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Subject:RE: Thank You from new tech writer From:"Leonard C. Porrello" <Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 6 Mar 2008 13:45:50 -0800
I fully agree. I think we are probably moving pretty quickly toward
"International English" (which, fortunately for us, would be very
similar to Edited American or Edited British English). And then there is
what Joyce shared about the docs she inherited. That is exactly the type
of thing I have seen and what I had in mind when I asked my question.
How cost effective can it be to have a team of Indian writers if you
need a team of "native English speakers" (for lack of a better phrase)
to edit what they write?
Leonard C. Porrello
SoleraTec LLC
www.soleratec.com
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 1:15 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Thank You from new tech writer
Leonard C. Porrello
> It's not at all clear that coming up through "a bilingual education
> system" makes someone a "native speaker." Arguably, native speech is
> what you use in your culture, in your home. In India, "29 languages
are
> spoken by more than a million native speakers, 122 by more than
10,000"
> (Wikipedia: Languages of India).
>
> And even if we were to concede that Indians are native speakers of
> English, you'd still have to contend with the problem of dialect. Even
> if there is an Indian equivalent to "edited American English", it is
not
> the same as Edited American English. What's done to render their docs
> into Edited American English (where the target audience resides in the
> US)?
>
> Is this a fair question, [...]
I think that it might be a less-and-less relevant question.
We, here in the 40-some-person Ottawa, Canada branch, are owned by an
American corporation. Segments of that company sell directly and
pretty-much exclusively to the US government. I won't comment on that
part. The rest of our company, including the offices in the US and
around the world (some with development capability, some with just sales
presence), sells to... the world.
For that matter, a lot of the companies that are our customers within
the USofA employ engineers, software developers, IT people who have
Indian, Korean, Lebanese, Russian, Irish, or other accents and family
names. Certainly, that mix and many others are prevalent in Europe,
South America, Asia, Oceania, where we sell our products to people who
run them in server rooms or incorporate them into their own companies'
offerings for value-added resale. Since those techie folks are our
actual audience, it turns out that _I_ might not be a member of my
majority target audience. So far, there have been no complaints on that
score - or they've been too polite to complain about my North American
phrasing.
We should get over ourselves and get on with doing a good job of the job
at hand.
Kevin
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