The Communication Project – Proposal to ease written communication in international contexts

Di Carlo Eugeni e Allen Rotz


Abstract

Il Communication Project dell’Intersteno è volto ad agevolare la comunicazione interna alla Federazione Internazione per il Trattamento dell’Informazione e della Comunicazione. È stato pensato per superare le barriere linguistiche presenti tra i membri della Federazione, provenienti da 30 paesi diversi, nei momenti più alti della vita associativa. Il progetto, portato avanti dal Comitato Scientifico dell’Intersteno, consiste nel mettere insieme il Plain Language nella propria lingua materna e la traduzione automatica. Grazie ai progressi tecnologici e alla condivisione di molte conoscenze tra i membri della Federazione è possibile colmare eventuali errori commessi nell’uso del Plain Language da parte dei singoli membri. Il sistema, qui illustrato, è applicabile sia alla comunicazione scritta, sia alla comunicazione orale plurilingue, specialmente nei momenti in cui si usa l’inglese come lingua veicolare.


  1. Introduction

The International Federation for Information and Communication Processing INTERSTENO is the only global association that brings together professionals, scholars, software houses, teachers and experts in diametric translation, i.e. the process that leads to the production of a written text starting from an oral text or vice versa[1]. While covering many transcription practices in its broadest sense – from dictation to note-taking, including subtitling, linguistic transcription, reporting and audiovisual translation – most Intersteno members are delegations from over 40 nations of the world and individual members, fundamentally experts in court and parliamentary reporting, that is practices that are strictly intralinguistic (translation from spoken to written form in the same language). Therefore, communication between the various members of the Federation is not always simple, especially in the highest moments of the life of the federation, such as the world competitions, the council and the assembly.

To try to solve the communication problems between the various members of the Intersteno, whose vehicular language is de facto English, the scientific committee has been in charge of carrying out the Communication Project, aimed at facilitating communication between the various members, thanks also to technological progress that allows to have particularly accurate machine translation software. Thanks to recent studies on the subject [2], it has been found that the most recurrent errors that they make are essentially due to syntactic order. So, in order to solve most of the problems due to a bad automatic translation, it was decided to capitalize on the North American experience of plain English. Plain English is a simplification of the English language so that the Public Administration can communicate more easily with citizens, especially foreigners. From this, we understand that it is not a matter of trivializing the language or of a limited code, but of a more linear way of expression that guarantees the possibility of expressing any concept. The task of the scientific committee was to develop guidelines for Intersteno members so that they can write in Plain Language, valid for as many languages as languages. After that, it will be enough to automatically translate the text by means of an automatic transcription software[3] and send the text to the receiver(s) in the form of an e-mail, a text message or a subtitle. The comprehension of an English text will be possible by automatically translating it with the same automatic transcription software into their language. Any errors will be compensated by the contextual, sectoral, or encyclopaedic knowledge of the user.

In this article we will first illustrate the guidelines produced by the scientific committee to write or speak in Plain Italian (§2) and then we will apply them to a text produced in different languages ​​(§3).

 

  1. Plain Language

“A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information”[4]. By Plain Language we mean here the adaptation of the guidelines developed internationally to the purpose of the Communication Project valid for as many languages as possible. In this chapter ten rules are proposed which allow to write in Plain Language.

  • Express one concept per paragraph

People tend to write as they speak and sometimes to speak as they write. However, spoken and written language are two different communication systems although they belong to the same language. So, instead of expressing two or three concepts within the same sentence, try to communicate one thing at a time. Instead of:

John, whom I have been knowing since ages, is a good friend who will come and visit me at my parents’ house which is located in Umbria, where Ed Sheeran decided to live because he thinks London is too chaotic.

prefer:

John is a good friend of mine. I know him since we were boys. He will come and visit me at my parents’ house. They live in Umbria, where Ed Sheeran decided to live, because he thinks that London is too chaotic.

