austraLasia #2887 A fly on the wall or a fly in the ointment?
ROME: July 13 2011 -- Time to draw your
attention to something you may or may not have thought a
great deal about - except that the recent EAO Team Visit at
Hua Hin gave it rather more consideration than might have
been expected.
The first thing I want you to do is to go to Bosconet,
(or if, for whatever reason, that link is not working, then
go to www.bosconet.aust.com),
take a quick look at the page that opens up, then come
back here and read on!
The second thing I want you to do is to
note the following comments extracted verbatim from the
minutes of the EAO Team Visit meeting several months back:
Fr Wong: (discussion of OPP and
how it is implemented around the region): "...there might be
a change of terminologies, but the methods are the same". Fr L.F.: "....the importance of
terminology and translation for effective
communication...Rome has to look after the whole region
regarding understanding of terminology and ensure continuity
from preceding (General) Chapters..." Then he goes on to
raise a question about what could be meant by "the proposal
of Jesus Christ" in the GC26 document. The RM: "There are difficulties
with translation and terminology. For example the OPP is a
strategic plan, meaning with the resources I have, the
places I am, what can I achieve in order to be more
meaningful? This is different from the EPP....". Fr Wong (further on in the
discussion): "Regarding terminologies - these will always be
ambiguous when there is a lack of common
understanding....Terminology from the Centre must be
consistent....". The RM (Closing address this
time, speaking about understanding Don Bosco today): "Good
translations and clear and homogeneous terminologies are
required".
So that's the 'fly on the wall' bit. I
wasn't there, but I have read and re-read the entire
minutes, and have merely cited elements dealing with the
word 'Terminology', without delving into related terms and
issues, of which there were several. But the reality
is that this kind of discussion is taking place around the
Congregation at every international Salesian meeting.
It is a 'felt issue', but with a vague 'maybe we can do
something about it' response, for the most part. The point
is we can do something about it, and when we add another
layer to this discussion (read further on), we simply must!
What do we do about it? And here is
the 'fly in the ointment' bit, a saying which almost
certainly comes from Ecclesiastes 10:1: "Dead flies spoil a
bowl of perfumed ointment". Applying that to Salesian
Termbase, (note where the link takes you this time -
and yes, same animal! and there is now A German version with
at least the home page in German...) it could be expected
that such a tool might not immediately receive public
anointing; it could be a small detail that even causes a
degree of irritation. Never mind. It is the result of
five years of solid work - so far, and this is only the
beginning. Take a look at the Visual Termbase,
for example, and you begin to get an idea as to where this
is heading.
People in the formation scene tell me
this effort is already producing useful results for them -
using it as a compendium of Salesian information, for
example, or clearing up small doubts about the meaning of
something. But it goes far deeper than this.
Have you heard talk of the 'semantic
web'? The World Wide Web has had 20 years of enabling
connections between millions of documents. The Church and
the Salesian Congregation have played their part in these
'millions of documents'! But we have now become aware
that web pages contain data as well, and this 'data' is less
accessible and mostly not linked, and machines can't
understand it - only humans can. In Bosconet and sdb.org we
keep data in databases and occasionally 'present' it via a
web page, but still, only humans can follow it. Some of that
data is open and useful to the world - but not available in
data form for 'meaningful' use by machines. Try looking up
'Consecrated life' on Google - a handful of documents, very
little real data - and there are tons of useful data around
on Consecrated Life that could make a difference to the way
people understand us, and the way we understand ourselves!
Try looking for a decent vocabulary of consecrated life -
none available, or at least there wasn't, but there is one
in the making, and Salesian Termbase lies behind it!
There is much more to come in this area
of discussion. I just wanted you to be aware of what has
been taking place thus far. The Termbase, by the way is in
no way 'closed', and has been contributed to already by many
people. It is also a wiki so in nature it is
'read-write'. Naturally, it does not do to leave it open for
vandals to destroy - but interested persons are invited to
play their part, if they wish. Just a matter of being in
touch to organise that.
Incidentally, or maybe not incidentally -
the EAO Region is actually contributing to the Congregation
in quite considerable ways in this broad area - with one
sixth of the world's languages in its area, 17 of them
spoken regularly by members of our region, and with people
involved in full-time translation of Salesian material into
a number of them, we have an experience that can be shared,
and fine-tuned.
