關於duan的中翻日討論串 - 翻譯

※ 引述《egghead (egghead)》之銘言：
: 請暫停一下...
: 版主先去洗個澡再回來寫內文
: 記得~ 是討論
: 就不需要用嘲笑的語氣
: 可以不討論單位價格,但是可以想想供需法則.
: 對於挑錯字,敝人的意見是,我等現在就當作是聊天交換心得
: 不是什麼嚴肅的場合 也不是在寫要交給編輯的稿子
: 只要沒有說太故意,我想妨礙不會有很大啦...
: (倉頡的也體諒一下我等用新注音的可憐人吧?)
: 待續
now, i shall say my words as a personal user of this board.

egghead, master student, dept. of economics, NTU

abstract: (prerequiste in elementary economics suggested, though not nessecary.
or, just put in your gut instinct. fair command of English language required.)

this article shall analyze the translation industry from the perspective
of the individual worker, addressing issues from wages (and how is it
determied), market structure, asymetric information and identificattion,
and the learning-by-doing process. I shall start with many 'impractical
assumptions', then loosen it as I go on.

acknowledgment:
First, I have to thank all of you who nourished this place, and to those who've
shared various aspects of your profound work and experiences, therefore
I attribute the reference to this work as of the ptt translator board.

The story begins with a person with at least a fair command of a certian
foreign language (throughout this paragraph, solely of the author's familarity
with English, I shall use English as a representation of my framework, which
is safe to extend my concepts to any other language, unless otherwise noted)
, such that he is able to find a job on it. But, what are his options?

First, he can seek to be an English teacher, (or teaching assistant, pending
on skill levels, and other curcumstances not discussed here, i.e., teachers
with good looks are more likely to keep their jobs).
Second, to be a translator
(I assume though there are many fields of translating, according to marrins,
at least classified into three major distinctions, I shall take them to be
the same, just to keep things simple. I shall deeper address this part later.)
I leave out interpreting (sequential, simutaneous and conference) out of my
discussion, since it is relatively hard to become one thru self-training. It
has a high entry barrier/cost. (you can disagree, please press 'left')

For a self-interest concerned individual agent, the choice of which job
to accept, is made on the comparison of which job has the best net gains
(assume no asymetric information so far, so both the employer and employee
know each other well enough so none shall cheat), which is the net of
"wage - cost" on teaching and translating, respectively.
"Cost" includes all costs associated with such a wage, i.e. traffic cost to
work, and necessary efforts to perform work such as preparation, stress,
exhaustion and so on.

<Set criterion of individual choice>
<from gut thought, if I can find a better pay and working environment in
teaching English, why translate, leaving alone personal preferences.>

Of course, just like shopping, people generally prefer a variety of
goods, rather than all of the same product. As the old saying was, dont put
all your eggs in the same basket. Sometimes, that is just the way I feel
when I do both jobs at the same time in part-time. But, for a full-time
worker, their jobs and pay are relatively more stable in return of the
full-time commitment to who they work for. This is the concept of "Risk",
which should be considered from both sides of the employment relations
altogether. So far, please forget about risk.

<Realistically, there are two distinct group of workers in the language market,
part-time workers "who does not possess a full time job" i.e. students
that do a typical part-time job; and full-time workers "whose occupation is
their work" i.e. full-time in-the-house translators, or whom gets cases
with excellent stability that could be virtually considered one>

Now, lets throw in what we know about the market.
You've heard of Supply and Demand, just like what you see on ebay.
But, we're talking about the 'language' "labor market". I shall throw in
"factor price models".
<If you have enough understandings, please skip.>

A person's work as a employee does not directly create a value.
You make a contribution to some product, then your boss sells it in the market,
then shall he get the value created from your effort back, and then he
distributes these added values from his employee's work among his hired men.
Then we ask for how much a boss is willing to hire a person? Simply thinking,
at most to the extent that the person's value to the firm, which is denoted as
"Marginal Value of Production (MRP)", which is the worker's "Marginal"
productivity (what he can do) X unit price of the company's output
(for those who know, MPLi X Pi, i=the i'th good on the market)

<Implication: A person with a high ability in a certian industry and hence
high productivity still will not get paid high if he is in an industry with
bad performance, compared to workers of the same ability in other industries>

We know that people get tired over a period of working time, thus its
productivity (under a given constant quality) falls over time.
A boss will only hire someone with hours where his productivity excceds a
given wage, and no more furthur. Thus,the higher the wage, the lesser hours
is a boss willing to hire someone.
<This is a fair assumption for a person's productivity to fall as working
hours increase for the same efforts he puts to work per unit of time,
especially in the translating industry, within a given quality.>

And from the worker's side, for a certian given amount of efforts spent on
work for a certian period of ime (say, an hour), the more the unit wages are,
(say, per hour average wage) the more the willingness for a worker to
work for a longer time, as the more time one sacrifices to work, he would
have lesser time to rest, making it increasingly valueable, which this
loss of leisure time is a cost to working. a worker shall only work where
wages are above the value of taking a break. The higher the wage, the more
hours is the worker desiring to work.