  • Prefer short sentences (max one verb, if possible)

Similarly, prefer just one verb per sentence. This may seem odd at the beginning because you may be used to a given rhetorical style. However, precisely because different languages have different rhetoric, the more you simplify your syntax, the easier Itwill be for you to communicate with people who do not share your culture. Remember: you will not look less intelligent if you simplify your language. You will look smarter. And you will be better and more quickly understood! So, instead of:

Given that today it’s 40°C, the Mayor, after consulting the Council, decided to close schools.

prefer:

Today it’s 40°C. That is why the Mayor consulted the Council. They decided to close schools.

  • Use punctuation only to discriminate sentences

People tend to associate the use of punctuation to the natural pauses in spoken language. However, this may result in ambiguous formulations. That is why we recommend to use punctuation only when grammatically needed. . Avoid semicolon which can be used differently according to languages. Instead of:

Today, in Italy, unemployment is increasing, youngsters are emigrating, and economy regresses.

prefer:

Today in Italy unemployment is decreasing. Youngsters are leaving. Economy regresses.

There are three cases where commas are necessary from a grammar standpoint:

LISTS OF ELEMENTS: I have eaten potatoes, onions, melon, and an ice-cream.

including VERB GROUPS: I am a boy, do the cleaning and go shopping.

SPLIT CLAUSES: I have eaten a lot, because I was hungry.

including PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES: James, who is funny, helped me a lot.

SIGNAL SYNTACTICAL ODDITIES: Pizza, I ate it with John.

In a series of three or more, always use a comma before “and”:

The proceeds of the estate will be shared equally between Tom, Jane, and John.

VOCATIVES (names addressing people) AND HOLOPHRASES (words expressing clauses):

(vocatives): Franca, do you mind closing the door?

(holophrases) Hello, how are you? Fine, are you fine too? Yes, thanks, I like you.

In Plain Language LISTS OF VERB GROUPS, PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES and SYNTACTICAL ODDITIES should be avoided and more syntactical linearity should be preferred (cf. §2.1 and §2.5).

  • Use coherence whenever possible

Coherence is what makes a text in general and the relations between sentences comprehensible. This means that the more you use coherence, the more people will understand your text while reading and do not get lost. Instead of:

Real-time transcriptions are mainly done through respeaking. Stenotyping is costy.

prefer:

Real-time transcriptions are mainly done through respeaking because stenotyping is costy.

  • Prefer linear syntax

Another element which is specific to every single language is syntax. However, almost all languages accept a more linear word order. The most common one is SVO (Subject, Verb, Object). If possible, use this syntactical order to construct your sentences. Instead of:

Pizza, with John I ate it, in London

prefer:

In London I ate pizza with John.

  • Prefer active form

Another characteristic which varies according to languages is the use of the passive form instead of the active form. If you want to be clear, it is better to signal who is doing what through the use of the active form. That is why it is preferred to avoid the passive form in plain language. Instead of:

In Plain Language the active form is preferred.

prefer:

In Plain Language we prefer the active form.

  • Avoid anaphora and cataphora (use of grammatical elements to recall a word)

When you change the word order of a sentence, you need to use a grammatical element (usually a pronoun) to bridge the gap. Since this may cause misunderstandings, and is easily avoidable, instead of:

John, I saw him in Budapest.

prefer:

I saw John in Budapest.

  • Avoid ambiguous words and technicalities

Some words are ambiguous in many languages such as “make”, “do”, “thing”. Some words are ambiguous in only one language. However, even technicalities can be ambiguous. That is why it is preferred to use words in their more specific sense and not in the most used one. So prefer “shorthand” or “stenotyping” to “stenography”; “live” and “semi-live” to “real-time” subtitles; and “speech recognition” when “voice recognition” means “automatic transcription of a spoken text”.

