| Stran v tématu: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Who make better translators, women or men? Autor vlákna: Balasubramaniam L.
|
|---|
ZZZZZZ (X)
Local time: 08:26
němčina -> angličtina
| Different parts of the world | Nov 15, 2006 |
Jackie Bowman wrote:
When someone wants to hack off your intimate body parts? When someone wants you to put a bag on your head before you can go out in the street?
I'd put that more in the category of "basic human rights", whether man or woman.
Maybe a distinction has to be made here - when I think of a "feminist" in the United States, Canada or Western Europe, I'm thinking of something else entirely. And it has nothing to do with hacking off body parts - at least not off women.
| | | | Viktoria Gimbe 
Kanada
Local time: 02:26
angličtina -> francouzština
+ ...
| I'm personally not interested in knowing the answer... | Nov 15, 2006 |
So, what if we get a truly reliable, scientific, accurate answer to this question? What conclusions will we draw - and more specifically, how will that make us smarter or better at anything? What good does it do you? Does it really matter?
I think this question is much the same as asking whether blacks are better at basketball, whether jews are scrooges or whether boys are more stupid than girls.
I think this is a can of worms, if anything...
| | | | ZZZZZZ (X)
Local time: 08:26
němčina -> angličtina
Viktoria Gimbe wrote:
So, what if we get a truly reliable, scientific, accurate answer to this question? What conclusions will we draw - and more specifically, how will that make us smarter or better at anything? What good does it do you? Does it really matter?
I think this question is much the same as asking whether blacks are better at basketball, whether jews are scrooges or whether boys are more stupid than girls.
I think this is a can of worms, if anything...
Sure, it isn't worth a study. I personally don't care
My point, though, and where I DO care, was to simply correct someone who was stating something false.
Sorry, I like the idea of truth, and I don't like it when people simply mouth the politically correct ideas that are so prevalent at universities and the like today. Kind of a retro concern on my part for the return of critical thinking.
| | | | Evi Wollinger
Německo
Local time: 08:26
Člen (2003)
angličtina -> němčina
+ ...
| Sounds good to me, Viktoria... | Nov 15, 2006 |
Time to let it rest, Good Night!
| | |
|
|
|
NancyLynn
Kanada
Local time: 02:26
Člen (2002)
francouzština -> angličtina
+ ...
Moderátor tohoto fóra | Hello fellow ProZians! | Nov 15, 2006 |
Your friendly moderator here, wading into 4 pages (!) of discussion after spending a day away from the computer...
Any discussion can be interesting, provided we don't stray into politics, religion, and personal arguments.
Kindly stick to the topic at hand. If the discussion on the original post is now exhausted, let's let the thread die a graceful death, shall we?
Thank you for respecting the forum rules.
Nancy
| | | | transparx
Spojené státy americké
Local time: 02:26
angličtina -> italština
+ ...
| NancyLynn, I'll keep this short --and won't break the rules! | Nov 15, 2006 |
Reinicken wrote:
My point, though, and where I DO care, was to simply correct someone who was stating something false.
Sorry, I like the idea of truth, and I don't like it when people simply mouth the politically correct ideas that are so prevalent at universities and the like today. Kind of a retro concern on my part for the return of critical thinking.
I never claimed to be speaking the truth –and I’m certainly not *mouthing* politically correct ideas prevalent at universities today.
You seem to have failed to notice that we are in a setting in which some people have explicitly admitted their favoring an old and surpassed theory of gender. As we all know, theories are not “truly true.” Good theories tend towards and aim at the truth; bad theories are simply bad theories and should be dispensed with.
Once we have established and accepted that we are dealing with theories, or at least with theoretically possible avenues, it seems safe to say that a theory that claims that men and women are equal --in the case at hand, equally capable of undertaking and successfully completing translation tasks—is more plausible than one that denies such claim.
Do recall that the initial question revolved around cognitive abilities, not physical abilities –or any other related issue that might come to mind when discussing the question at hand.
| | | | Giles Watson
Itálie
Local time: 08:26
italština -> angličtina
In memoriam | Still nurture, not nature | Nov 15, 2006 |
Jackie Bowman wrote:
… and all respect. But that’s exactly what I’m not saying. I’m saying that ‘good’ professional translators are, innately, by nature, ‘good’ writers.
