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<\/p>\nHave you ever noticed that the best compliment students give their professors is something along these lines: “S\/he is capable of explaining complicated things in such a simple manner”? Teaching and research, as well as the media, is often about translation: from specific to abstract, from sound\/view to words, from one culture to another. And some scientists work very hard to translate everyday language to the language they share with their colleagues. Two examples from Economics:<\/p>\n
1. You take a simple sentence, such as “People migrate if it’s worth it and if they want it” and translate it into<\/p>\n
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Source: Eurofound. 2007. Factors determining international and regional migration in Europe<\/em>. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.<\/p>\n 2. You take an everyday concept, such as “higher salary”, and translate it to “higher rental rate on a unit of human capital stock”. Other examples: human language: “emigrees are caught in a dilemma: staying in the host country and earning more money, or returning and spending the money already saved” -> economics language: “each unit of time spent abroad increases his lifetime utility by raising his total consumption possibilities, but it decreases lifetime utility by reducing the time available for consumption at home”.<\/p>\n On the other hand, other social sciences, such as Sociology and Anthropology, are not immune to such translations either. For example, “[Research subjects] actively engage with, negotiate and redefine [research topic] as they exercise their agency” means “Hey, I’m not claiming that people’s actions are determined by impersonal powers and structures, got that?” Something like “In some cases\/ contexts X may be interpreted as Y” translates as “Don’t blame me for making generalisations about X”. Also, it’s a must to start an article with something like “X can be very diverse and is experienced depending on one’s individual background. The experience of X can be A or non-A”. This also means “Did you think I would dare to generalise about X or people’s experience of X? But since we’re doing science here, just a little…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever noticed that the best compliment students give their professors is something along these lines: “S\/he is capable of explaining complicated things in such a simple manner”? Teaching and research, as well as the media, is often about translation: from specific to abstract, from sound\/view to words, from one culture to another. And some scientists work very hard … <\/p>\n