Editing and existentialism
Dear group members,
I have a topic I'd love your views on - hopefully by way of reassurance ...
I've been helping out international academics with writing and publications since I was a graduate student, and I love it: it's educational for me personally, and one gets the satisfaction of a concrete and time-limited job (hopefully) well done - but one thing troubles me about what I'm doing.
Given that English has the hegemonic status it does, am I not just some rent-seeking middleman extracting money from people more able than myself?!
The client has done the work, after all. All I did, essentially, was apply my native language skills, plus some knowledge of the Chicago Manual, which is emphatically not rocket science.
I tell myself (in fact it's kind of my buy-line, here ) that I'm helping people overcome the barriers to publication and advancement that the academic hegemony of English has generated - but I fear this is nothing but bad faith.
Can anyone reassure me?
- Ben
I have a topic I'd love your views on - hopefully by way of reassurance ...
I've been helping out international academics with writing and publications since I was a graduate student, and I love it: it's educational for me personally, and one gets the satisfaction of a concrete and time-limited job (hopefully) well done - but one thing troubles me about what I'm doing.
Given that English has the hegemonic status it does, am I not just some rent-seeking middleman extracting money from people more able than myself?!
The client has done the work, after all. All I did, essentially, was apply my native language skills, plus some knowledge of the Chicago Manual, which is emphatically not rocket science.
I tell myself (in fact it's kind of my buy-line, here ) that I'm helping people overcome the barriers to publication and advancement that the academic hegemony of English has generated - but I fear this is nothing but bad faith.
Can anyone reassure me?
- Ben
These are excellent points, and I'm grateful for them.- Ben
Dear Ben,As editors, we all do what we can do, whatever language we are working with.You should not worry about charging a fair price for honest work, and you can add value to your efforts by making each editing job an opportunity for the author to improve his or her own writing skills.The author should always understand and take authority for any changes recommended by an editor.A few months ago I gave a seminar about research writing and this network (The Research Cooperative) to a group of Phd students from Pakistan, now studying in New Zealand. They might have expected me to talk about how to write academic English. Instead, I interrogated them about the use of different national, regional and local languages in Pakistan.There are several, all told, with very little translation of modern scientific knowledge from outside languages into anything other than Urdu. There is nothing to stop an Urdu speaker using our network as a place to offer editing of research published in Urdu, for example.Different languages have different degrees of hegemony in different parts of the world, and for different areas of human knowledge and understanding. English is of course dominant among English-speaking researchers, and seems dominant to those of us working solely with the English language, but there is a huge amount of research in other languages that is never translated into English. Within and between all the commonly used research languages, editors and translators are needed.P.
I think essentially you are right - it's a matter of convenience.But this simple fact has, I think, major consequences for the psychology of native English-speakers. I don't think multilingual people appreciate just how small and constrained is the linguistic world of the anglophone: the massive control over linguistic production (and therefore thought) that is exerted by a very small number of media outlets and publishing houses - such a vast ocean of words, and such singleness of purpose and vision.To put it another way: native English speakers might not think they need to be able to speak a second or third language - but they do! (I speak for myself, at least.)
Beautiful point,Ben!I have always thought why most of the English native speakers don't try to learn second or third language. The reason may be obvious though,they don't need it.
Hi Minoo,Thanks for the welcome! It's a huge relief to find some corner of the web which seems so uplifting. (Particulary as I was so shocked by the student essay-writing sites I discovered before I found this forum.)Thanks for your solution to my ethical concerns! As I understand it, you say that so long as I am not charging excessive rent (nor providing a fraudulent service, of course), then it's alright.It's an appealing answer - yet I'm still uncomfortable about the role of the market in decided when I stray into the unethical realm... If I charge above market rate, then it's extracting rent from my privileged* native English command - but couldn't it be that the existence of the market itself is unethical? Couldn't the very existence of the market represent protectionist control by Anglo-world regarding the universally human spheres of knowledge and research?I'm maybe overstating my worry about this - I used to do philosophy, though, so I worry about everything!Thanks for having me here!Ben* Actually, I hardly think it's a privilege to be a native English speaker, because then one is statistically more likely to be monolingual.
Hi Ben,Welcome to this group! I think you help the researchers who are in need of publishing and English is not their native language. Provided that the price is fair,they will appreciate your help.So don't worry and keep on good work.Best,Minoo