  • Avoid acronyms

Acronyms can be specific to a culture. Even within a restricted community (ex: Intersteno) people use different acronyms for the same concept (ex: ASR, CART, AT, CAT, STT). To avoid ambiguities, even in communication among colleagues, write all the words of an acronym when it is first used. Maybe again if the acronym appears pages later.

  • Avoid colloquial or typically culture-oriented terms

Colloquial phrases are those that have a clear meaning to the native speakers of a language but are incomprehensible to others. This is true for syntactical, semantic, and lexical expressions. For example, in Italian the expression “Più sono e meglio è” means “the more they are, the better it is”. However, the verb “sono” may mean both “they are” and “I am”. Unfortunately, Google Translate does not know this scheme and proposes the following as a translation: “The more I am, the better it is”. An example of mistranslated semantic expression is the English trope: “I got lost”, which is translated in Russian as “я потерял” which means “I lost”. The same problems are caused by so-called multiple-meaning words, such as “demonstrate”, which can mean both “to show how something works” and “to protest”.

Avoid all expressions that are semantically, syntactically, and lexically ambiguous and try to make sentences as “international” as possible. By doing so, even Google Translate will produce good results when translating a text into English or any other language.

  1. Applicazione a un caso concreto

In this paragraph the above-mentioned rules will be applied to a concrete case. Follows the introduction to the Communication Project as presented at the Intersteno Scientific Committee meeting at the 51st Congress[5]. On the left the text in Plain German, Plain Italian, Plain French, and Plain Spanish. On the right their automatic translation.

PLAIN LANGUAGE TRADUZIONE AUTOMATICA
Meine Damen und Herren, in den nächsten 5 Minuten möchte ich über Kommunikation sprechen. Wenn wir mit Freunden chatten, missverstehen sie manchmal unseren Text. Warum? Denn die gesprochene Sprache ist nicht die gleiche wie die schriftliche Sprache. Gesprochene Sprache ist viel reicher als geschriebene Sprache. Ladies and gentlemen, in the next 5 minutes I would like to talk about communication. When we chat with friends, sometimes they misunderstand our lyrics. Why? Because the spoken language is not the same as the written language. Spoken language is much richer than written language.
Facciamo un esempio. I politici italiani spesso usano strane parole e una sintassi complessa. Se le persone ascoltano uno di loro, lo capiranno comunque. Questo perché la lingua parlata è ricca di elementi non verbali. Questi strumenti non verbali aiutano la comunicazione. Tuttavia, la lingua scritta non ha tutti questi strumenti. Questo è il motivo per cui, se le stesse persone leggono la trascrizione di quello stesso discorso, avranno problemi a capirlo. Let’s take an example. Italian politicians often use strange words and a complex syntax. If people listen to one of them, they will understand anyway. This is because the spoken language is rich in non-verbal elements. These non-verbal tools help communication. However, the written language does not have all these tools. This is why, if the same people read the transcription of that same speech, they will have problems understanding it.
Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire? Ça veut dire que la communication parlée n’est pas la même chose que la communication écrite. De plus si nous parlons à des personnes qui ne comprennent pas notre langue, nous pouvons résoudre le problème avec les interprètes ou les traducteurs. Mais ceci est souvent impossible. La solution que nous cherchons dans le comité scientifique de l’Intersteno réside dans l’emploi du Plain Language . What does it mean? It means that spoken communication is not the same thing as written communication. In addition if we talk to people who do not understand our language, we can solve the problem with the interpreters or translators. But this is often impossible. The solution we are looking for in the Intersteno Scientific Committee is the use of Plain Language.
Nuestra idea es la siguiente: todos nos otros hemos tratado de traducir automaticamente un email del alemán al inglés. El resultado fue muy malo. Y pensamos que el traductor de Google no funciona. Sin embargo, pensamos que el problema es que el texto del email no fue escrito del modo que le gusta a Google. Por ello, si se escribe un texto en su lengua en una forma simplificada que llameremos “Plain Language”, el traductor de Google lo traducirá en inglés de forma comprensible. Our idea is this: all of us have tried to automatically translate an email from German to English. The result was very bad. And we think that the Google translator does not work. However, we think that the problem is that the email text was not written in the way that Google likes. Therefore, if you write a text in your language in a simplified form that we will call “Plain Language”, the Google translator will translate it in English in an understandable way.