Hi again Jackie,
Good writers, translators included, generally got that way because they were encouraged by their families and/or educators to read widely and write for themselves, not because they have some hypothetical writing gene in their DNA. If you know of any exceptions, I'd be happy to hear about them.
Good writers know how to put sentences together in a way that doesn’t give you a migraine. Children can be brought up (‘nurtured’) speaking and writing three different languages. My point is that whether they can write superbly in one of them is a matter of nature.
If that were true, all the professional and university courses for adults in creative, technical and other genres of writing are taking their students' money on false pretences!
If you heard me play the cello (which I learned at the age of nine), the sound would make you cry, with grief. If you heard Yo-Yo Ma play the prelude of Bach’s cello suite you might cry for reasons you don’t understand, but none of them would be grief.
You don't want to hear me play the violin, either, even though I achieved a certain proficiency on the instrument as a lad. The problem is that I don't practise and my fingers no longer respond to my ear as quickly as they used to.
Music and languages (and mathematics) are accomplishments that are best learned young when your mind, ear and vocal chords are still fully elastic. Yo-Yo Ma started very young and practised hard. I started late and stopped practising years ago.
But this is still nurture, not nature. Most people either don't learn, or fail to build on their early experience.
Cheers,
Giles
[Edited at 2006-11-15 17:16]
[Edited at 2006-11-15 18:51]
| | | | | New approach | Nov 15, 2006 |
Perhaps a more profitable line of inquiry would be to know, not who is better (the answer is quite obviously men) but who is more numerous.
Are there more women than men translators? Are there more female than male members of Proz? Is the gap widening or narrowing? What do we intend to do about it? Just kidding.
| | |
|
|
|
Giles Watson
Itálie
Local time: 08:26
italština -> angličtina
In memoriam | Thesis, antithesis and thesisthewaytothebank | Nov 15, 2006 |
Barnaby Capel-Dunn wrote:
Perhaps a more profitable line of inquiry would be to know, not who is better (the answer is quite obviously men) but who is more numerous.
If we're talking money, Barnaby, we need first to establish whether there actually are any gender-dependent differences in translation performance and then work out a way of putting them together to make a product that the punters will pay more for.
Yours venally,
Giles
| | | | Dyran Altenburg (X)
Spojené státy americké
Local time: 02:26
angličtina -> španělština
+ ...
| The nature of nurture | Nov 15, 2006 |
Giles Watson wrote:
But this is still nurture, not nature. Most people either don't learn, or fail to build on their early experience.
So, are you saying then that anyone who is not stupid, lazy, or both can write/play/translate/you-name-it like a god regardless of inherent abilities?
What about autistic savants?
--
Dyran
| | | | Giles Watson
Itálie
Local time: 08:26
italština -> angličtina
In memoriam | Nurturing nature | Nov 15, 2006 |
Dyran Altenburg wrote: Giles Watson wrote:
But this is still nurture, not nature. Most people either don't learn, or fail to build on their early experience.
So, are you saying then that anyone who is not stupid, lazy, or both can write/play/translate/you-name-it like a god regardless of inherent abilities? What about autistic savants? -- Dyran
No, Dyran.
What I am saying is that early imprinting is crucial to human development and conditions the individual's subsequent life course to a much greater extent than most people realise.
It's not just what things you study, it's also when, and the order in which you study them.
If I had started playing the violin ten years earlier, I would probably be a musician today. Whether I would be any happier, I don't know.
Cheers,
Giles
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
Indie
Local time: 11:56
Člen (2006)
angličtina -> hindština
+ ...
AUTOR TÉMATU SITE LOCALIZER | Women can do it alone | Nov 16, 2006 |
Barnaby Capel-Dunn wrote:
The right (and most diplomatic) answer is that it's a joint effort, inasmuch as both women and men go into the making of a translator.
You are overlooking the advances made by new sciences like cloning which enable women alone to make perfectly serviceable translators without having to bring men into the picture at all!
| | |
|
|
|
Balasubramaniam L.
Indie
Local time: 11:56
Člen (2006)
angličtina -> hindština
+ ...
AUTOR TÉMATU SITE LOCALIZER | Translators and their identity crises | Nov 16, 2006 |
Jackie Bowman wrote:
Good professional translators are innately, by nature, good writers.
