Re: Untranslated notes (was: Poll by Email No. 7)

--- Christophe wrote: quite a lot, as a matter of fact.
--- Boudewijn wrote: quite a lot, as well.
--- Now, as a response, I write:

Dear oh dear, how am I supposed to write an article that suits both you guys?!

Again, let's ask ourselves this question: who is my audience, and what are
their abilities?

One can definitely be an excellent hydrophysicist, mathematician, or biologist,
without knowing more than one language. Don't ask me about Korean, but I can
tell you this about Poland: unlike in Holland, were we learn English, German
AND French, they in communist times they learn English, German OR French, and
the obligatory Russian. As a result, Russian was hated, and soon forgotten, by
almost everybody, while the western language was soon forgotten as well, since
people rarely had the occasion to practice it. Even among very fine scientists,
mainly the older generation, there are still a large number of monolingual
people, who can definitely not be blamed for it.

Much depends on the scientific field. If you write an article on the German
language, you can safely quote German fragments. A theologist, so far as I
know, has a basic education in both Latin, Greek and Hebrew, so no problem
with quotes in those languages, as long as the text is supposed to be written
for other theologists. On the other hand, my grandmother's doctoral thesis,
called "Generatiepsychosen" is completely inunderstandable to me, even though
it is written in Dutch; I don't even care in which language the quotes are.

And I repeat: it makes a great difference if you write for a newspaper or a
popular-scientific magazine, or for a paper that is only meant for colleague
scientists. In the first case, both quotes in foreign languages (including
English) and jargon are to be strictly avoided.

I disagree with Boudewijn, that a translation of a quote is necessarily a
violation of the original. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with a good
translation. I would rather say, that quoting in itself is a violation of
the original text, since it takes a text fragment completely out of its
context. By doing so, in my experience, you can really manipulate your source
and make it say anything you want it to say.

When I write an article, I prefer to tell my own story (my field is history).
Other authors I use only when I really need them, for comparing opinions or
something like that. Basically, there are two ways of doing that: either by
quoting them, translated or not, or by paraphrasing them. It is rather a
matter of style which option you pick; personally, I prefer quoting. In both
cases foot- or endnotes are required, just in case anyone would like to trace
it back (which rarely happens, of course; my professor once wrote a fantasy
note in one of his book, which, as he told me, was never noticed by anyone).

Does this reply again remind you of a very little Jan trying to mediate between
two opposed giants? ;)

Jan

=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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