 

  1. Conclusions

Le linee guida del Communication Project dell’Intersteno sono un utile strumento per la comunicazione internazionale mediata dalla traduzione automatica. Come è possibile vedere dagli esempi riportati nel paragrafo 3, basta applicare queste regole per ottenere delle traduzioni automatiche del tutto comprensibili. In alcuni casi, sono stati prodotti degli errori, ma si tratta di casi sporadici e del tutto trascurabili. In generale gli esempi appena riportati dimostrano che l’uso delle linee guida dell’Intersteno per produrre testi in Plain Language porta a traduzioni del tutto comprensibili indipendentemente dal fatto che la Plain Language sia una lingua affine (in questo caso spagnolo e francese) o una lingua proveniente da ceppi linguistici diversi (in questo caso inglese e tedesco). L’applicazione del Communication Project nella comunicazione scritta è possibile semplicemente scrivendo il testo in Plain Language nella finestra di destra di Google Traduttore e copia-incollando la traduzione sul supporto elettronico che si desidera utilizzare per comunicare con il ricevente. Alla stessa maniera, è possibile comunicare oralmente con il ricevente anche attraverso la lingua orale, dettando il testo a Google Traduttore. Il software di riconoscimento automatico del parlato ad esso collegato trascriverà la voce in testo scritto che sarà poi tradotto automaticamente sottoforma scritta che il ricevente può o leggere direttamente o ascoltare grazie a una sintesi vocale. Tuttavia il software di riconoscimento automatico del parlato comporta ancora alcune criticità che non permettono una traduzione automatica pienamente soddisfacente, specialmente se i suoi risultati sono da associare a un altro software automatico (quello di traduzione). Pertanto è ancora consigliabile utilizzare le linee guida sopra esposte limitandone l’uso alla comunicazione scritta o alla comunicazione orale mediata da un sottotitolatore in tempo reale professionista. The Intersteno Communication Project guidelines are a useful tool for international communication mediated by automatic translation. As you can see from the examples given in paragraph 3, it is sufficient to apply these rules to obtain fully understandable automatic translations. In some cases, errors have been produced, but these are sporadic and negligible cases. Moreover, it is easy to guess the real intention of the author of the text. In general, the examples above show that the use of the Intersteno guidelines to produce texts in Plain Language leads to completely understandable translations regardless of whether the text written in Plain Language is translated into a sister language (in this case German) or a language descending from a different linguistic group (in this case Italian, French, and Spanish). The application of the Communication Project in written communication is possible by simply writing the text in Plain Language in the left window of Google Translate and copying-pasting the translation on the electronic support that you want to use to communicate with the recipient. Similarly, it is possible to communicate orally with the recipient, by dictating the text to Google Translate. The Automatic Speech Recognition software linked to it will transcribe the voice into written text which will then be automatically translated into the written form that the recipient can either read directly or listen through a speech synthesis. However, the automatic speech recognition software still involves some critical issues that do not allow fully satisfactory automatic translation[6], especially if its results are to be associated with another automatic software (the translation one). Therefore it is still advisable to use the above-mentioned guidelines, by limiting their use to written communication or oral communication mediated by a professional real-time captioner. In this last case, the professional transcribes what is said and the transcription is sent in real time to Google Translate, that provides live subtitles.

[1] Gottlieb, Henrik (2005) “Multidimensional Translation: Semantics turned Semiotics”, in MuTra: challenges of multidimensional translation. Available at (last visit 21/12/2017) http://www.euroconferences.info/proceedings/2005_Proceedings/2005_proceedings.html.

