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Manipulation thru lang: PC & translation

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
11 messages over 2 pages: 1
Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 9 of 11
13 August 2015 at 11:16pm | IP Logged 
ScottScheule wrote:
So while we can all dismiss the loons happily,

You're oppressing me as a woman and as a Ravenclaw ;D

More seriously, why not recognize the linguistic creativity instead of being dismissive and laughing at the proposed changes (which as far as I know, nobody is prescribing). It's natural that not all ideas are useful, at least for the general public.

Most of you are already in the privileged group, as far as I can tell. This is a sensitive topic, and it's not easy for me to keep my comments as neutral as possible and avoid any provocative statements. Can I ask for the same in return?
1 person has voted this message useful



holly heels
Groupie
United States
Joined 3646 days ago

47 posts - 107 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 10 of 11
14 August 2015 at 3:33am | IP Logged 
I run the risk of being accused of "micro-aggression", but as I understand it PC is motivated by the great Fear of Offending Someone.

Therefore language must be manipulated. Someone may be offended when another is called "evil", so the term "morally different" is used. Instead of "drunk", we should say "sobriety-deprived".

In the USA, on-air use of non-PC slurs often results in fines. Some careers have been ruined or nearly ruined. What's interesting is that no one seems to be aware of how many overt slurs as well as profanity permeate foreign-language radio.

I have listened to enough Mandarin radio, some of it US-based and therefore subject to US rules, where highly offensive language is used. I know of a talk show host who broadcasts in another language who crosses the line on a daily basis and is never punished for it. Apparently the censors only understand English.

So in the USA there is a whole unregulated, uncensored non-PC parallel universe out there totally unavailable to English-speaking monoglots.
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emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5292 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 11 of 11
14 August 2015 at 2:24pm | IP Logged 
This thread is an example of why politics are against the rules. Even semi-political discussions tend to go off the rails quickly.

mrwraper posted a message that was about both language and politics. Now, this is technically against the actual written rules of the forum, which were posted by the senior moderator appointed by the forum's owner:

Quote:
RELIGION & POLITICS
No religion, no politics - house rules. Like a barman in a saloon, I ask you not to discuss politics and religion in this forum, but only languages.

Note that the moderators do support this rule, mostly because we'd rather talk about learning languages than listen to people recite their political talking points of the week at each other. But if somebody raises an interesting, language-related topic that involves a small amount of politics, we try to give people the chance to have an interesting discussion.

Now, mrwraper's post was in a grey area, so the moderators decided to leave the thread open. Serpent's reply also raised some interesting translation-related issues.

Speakeasy: Your posts about George Orwell are funny, but this forum is a private space, and he who pays the money, makes the rules. We may not hear from the admin as often as we like, but he left us no doubt about his wishes in this matter.

holly heels: If you wish to rant about "the great Fear of Offending Someone", you will find that you are welcome to have that conversation on approximately 95% of all forums and comment sections on the web. This is not one of them. And if your biggest complaint about US radio and broadcast TV is that there just aren't enough people using racial slurs, then just… wow. I have never in my life woken up and said, "You know what this news program needs? More people enthusiastically using 1940s ethnic slurs against the Jews, the Japanese and the Germans."

Unfortunately, this thread is no longer about politicized language choices in translation, which was in a grey area, but was actually an interesting language-related topic. So I'm locking it. If you want to vent about US politics, please do it elsewhere.

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that perhaps I misread holly heels's intention in her post, and that I misunderstood her position. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that she was upset by the FCC's restrictions on the use of "slurs" on the airwaves, and that she preferred non-English media, because it featured "overt slurs as well as profanity." If my response mis-represented your position, then I'm willing to post a clarification. (You can PM it to me if you want.) If this was a misunderstanding, I think pretty much everybody will be happier if you have a chance to clarify.

Mind you, politics are still off-limits, and we're not going to have any kind of discussion about whether or not it's OK to use slurs. (We have people here who've had some of those slurs directed at them in pretty scary situations, and they have a right to study languages in peace, too.) But I absolutely do not want to lock this thread with your views mis-represented in a substantial fashion.


Edit: Many thanks to holly heels for the following clarification:

holly heels wrote:
All I was trying to say was that it's really quite unbelievable how apparently unaware people are about offensive content on US-based foreign language radio. English speaking broadcasters would never get away with it.

I deliberately did not say "racial", "ethnic" or "religious" slurs. I just said "slurs" and didn't use any examples on purpose.

I have been the target of slurs myself and have no desire to hear them on the airwaves, I just thought members would be interested in my experiences with Chinese radio programs and I was trying to stay on subject.

I'd like to apologize to holly for the misreading, and to say thank you for the clarification.

Edited by emk on 15 August 2015 at 4:06am



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