The translation profession seems to be in a perpetual state of identify crisis. It does not seem to be able to define itself without bringing in features of other related professions. Now translators also have to be writers. They can't just be translators. Tomorrow they might require to be good engineers, doctors, economists and what not, to become good translators in these fields. You might even hear fatwas like, unless and until you have built three bridges, four sky-scrapers, two flyovers and five churches, one of which must be in your native country, you cannot translate engineering material. Or, unless you have performed fifty bypass surgeries, kidney transplants or knee replacements, you can’t do medical translations.
Agreed, professions like journalism, writing, translation and advertising all require excellent writing skills, but are they all not also clearly identifiable separate professions?
Translators need good writing skills, but they need quite a bit of other skills too.
And writers, do they have only writing skills? What about creativity, vision, perception of morality and ethics, the ability to perceive society’s central problems, aspirations, and ambitions and to articulate them in a coherent, communicative way through accepted literary genres like poems, novels, short stories, essays and plays. The ability to conceive situations and characters and to make them interact in such a way as to present a life-like picture, these are the defining qualities of a writer. Is Shakespeare or Premchand great only because they could write well?
Do translators really need all these skills to excel in their profession?
And can writers just on the strength of the above qualities become good translators?
Obviously translation is a profession in its own right, with its own clearly definable basic requirements and domain of work. We can’t be, or should not be, writers or anything else, and writers can’t be, or should not be, translators. The sooner we realize this and help sharpening the contours of our profession so as to make it stand out from other related professions, the more good we will do to our profession.
The bane of translation is that any one can drift in and claim to be a translator. Are you an engineer, a surgeon, a writer, an economist or an architect and not doing too well in your profession? Become a translator! And what is more, you can set the rules of the profession!
[quote]
Jackie Bowman wrote:
Most people are nurtured to read and write. But only a small number will ever be able to write like [insert the name of any great writer you admire in any language].
‘Good translators’ write for a living. They might not be aiming to be ert name of admired great writer], but if they’re not localizing video games they’re probably aiming for a prose elegance that goes beyond simple accuracy.
I smell a wee bit of inferiority complex in the above quoted statement. It is not enough to be a good translator. You need to be a good writer too. Being a good writer is, or should be, the ultimate, though really unachievable, aim of a translator. It is not enough to become a good translator.
Can we aspire for a day when we can rest and live in peace just being good translators and nothing else? After all they say this is an age of specialization. Or is it that translation doesn’t belong to this age?
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finsko
Local time: 09:26
Člen (2003)
finština -> němčina
+ ...
| That brings us to the question of talent | Nov 16, 2006 |
A few weeks ago I read an article in Scientific American about a study regarding chess players.
The authors expressed their view, that no matter what skill is concerned, all a normal person has to do is put 10 years of effort into this skill to become a master.
When chess players are concerned, there is no special talent needed, no mathematics, no spacial ability, all you have to to is play and study chess for at least ten years all the time, with always the proper grad... See more A few weeks ago I read an article in Scientific American about a study regarding chess players.
The authors expressed their view, that no matter what skill is concerned, all a normal person has to do is put 10 years of effort into this skill to become a master.
When chess players are concerned, there is no special talent needed, no mathematics, no spacial ability, all you have to to is play and study chess for at least ten years all the time, with always the proper grade of assistance from trainers and other players.
The same is true for other skills, according to the authors.
And I'm sure it applies to translation. Translate for 10 years every day most of the time, with growing difficulties and broadening your subject, and you become a master.
Cheers
Heinrich ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marc P (X)
Local time: 08:26
němčina -> angličtina
+ ...
| That brings us to the question of... mentoring | Nov 16, 2006 |
Heinrich Pesch wrote:
... all you have to to is play and study chess for at least ten years all the time, with always the proper grade of assistance from trainers and other players.
(...)
Translate for 10 years every day most of the time, with growing difficulties and broadening your subject, and you become a master.
The key phrase is "with the proper grade of assistance". Without it, you run the risk of producing rubbish for decades as you blissfully contemplate your growing stack of paid invoices.
Marc
| | | | | Stran v tématu: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Who make better translators, women or men? | Wordfast Pro | Translation Memory Software for Any Platform
Exclusive discount for ProZ.com users!
Save over 13% when purchasing Wordfast Pro through ProZ.com. Wordfast is the world's #1 provider of platform-independent Translation Memory software. Consistently ranked the most user-friendly and highest value
Buy now! » |
| | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