[2] Cf. Manetti, Ilenia (2016) L’univers de la traduction à l’ère numérique. L’interaction homme-machine et les évolutions des logiciels automatiques : une analyse expérimentale. Unpublished BA Thesis. Pisa: SSML.

[3] For the purpose of this study the freeware “Google Translate” was used, available on all languages of Intersteno.

[4] Cf. PLAIN http://plainlanguagenetwork.org/plain-language/what-is-plain-language/ (last visit 21/12/2018).

[5] Cf. http://www.intersteno.org/berlin-2017/iprs-meetings-general-conferences-of-the-51st-congress/ (last visit 28/12/2017).

[6] Cf. Manetti, Ilenia (2016) L’univers de la traduction à l’ère numérique. L’interaction homme-machine et les évolutions des logiciels automatiques : une analyse expérimentale. Unpublished BA thesis. Pisa : SSML.

Linguistic quality and its development in the Finnish parliamentary verbatim reporting

By Eero Voutilainen
La resocontazione parlamentare coinvolge l’oggetto del resoconto, il resocontista, il resoconto. La qualità linguistica è influenzata da vari fattori: il contesto, le aspettative del destinatario, il genere del resoconto, gli ideali, gli obiettivi e le linee guida dell’ufficio di resocontazione, la cultura della resocontazione parlamentare e le preferenze personali del resocontista.
Una resocontazione di qualità richiede alcune alterazioni linguistiche, affinché il testo scritto mantenga il contenuto, la retorica e lo stile del testo orale. Le regolamentazioni linguistiche dipendono dalla cultura e sono sia generali (dall’alto) che situazionali (dal basso).
La resocontazione parlamentare finlandese applica i seguenti principi di qualità linguistica: coerenza, completezza, flessibilità, ampia comprensione della normatività linguistica. L’ufficio si avvale dei seguenti strumenti: manuale editoriale, banca dati terminologica, team di linguisti, incontri editoriali, formazione interna, processo di lavoro. Attualmente l’ufficio ha lanciato un progetto per la semplificazione del post-editing e l’organizzazione di un sistema di feedback.
1. Quality and language regulation

Verbatim reports in the parliament are, among other things, written texts. This means that, when we examine the quality of parliamentary reporting, linguistic principles and practices are particularly important. Here I shall discuss the linguistic quality Finnish parliamentary reports. I show how linguistic quality is seen and consciously developed in the Finnish parliamentary reporting office.[1]

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines quality as ”the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfills requirements”. Modifying this definition, we can describe the linguistic quality of verbatim reports as a degree to which a set of inherent linguistic characteristics fulfills the requirements that are assigned to the report by the people who are associated with it. This kind of definition is useful, because it is simple, and it acknowledges the importance of different stakeholders with different expectations and requirements. The quality of parliamentary reporting is not an objective notion: it depends on what is required of the report.

Actions to modify language are often named with a term language regulation. Sociolinguist Niina Hynninen has divided it further into two separate phenomena: top-down language regulation is in principle general, institutional and explicit (such as written guidelines), whereas bottom-up language regulation is situational, non-institutional and usually implicit (such as modifying language based on what feels suitable in the situation). Top-down regulation is easier to detect, but bottom-up regulation is also important, because it affects greatly how language is used and treated in everyday situations. The principles of language regulation are, naturally, highly subjective and dependent on the situation and culture. Practically, this means that there is no fit-for-all solution that would be suitable for all cultures, languages and parliaments.

 

2. On the nature of parliamentary reporting

The basic elements of parliamentary reporting are, in principle, quite simple:

  • the reportee: parliamentary session
  • the reporter: parliamentary stenographer with his or her tools, techniques, and ideals (such as ’authenticity’ and ’readability’) that guide the writing of the report
  • the reported: parliamentary report that aims to give a reliable written account on what happened in the parliamentary session.

