Fri, Apr 29, 2011 page8

• Experts better than native speakers

  • By Mark Rawson
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  A recent article (“Embracing English quality control,” April 18, page 8) called for higher standards of English language quality control among “internationalizing institutions” in Taiwan and for a start to be made in such institutions by having native English speakers installed in positions of authority for all outgoing English-language documents.

  It was a perceptive and intelligent piece whose observations on many of the failings in the production of high-quality English-language material in Taiwan are, in my experience, entirely accurate. Its emphasis simply on placing “native speakers” in the vanguard of efforts to improve English language standards, however, ignores the far greater need, quite simply, for linguistic expertise.

  Britain’s outstanding war-time prime minister and legendary wit Sir Winston Churchill famously quipped that Britain and the US were two great civilizations divided by their common language. He should have known. Not only was he one of history’s most accomplished and versatile exponents of English, he was also the son of a British father and an American mother.

  Like many of the great man’s pronouncements, it was a deeply perceptive observation with implications beyond its immediate, explicit point. Languages develop, essentially, with a unifying purpose — to universalize communication so that people can understand each other, but of course, even as language “universalizes,” it divides along national and regional boundaries, class lines, professional lines and so on.

  Within the cornucopia of issues involved in the question of quality control of English language in Taiwan are numerous linguistic divisions — those between Mandarin, Hoklo and Hakka, those between all three and English, those between the many different versions of English (British and American, the other principal native English-speaking countries and the massive, global, English-as-a-second-language community.)

  All of these divisions are capable of being bridged, but for that to be achieved, less emphasis should be placed on “native speakers” and more, quite simply, on experts — people with genuine and proven talent in the required field of linguistic endeavor, regardless of what their native tongue happens to be.

  Native versus non-native represents one more division, but there is another far more critical division to be addressed — that between experts and non-experts.

  Taiwan is blessed with some highly talented linguistic professionals, of many nationalities and native tongues, working as translators and at the higher end of the teaching market.

  In both sectors, however, and more particularly in the field of English-language editing, high-quality personnel (experts) are massively outnumbered by low-quality personnel (non-experts). The advancement of linguistic standards will proceed only slowly and falteringly, if at all, in a market in which being a native English speaker, rather than an expert, is the primary criterion for appointment to senior positions in the various fields of English-language activity.

  This is a critical point and one which touches nerves. Never mind: “I think, therefore I am.” The communities of native English-speaking teachers and editors are full of Joe Blows who proudly wear on their sleeve a large badge bearing the legend: “I am a native English speaker, so I can edit/teach.”

  I can see many of them now preparing to fill the Taipei Times mailbag with indignant, linguistically flawed protestations. There is much irony in this state of affairs.

  Presumably, when we dispatch our children to schools and cram schools to learn, we hope that they will be well taught. Editing, specifically, is nothing more and nothing less than a quality control job. A truly professional editor makes no changes to a piece of text unless it truly requires them. A splendid British colloquialism sums up this imperative perfectly: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  Native English-speaking editors in Taiwan make changes (and butcher good text in the process) because, as one supervising editor who condoned the practice once put it to me, “they like to leave their mark.”

  Sadly, in my experience, even Taiwan’s Chinese-English translation market is saturated by extremely inexperienced native English speaking practitioners only slightly less well-versed in interpreting Chinese than they are at writing their own language, performing low-quality work at break-neck speed for derisory pay from clients whose only concern is to have some English text emblazoned cosmetically on their product in some form, be it comprehensible or not.

  Mere native speakers of all languages make linguistic mistakes. Of course they do. I would make mistakes if I attempted to repair my washing machine. In my daily Chinese-English translation work, I frequently have to request clarification from Chinese clients as to the meaning of this or that Chinese phrase because, not being an expert in the use of their own language, they have expressed something unclearly or nonsensically.

  Language is like any other field of human endeavor. It takes the leadership of experts for it to develop, and advance quickly and constructively.

  Mark Rawson is a translator, editor and writer based in Taiwan.
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