someone to claim a language as your native language if you didn't "grow up" with it but learned it later or as a second language, in school.
Samuel Murray wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Native speaker:
Option 1: German person, born and raised in Germany, went to school and university in a Germany speaking country (yes, I agree)
Option2: Any other person who can justifiably claim to possess indistinguishable language skills from such educated native speakers are also considered native speakers. (not possible, says I). Let me give you an example of option 2 which would comply with the definition: German person, born to German mother and Turkish father, raised in Germany, spoke both German and Turkish at home, had both German and Turkish friends, went to school and university in a German speaking country, uses German as his first language, can also speak some Turkish. This person did not grow up "monolingual" but it is not improbable that his German skills are at the same level as his next-door neighbour who had two German parents and who had only German friends. This the person that is meant by the study definition. Are you saying that this person should not be considered a native speaker?
No. I would indeed consider him/her a German native speaker. Not because he grew up in a monolingual environment but because he learned German from a very early age and was educated in it and used it as his/her main language in a German-speaking country. I am not saying he/she couldn't also be Turkish native speakers - if they had the immersion as children and teens.
Samuel Murray wrote:
The survey definition is not meant to include people who merely *think* that they are just as good as monolingual speakers but whose language is in reality not really just as good. The survey does require participants "think", but that is unavoidable, unless you want to make the definition extremely long and complex.
As I said, I haven't had time to read the whole survey either, I just caution against the idea that someone can become a native speaker when they started to learn the language after high school (there abouts). But that would lead back to the discussion of what native language is and we already had that.
HNY!
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Michele Fauble wrote:
That is not my position on the the matter. I think the jury is still out. I just quoted the definition that was given in the survey.
Thank you, Michele. HNY!
| | | | | Some points to consider, to see beyond the obvious | Mar 15, 2015 |
I have been quite busy so I haven’t had time to analyse the survey till now, and probably what I have found someone else already has published here or elsewhere, but here goes.
The “Translation into a non-native language” survey was completed by 780 respondents, self-declared translators, from a universe of some 2 or more hundreds of thousands of translators who populate our world. I don’t need to apply statistical methods for determining sample size to conclude that this i... See more I have been quite busy so I haven’t had time to analyse the survey till now, and probably what I have found someone else already has published here or elsewhere, but here goes.
The “Translation into a non-native language” survey was completed by 780 respondents, self-declared translators, from a universe of some 2 or more hundreds of thousands of translators who populate our world. I don’t need to apply statistical methods for determining sample size to conclude that this is not a representative sample, based on the following results (obvious biases):
A.- Over 50% of the respondents declare they belong to a translators’ association, something which clearly deviates from the known statistics of association’s membership, that is, most translators in the world don’t belong to a translators’ association (probably 90% non-members is a nearer value than 50%).
B. - Respondents can be grouped into certain categories, which define the type of economy they move in, their expectations, and their business options:
Purchase Power Parity (PPP) of their countries: (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD/countries)
- 71% of respondents belong to the richest countries (2nd to 4th Quartile): this includes countries like Italy and Greece, which, although under stringent economic constraints are still considered developed economies and part of the Eurozone.
- 10% are Argentine, Brazil and Macedonia.
- The rest, about 20%, are not specified in the summary. Some of these, including Chile, would fall in the 2nd to 4th Quartile category (according to the World Bank).
English speaking countries:
- Over 25% of respondents belong either to the USA, UK, Canada or Australia.
- About 6% are related to Spanish
- About 8% are related to French
- All other languages are less than 8% individually.
C. - It’s interesting to see that many countries of the 1st Quartile, including those which house the largest population of competitors with the English Speaking world (i.e. India, China, Philippines, and others) don’t appear statistically important, and those few who may have responded to the survey must be among the minorities group of “53 other countries”. I wonder why this group didn’t take part in the survey with a more representative proportion. This is one topic the developers of this survey should be asking themselves. Was it lack of interest, the venues where the survey was advertised, how the questions were written, the length of the survey or something else?
These biases, although they don’t allow getting the real picture of what the majority of translators think of the “native concept”, they don’t make this survey dismissible. In fact, taking into consideration the evident bias, one can reach some conclusions and extract some interesting data.
There are some interesting results one can get out of this survey, but to be able to see them you must read between lines, if you can leave your personal interests aside. And, of course, it will always be healthy to speak honestly and openly about your findings.
For example:
In Q15 you can see that 37.6% of respondents give 0% to the amount of work they translate into their non-native language. Clearly that represents the population of hard-line advocates of the “native concept”. On the other side we have about 40% of non-“native concept” followers, and in between, about 20% of hesitant translators or soft-line advocates (although these last values can be influenced by demand). No translator goes through life without having once been asked to translate into his non-native language.
This situation, and the relationship between partisans of the concept and native English speakers, is enhanced further in the following graph where 71.5% of translators whose native language is English never translate into their non-native language. All others are below 50%, that is, are more flexible.
In Q19 it is interesting to notice that those who don’t proofread their translations say the truth when they don’t have to identify themselves. It seems that human nature brings it’s quirks into translation. Is it because they know they are doing wrong or because they doubt their arguments about not needing proofreading are strong enough? I wonder why “No, the client does” falls so abruptly (maybe it’s a sample size problem).
In Q28 there is a very strange result. Omitting or adding segments to a translation can be a language related error if the translator doesn’t understand the source segment, something which clearly should be easier for a native in the source language, that is, a non-native according to the question. So, in this sense, it seems that the respondents didn’t understand the question and inverted their response. In any case, addition/omission (except when required for better understanding in the other language: joining segments or dividing segments) is more of an error related to sloppy translations than to language competence, and with the current use of CAT tools is literally impossible unless the translator doesn’t revise his translation at the end. Of course, a misunderstanding like this one can only happen in a nativeness survey, where the respondent has to infer if it’s the source or the target the native entity or the non-native one. If people got tired by Q28, we’ll have to examine the rest of the answers with much more care.
In general, I conclude from this survey that there is a big population of translators who consider it acceptable to translate into their non-native language (probably because they focus on competent or not competent, and not on the artificial dichotomy of native/non-native), a bigger population than I thought. And that, despite a big proportion of translators, which probably are against the “native concept”, did not participate. Also, many of those who did participate seem to be afraid of expressing openly their non-abidance to the “native concept” considering that the dominating world in translation (those who are organised and have pulpits from where they tell others what should be done), agencies and associations, might put them at a disadvantage.
Finally, thanks Attila and Co. for these explorations into the real world of translation, they add to our much needed knowledge. What will the next one be on? ▲ Collapse
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