The interaction of these three elements is the home of linguistic and other aspects of quality. As has been showed in many studies, the communicative resources of spoken and written language are in many cases very different. Also, even the same linguistic features are often interpreted differently in spoken and written discourse. For example, if speech is reported in writing without any editing, some important properties of spoken face-to-face interaction (such as intonation, emphasis, pauses and gestures) are erased and replaced with visual means (such as typography and layout). This might cause the readers of the report to experience the speech as less organized, harder to comprehend and stylistically less dignified than the audience or participants of the original interaction (”failing down”). On the other hand, if the report is heavily edited, for example transformed mechanically into written standard language, the reported speech will appear much more formal and decorous than the original one (”failing up”). The latter might not be a problem with all verbatim reporting, such as speech-to-text interpreting. It might even be what the client wants. But in the field of parliamentary reporting it has been often pointed out that there should not be unnecessary changes to the content or style of the original speech. Otherwise, the rhetorical and stylistic integrity of the speech is compromised, and the reader might get a false impression of the MPs public behaviour and political identity.

One key challenge from the perspective of linguistic quality in parliamentary reporting, then, is to make the right linguistic and editorial alterations to mediate the original speech reliably from spoken to written form. Here lies the paradox of verbatim reporting: something must be changed to keep things as they are. In other words, the reporter has to make some carefully chosen linguistic changes in the report, so that the parliamentary session is not changed too much in terms of content, rhetorics or style. This is caused by the fact that in reporting there is always a shift between two modes of communication that have partially different interactional resources. In sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and linguistic anthropology, this phenomenon has been described by concepts such as intermodal and intralingual translation, transcription, entextualization and recontextualization. These terms are used to describe what happens when a text is taken out of one communicative channel, genre and situation etc., and put into another that has different linguistic norms and expectations. This phenomenon is also familiar in other types of verbatim reporting, such as subtitling, speech-to-text interpreting and automatic speech recognition.

Additionally, parliamentary verbatim reporting is always affected by several background factors. Modifying the categories that linguist Lauri Haapanen has presented in his analysis of the construction of newspaper quotations, some of the key factors can be identified as follows:

  • Expected needs of the target audience(s) – There are always one or more audiences that the parliamentary report is explicitly or implicitly directed to, such as the public (whatever is assumed of it), media, MPs, administrators and researchers in different fields.
  • Genre of parliamentary report – Parliamentary report is a distinct communicational genre with its typical linguistic features, structural characteristics and socio-rhetorical functions that differ much from, say, other administrative texts that do not report spoken language.
  • Values and aims of the reporting office – Parliamentary report has always some official or unofficial aims, purposes and values attached to it by the reporting office, whether these are consciously decided or not.
  • The office guidelines – The office guidelines are explicit top-down norms, regulations and guidelines that guide verbatim reporting in a parliamentary reporting office.
  • Parliamentary reporting culture – Many reporting offices have a long tradition of writing verbatim reports, and many unofficial norms have been passed from generation to another.
  • Personal preferences and ideals – Whether we like it or not, personal preferences and ideals of individual reporters always affect the verbatim report. Because of this, the reporter should be conscious about his or her preferences to be able to control their impact.

All these and other factors vary accross countries, languages, parliaments and political cultures. This means that there will, most likely, always be different conceptions of linguistic quality in parliamentary reporting. Similarly, there will always be different editorial practices to ensure this quality both within and accross parliaments.

