This entry of mine into the blogosphere has naturally prompted me to examine blogging more closely. What's it all about ? Why blog ?
To say that blogs are a communication tool is of course stating the obvious. But that's what they are : a new way of making contact with people, with anyone and everyone. And, as psychiatrists now tell us, the Internet is a very disinhibiting environment ; in other words, the paradox of the Internet, where you can enter onto a world stage and still retain a degree of anonymity, this paradox is making it a little easier for those of us who, for whatever reason (reservation, lack of opportunity) may find that first contact difficult. This is why so many new friendships, love and romance are spawning on-line.
So it's easy to understand the appeal of blogs for translators, the nature of whose work suggests they are probably prone to discretion. Perhaps wrongly, but translators, like proofreaders, find that their work is often most appreciated when it is invisible, when there is no immediately obvious trace of their intervention. How often do we hear about translators and proofreaders only when fault can be found with their work, for example a misinterpretation or an error that has escaped their proofing ? So, for all those who are working and/or living backstage, so to speak, blogs are a chance to come out of the shadows without having to suffer the glare of the limelight.
More specifically, web logs, as in their recent distant past blogs were properly known, are a space for voicing personal opinion. As such, they are, unsurprisingly, an attractive new tool not only for diarists but writers of every ilk and communicators of all kinds as the many blogs maintained by painters, illustrators and photographers testify (take a look at this site : http://www.dailypainters.com// ).
Finally, blogs surely have precedents too but previously publishing personal opinion in the public domain was an option only available to a limited number of people : authors and journalist for example. Wouldn't Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Rêveries du promeneur solitaire have been perfect material for a blog ? With such an auspicious forebear, how can anyone not be tempted to try this new medium ?
To say that blogs are a communication tool is of course stating the obvious. But that's what they are : a new way of making contact with people, with anyone and everyone. And, as psychiatrists now tell us, the Internet is a very disinhibiting environment ; in other words, the paradox of the Internet, where you can enter onto a world stage and still retain a degree of anonymity, this paradox is making it a little easier for those of us who, for whatever reason (reservation, lack of opportunity) may find that first contact difficult. This is why so many new friendships, love and romance are spawning on-line.
So it's easy to understand the appeal of blogs for translators, the nature of whose work suggests they are probably prone to discretion. Perhaps wrongly, but translators, like proofreaders, find that their work is often most appreciated when it is invisible, when there is no immediately obvious trace of their intervention. How often do we hear about translators and proofreaders only when fault can be found with their work, for example a misinterpretation or an error that has escaped their proofing ? So, for all those who are working and/or living backstage, so to speak, blogs are a chance to come out of the shadows without having to suffer the glare of the limelight.
More specifically, web logs, as in their recent distant past blogs were properly known, are a space for voicing personal opinion. As such, they are, unsurprisingly, an attractive new tool not only for diarists but writers of every ilk and communicators of all kinds as the many blogs maintained by painters, illustrators and photographers testify (take a look at this site : http://www.dailypainters.com// ).
Finally, blogs surely have precedents too but previously publishing personal opinion in the public domain was an option only available to a limited number of people : authors and journalist for example. Wouldn't Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Rêveries du promeneur solitaire have been perfect material for a blog ? With such an auspicious forebear, how can anyone not be tempted to try this new medium ?
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