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15:09 Feb 2, 2010
Italian to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Philosophy / Urban planning
Italian term or phrase:immaginario sociale
An old chestnut this one. What i have pencilled in is this:
above all because of the social vision of the world which each of us inevitably holds in our heads.
This is the immediate context.
Esse possono essere anche significativamente diverse, a causa della molteplicità degli Views adottati, della loro eventuale settorialità o parzialità e, soprattutto, delle influenze derivanti dall'immaginario sociale di cui ogni soggetto è inevitabilmente portatore.
This is what immediately precedes it. It is about urban planning and interpreting things like settlement patterns, urban centres and so on.
Non si tratta di una questione facile. Ogni "oggetto" è infatti difficilmente separabile dalle modalità con cui esso viene descritto, e tali modalità possono essere tanto più numerose quanto più ampio è il novero dei soggetti coinvolti e interessati all'oggetto stesso: "We are confined to ways of describing whatever is described. Our universe, so to speak, consists of these ways rather than of a world or of worlds" (Goodman, 1978, p. 3). Anche senza addentrarsi nelle riflessioni proposte dal costruttivismo radicale di Goodman sull'irriducibilità delle versioni del mondo, ognuno di noi ha esperienza in merito al fatto che le letture e le interpretazioni di un contesto territoriale operate dai diversi attori coinvolti in un processo di progettazione possono non coincidere.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 57 mins (2010-02-02 16:07:24 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
two contrasting ways of manifesting the social imaginary and modes of 'world- making' (Goodman, 1978). Social imaginaries, according to Taylor (2004: 23), ...
Sorry I can't extract the link to this; it's in a pdf. But at least it indicates that Goodman uses this term.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2010-02-02 16:11:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Charles Taylor.
Modern Social Imaginaries.
Duke University Press, 2004, 232 pp
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2010-02-02 16:17:45 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Definition from the Taylor book
The social imaginary[...] is a more elusive set of self understandings, background practices, and horizons of common expectations that are not always explicitly articulated, but that give a people a sense of a shared group life.
The author said that this was fine, exactly what he meant:
"above all because of the influence of the socially determined vision of the world that each of us inevitably holds in our heads", now if I could find a way of developing these telepathic skills....
That passage does emphasize difference--until it speaks of influences drawn from the social imaginary -- the shared storehouse of possible forms and solutions. Then the emphasis is on what all of us share. It's not a vision, but a set of possibilities that are culturally bound.
Concrete visions need to be extracted from the imaginary, which itself is incapable of formulating them specifically. (Insert Chomsky reference here.)
This is my latest version
"the socially determined vision of the world that each of us inevitably holds in our heads" based on Giles input and may own thinking after a few days. I asked the author of another chapter on the telephone and she said "ahhh" and that she'd have to see the context, so it is probably not used as a specific technical term.
From the context here the author is saying that we all see things differently. I think the question is whether the "sociale" part means that we all see society differently of whether it is our social background which makes us see the world differently. Anyway, this is very close to "attitudes" and views and how we see things.
A mio parere, la maggiore frequenza relativa di "immaginario sociale" in italiano significa che è un'espressione usata sia come termine tecnico sia con un'accezione più blanda. Se si tratta di un target così ampio, io non userei il termine tecnico della sociologia.
This is their declared target readership:
è relativa al pubblico a cui intendiamo parlare: studenti, ricercatori, ma anche planner e amministratori.studenti, ricercatori, ma anche planner e amministratori
When they say students and researchers they mean architects and urban planner students. It the technical term was something like urban sprawl or settlement patterns then precision is paramount, but when they are "off discipline" as it were then readability starts to take precedence.
"social vision" won't quite do it, because that is a normative term. "Shared societal repertoire" is very close to the meaning. But an audience familiar with literature in the field won't have any trouble with "social imaginary." It's not derived from "imagination" directly, but rather "storehouse of images." (Would add that urban planners are sociologists too; they are to sociologists what translators are to linguists, more or less: the practical side.)
These guys are urban planners, not sociologists. Some of their competitors like Castells for instance write very interesting books. My clients want two things equally, to be understood and to be read. The phrase that immediately follows it is "Tale dimensione di problematicità", which I've translated with "That type of problem" because he is not referring to the French concept of "problematique", he just means that type of problem.
You are offering a different meaning. The subjective view of the world held by a specific community. This is getting very close to the "attitudes we all hold towards society", I say close. Anyway, I'm going to leave this one for now, because I feel sure I'll view it differently tomorrow morning.
Especially when you get down to a minority of one. Sometimes when I have joint-authors with a doubt, the answer I get is "I'll have to ask the other author, I didn't write this section" and that is not a joke, it has happened many times.
The problem is that "immaginario sociale" is an immediately recognisable, indeed commonplace, term in Italian while the English equivalent isn't used anything like so frequently.
If the text had been written directly in English, the author might have chosen a phrase like "deriving from worldview of the (specific) community to which each of us inevitably belongs".
My mind is tired, I'm over half way through the book now and this is one of the easier bits. I suppose I really posted it for a break. Anyway, I will ask the author, because it is by no means clear and he doesn't develop the idea further.
Why don't you post the answer? I will keep my "vision" I think, because I interpret immaginario as the collection of all (or many of) the images in your mind rather than one specific image.
the author doesn't mean - the image of society that we each have in our own minds - society as each individual sees it (imagines it) because of background, experience, education, culture....
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
17 mins confidence:
view/vison of society
Explanation: Lovely text, Jim. The sort of stuff I often get too, and which drives me to the verge of madness.
I take the same view as polyglot - our subjective vision of society.
simon tanner Italy Local time: 06:56 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 16
Notes to answerer
Asker: And its for a UK publisher. I've been translating these guys for years and I still can't get up any decent speed. Every chapter is by a different author (this is one of the easiest), so just when you get into the style, it changes. If you fly to Milan Saturday there are about 30-40 people attending the powwow.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 57 mins (2010-02-02 16:07:24 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
two contrasting ways of manifesting the social imaginary and modes of 'world- making' (Goodman, 1978). Social imaginaries, according to Taylor (2004: 23), ...
Sorry I can't extract the link to this; it's in a pdf. But at least it indicates that Goodman uses this term.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2010-02-02 16:11:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Charles Taylor.
Modern Social Imaginaries.
Duke University Press, 2004, 232 pp
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2010-02-02 16:17:45 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Definition from the Taylor book
The social imaginary[...] is a more elusive set of self understandings, background practices, and horizons of common expectations that are not always explicitly articulated, but that give a people a sense of a shared group life.
Jim Tucker United States Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 12
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +2