 
3. Principles of linguistic quality in Finnish parliamentary reporting

In Finnish parliamentary reporting, the main principle is to mediate the speech of the MP reliably into readable form with as few and subtle alterations as possible. This governing principle has lead to four premises that form the foundation of linguistic guidelines in the office. First, Finnish parliamentary reporting follows a wide understanding of linguistic normativity. It consciously resists what linguist Per Linell has called ”the written language bias”, and does not treat the features of spontaneous spoken language automatically as ”chaotic”, ”illogical” or ”ungrammatical” just because they differ from the grammar of written standard language. This also means a certain sensitivity towards the rhetorical and stylistic functions of linguistic variation in political interaction. Additionally, Finnish parliamentary reporting aims to be as consistent as possible, so that all MPs speeches are treated systematically and equally in the editing process, regardless of the reporter. Finnish linguistic and editorial guidelines have also been designed to be comprehensive and flexible in order to reduce the need of individual ad hoc decisions, to make the guidelines easily applicable to varying situations, and to keep the linguistic principles in balance with changing parliamentary culture and linguistic attitudes.

These premises have resulted to a number of linguistic and other editorial norms that guide Finnish parliamentary reporting on a daily basis. These language-regulatory practices include, for example, standardization of many dialectal phonological features and certain structural characteristics of spoken language, as well as omission of self-corrections, planning expressions, studderings, minor blunders and slips-of-tongue.[2] The main reason for these changes is that these linguistic details often attract more attention, can harm readability and may activate different interpretations in the written report than in the original spoken discussion. For example, minor studderings and planning expressions (’kind of’, ’like’) are often not even noticed in spoken interaction, but they might make the report harder to follow and be interpreted as signs of insecurity or incompetence in the written report. Also, the so-called technical remarks (for example about the inactivity of the microphone) and routine turns by the chairman (such as giving the floor to each MP) are edited out, because the focus of the report has traditionally been on the official speeches and not on the administrative or technical talk. Additionally, some essential information is added to the report in brackets, such as gestures, movements, interruptions and events that are not captured by the microphone.

The editorial principles of Finnish parliamentary reporting also discuss features that are usually not changed in the report. These include regionally and socially marked words, wrong facts, incorrect citations, inappropriate conduct, and complex and obscure style. Main reason for this is that, at the end, the MP is responsible for his or her speech in the session, not the reporter. Also, the omission and stylization of such features could be considered as decreasing the openness and reliability of the verbatim report. Additionally, low-register words, incorrect facts and citations, and inappropriate conduct, for example, do not harm the readability or understandability of the report. Some carefully chosen structural features are edited to protect readability, but complex and obscure style are not edited out to make the report clearer or more pleasant than the original, because doing so would change the overall appearance of the speech. This is sometimes playfully called the truth before beauty principle: a complicated and confusing speech should not appear clear and simple in writing.

It is important to note, however, that all guidelines are meant only as general practices. They are not to be followed, for example, if a doing so would mean losing an important rhetorical or stylistic meaning in an expression, or making the report especially hard to read.

 
4. The tools of linguistic quality development in Finnish parliamentary verbatim reporting

Many language-regulatory tools have been created in the Finnish parliamentary reporting office to develop the linguistic quality of verbatim reports. Next, I shall give a brief introduction to some of the most essential tools in this repertoire:

First, Finnish parliamentary reporting office has written an editorial manual to give systematic, concrete and detailed guidelines for verbatim reporting. The manual guides into both grammatical principles (for example how to report certain features of spontaneous speech) and other editorial practices (for example how to report parliamentary interruptions and forms of address). It also provides many practical and authentic examples to help the editing process. The reporting office has also built a parliamentary term bank that lists all the relevant and often used terms, names and expressions which have difficult orthography and are in need of standardization in the report. Techically, both the editorial manual (ca. 100 pages) and the term bank (ca. 220 pages) are executed as shared MS Word documents, which is useful in, for example, automatic searching and simultaneous use. They are good examples of top-down language regulation, because they provide general guidelines to be applied in everyday parliamentary reporting. They are also frequently updated during the course of parliamentary year by the language team that leads the development of linguistic principles and guidelines in the Finnish parliamentary reporting office.