<I assume though there is full information, there will be no
discrimination between two people with the same set ofabilities:
You will not give different offers to two people who are identical.
Also, you and the boss can't assign different wages for each hour>

<We've got S & D, therefore wage and work amount is determined at their cross
points , for a given production quality, where
D:w=VMRP=Pi X df(N,...)/dN S:w=Ul(c,l)/Uc(c,l); F(.,.)=production function, N=
labor, w=wage, dy/dx are diffrentials of y on x; U(.,.) is the
worker's utility function, with c as consumption the purpose of earning money
is to spend, and l=leisure; Uc(.,c) is the partial differentiation
of U on c Ul/Uc =MRScl the Marginal Rate of Substitution between goods c and l>

<Those who skipped should come back>

So, now the person chooses in particlar which industry is he serving.
He chooses from the various offers that he's got, each reflecting
his value to that firm/industry (average hourly wage x hours), usually
for a full-time job this is reflected on monthly salaries, for part-times
both hours and wages. A person is very simple: he will simply choose the
best job.

But it seems to be the case that we translators often complain and feel that
their true value are not fully appreciated. That is, the gut feeling of
being "Exploited", safe to think it from the "Marx"ian view.
You know how much the total value of your production, which is
24-l
<Pi X S MPLi dL ; S=integral, 24-l=work hours >
0
But, there are other workers that can provide some productivity,
and each has a "value" to the boss. There are many people that have similar
abilities, and the boss can even opt to hire two people with lower productivity
by lower wages or lesser time for each instead of one with high productivity.
Additionally, the boss does not need to hire all of them.

Both sides are all prce takers, each adjust until they reach an equilibrium:
that is, for a given wage, your boss is willing to hire you the hours
equal to the hours you are willing to work.
From many workers, given a wage rate, firms hire workers for a certian
number, and some workers opt to work while some not. At equilibrium these
should match.

therefore, there must be some part in a worker's VMRP that are above the
wage rate, where the integral difference is how much you feel you're
exploited, since it measures how much you get less than your understanding of
waht you've done = "contributed" to the firm you work for.
Remember, though your wage is determined in part by your productiveness,
there is another force: the market. In excess, your work does not
produce value to you directly; it produces value to the boss since he can sell
your product on market. It is meaningless to say the following dtatement:

{I always don't get paid what I'm worth for (the value of my production to a
firm). I'm exploited}

<Sometimes, we simply just complain that were not paid up to our market value
that is to be determined on the labor market. This is your worth on the labor
market, not to a firm. If true, you could simply seach for a new job>

<Conclusion 1:Never say you're exploited. In fact, under this framework as I
define exploitation, any person who work is exploited to some extent. If you
still feel you you're paid lesser than you 'deserve' according to your
true value on the labor market, there must be something else wrong with the
market, which shall be assessed below.>

<Conclusion 2:Wages are determined both on a person's productivity, and other
market forces, such as supply. For instance, a quality trqanslator to KOREAN
is much scarce to find than a translator with comparable proficiency in
English. Therefore the wages are higher.>


Above is the general case for all kinds of jobs. However, the translating
market violates many of the above assumptions, here's where:
1.VMRP (a person's productivity on a product times the product's unit market
price) is measured with a "given quality", where this part plays a big part
in why translation fees are mostly charged based on word count rather than
working time, since quality is determined by how much efforts were paid
out by the worker, which is mostly unobservable and hard to monitor.
This makes Moral Hazard, basically an application of Asymetric Information.
It takes place !after! whatever optimum has been choosen, as agents have
incentives to cheat after the initial agreement, since you can't really tell
how much effort did one throw into work.
2.Even without Moral Hazard, practically, it is relatively hard to
identify between good people with good skills and 'lemons'.
2.1 For two people with same set of skills, one intends to do a proud job
putting in a reasonable effort(which costs something). The other person
opts to do it recklessly with little strength (and costs lesser for him
to do so), thus a poor outcome. But, the lemon might bid a lower price,
or to spend more effort (and cost) convincing the client that he is the
better man in order fetch the case first. This is the phenomenom of
"Adverse Selection", for the worse guy is choosen.
2.2 For two people with different skill levels, it is often the case that
the client is unable (to some extent) to tell which guy is better,
probably due to lack of proficiency in target language, which is called
"Identification"

Before further teling the informtion channel part, a brief description of
the translation industry is necessary.
(Inframarginal framework)

There are basically THREE kinds of agents in the market. They are
Workers (你我) / Intermediate Agencies (翻譯社/外包網站) /
Firms of final demand(遊戲公司,各式需要翻譯的公司,個人戶)

Workers seek to work for anyone to get wage earnings.
(but mostly unable to reach the firms below directly)
Workers are otherwise indifferent on who they work for, only wages matter.

Firms seek to hire people to translate for them.
(but often unable to tell which worker is better and of more reliable quality,
And they usually need the job to be done in a short time)

IAs 1. provide firms a service at a guarenteed quality and outsources their
cases to workers, as they know (better than what the firm will know)
which worker is better. This knowledge of who's better could be
either based on IA's expertise on Language, or a better knowledge
to a cartian worker's reputation
2. introduce the firms to workers and recieve a proportional or
lump-sum commission (introduction) fee
(implication: IA's live on their information, it prevents some Adverse
Selection that the firms will make, but might as well firms would find the
Lemon IA, causing adverse selection again. But, it is still easier for a
firm to know about an IA's reputation than an individual worker's, as
IAs are limited in nmber. That is, a lower searching cost for a firm to
seek an IA facing a demand on translation.)


to be continued...
some additions made in middle of text



--
O'Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining, it was the night of the dear
savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, til' he appeared
did the soul felt its' worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
for yonder breaks a new and glorious mourn.
Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, o'night divine,
it was the day, the savior is born. O'night, o'holy night, the night divine.

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