In addition to these three practical elements, Finnish parliamentary reporters have also had regular editorial meetings every two or three weeks for several years. These 1–2 hour meetings form a platform where reporters have conversations on linguistic principles and practices of reporting, and make joint decisions based on these conversations. In these meetings, there are also practical problem-solving discussions where linguistically challenging cases are solved together. This adds a useful bottom-up element to the language regulation in the Finnish reporting office – joint sharing and demonstration of situational everyday practices. Editorial meetings have also provided a natural place for a linguistic study circle where relevant linguistic articles and books, such as grammar guides, have been critically assessed from the perspective of verbatim reporting. With a similar function, in-service training is arranged at least once a year by inviting external professionals to give linguistic lectures that are closely related to verbatim reporting. Past topics include, for example, automatic speech recognition, social norms and meanings in language use, illusion of spokenness in literary fiction, construction of quotations in journalism, and the flexibility of standard language. These trainings have also provided an opportunity to invite colleagues from related fields (for example subtitling and speech-to-text interpreting) to discuss professional matters. The language team prepares all the editorial meetings, suggests new and updated linguistic and editorial practices for joint discussion, and plans and arranges in-service training.

Also the work process during session has been organized to support linguistic quality. The reporters work together with typists, which helps concentration on the issues of editing. With very few exceptions, the reporters also work with complete speeches without a fixed time-limit, so that there can be systematic editorial decisions within speeches. Other such decisions include, for example, re-reading the reported speech without audio to notice readability problems before publication, post-editing after initial publication to ensure correctness and consistency of editorial decisions, and consulting colleagues and MPs in problematic cases.

Using these language-regulaory tools, the Finnish reporting office aims to achieve a dynamic cycle of linguistic quality where top-down and bottom-up strategies are combined: On one hand, institutional and explicit top-down regulation (such as outspoken guidelines, editorial manual and parliamentary term bank) are meant to guide everyday reporting practices. On the other hand, situational and implicit bottom-up regulation (such as situational application of existing norms, joint decisions and case excercises) is made visible, and it gives ideas for new and updated guidelines. In this way, the guidelines stay current with respect to the changing parliamentary language and culture.

 
5. Conclusion

Linguistic quality depends on context and is affected by many different factors, such as the expected needs of the target audience(s), genre of parliamentary report, ideals and aims of the reporting office, office guidelines, parliamentary reporting culture, and the personal preferences of the reporter. The linguistic and editorial guidelines to ensure linguistic quality in Finnish parliamentary reporting office are consciously based on the principles of consistency, comprehensiveness, flexibility, and wide understanding of linguistic normativity. These principles have lead to many concrete guidelines and practices. They have also motivated to create practical tools to develop linguistic quality. These tools include an editorial manual, a parliamentary term-bank, regular editorial meetings, in-service training, and a language team that leads the development of linguistic quality in the office. In addition, many elements in the work-process have been designed to ensure linguistic quality in the reports, such as editing complete speeches, re-reading reports without audio, post-editing, and consulting colleagues during editing.

Naturally, the quality of parliamentary reporting is not restricted only to language. For the duration of this year, the Finnish parliamentary reporting office has launched a quality development project where special attention is focused into, for example, increasing the quality of reporting during session, streamlining the post-editing phase and organizing a system for feedback in the office. All comments and suggestions on these topics are very welcome for us.
 
 


[1] For a more detailed and theoretical article on this topic, see Voutilainen, Eero (forthcoming). ”The regulation of linguistic quality in the Finnish parliamentary verbatim reporting”. Academic article manuscript under peer review.

[2] A more detailed description of these practices with practical examples in English has been presented, for example, in Voutilainen, Eero, Maarit Peltola, Teuvo Räty & Niklas Varisto (2013). ”Rules of reporting: The Principles of representing spoken discourse in the Records Office of the Finnish Parliament”, in 49th Intersteno Congress: Intersteno Parliamentary and other professional Reporters Section. Artevelde University College, Gent. 14.7.2013.