This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
посадка грунта
рана заживает per prima

Glossary entry

Russian term or phrase:

доопределение

English translation:

fine-tuning; resolving the indeterminacy; figuring out

Added to glossary by Susan Welsh
Mar 7, 2016 20:01
8 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Russian term

доопределение

Russian to English Social Sciences Psychology education
This is a Vygotskyian article about how to improve the education of young children. We have "determination," "underdeterminateness," and all sorts of words with определение--and then this one. Multitran gives "predetermination" for доопределение, but that makes no sense (to me) in this context.

Дети продемонстрировали три способа **доопределения** условий задачи, поставленной взрослым.
Ребенок действует по логике задачи, на свой страх и риск **доопределяя** недоопределенные взрослым условия....

Количественное соотношение детей, действовавших в ситуации недоопределенности тем или иным способом, указано в таблице 16.1.

Таблица 16.1
Способы **доопределения** условий задачи

Сколько детей действовали:
1. По логике задачи
2. По инструкции взрослого
3. Ориентируясь и на задачу, и на взрослого

Thanks!
Proposed translations (English)
4 +3 'fine-tune' determination
4 extension of a definition; regularization
4 further determination, closer determination, detailed specification
2 +1 determining missing/ addtional conditions/ variables/ data (of the task)
3 -1 complete determination
2 -1 resolving indeterminacy of the problem
1 augment/augmentation
Change log

Mar 8, 2016 21:18: Susan Welsh changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/625898">Susan Welsh's</a> old entry - "доопределение"" to ""fine-tune; resolve the indeterminacy; figure out""

Discussion

Alexander Grabowski Mar 8, 2016:
Please Susan, may i suppose доопределение условий задачи here might mean 'making problem specifications enough complete as it needed for its resolution'. This shall be rather descriptive definition than one which can be put in the target text :=). Just work with it!
Susan Welsh (asker) Mar 8, 2016:
indeterminacy and drinking Marlin, your description of the situation being described in the article is correct.
As to недоперепил, I knew it was going to be complicated -- that's why I found it interesting and asked.
Figuring out these damn Russian prefixes is a big challenge for us foreigners!
(Like выход, which can mean either entrance or exit. Go figure.)
The Misha Mar 8, 2016:
Technically, nedoperepil is "almost had too much too drink," "almost" covering the operative "nedo" part here. Of course, it's an inner perceptual state that itself requires mucho explanations, but hey, the Inuit language has 300 words or so for snow too.
Marlin31 Mar 8, 2016:
Susan,
As I can see from the provided text, the children were set a problem, but its conditions were not set up in full. Thus, there was an indeterminacy (uncertainty) in the problem conditions, and the children needed to find a way to complete the conditions to solve the problem. In other words, they had to find a way to transform "indeterminacy" to "determinacy", i.e. to find a way to remove "in" in the indeterminacy.
By the way, I see that my suggestion to use "self-guided" is appropriate for case 1 only, i.e. where the children found the way relying in their experience and intuition.
As for "недоперепил" - this is just a joke. I'm not sure I can explain it properly. This is a situation where a person drank too much, and it was obvious to others, but the person was not satisfied with his condition (not too much drank) and would like to have more drinks to be overdrunk.
Susan Welsh (asker) Mar 8, 2016:
@Marlin The author gives no definition of определение, or much of anything else. As The Misha writes, these Vygotskyians have their own unique vocabulary, which is commonly translated literally into English where it makes no sense except perhaps to English-speaking Vygotskyians. (What is "недоперепил"? You've aroused my curiosity.)//With apologies to Vysotsky, I have fixed my typos (Vygotsky!).
Marlin31 Mar 8, 2016:
I'd add "self-guided". Furthermore, it would be interesting to see the author's definition of the term "определение" to understand what it means exactly. Certainly, the problem is curious, and this is the case when you can't convey the meaning in a couple of words. To me, it looks like Russian "недоперепил" :-).
Ilan Rubin (X) Mar 7, 2016:
Would 'guess the missing conditions' work ?

Proposed translations

+3
28 mins
Selected

'fine-tune' determination

It's like fine-tuning of a radio station
Peer comment(s):
agree Oleg Lozinskiy
42 mins
agree Natalie : to fine-tune or to extend would be ok
14 hrs
agree svetlana cosquéric
23 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Actually, I used three translations, but I have to choose one, so this is it (without the word "determination"). In my text above, I used, in order: 1) three methods of resolving the indeterminacy of the conditions of the task set by an adult. 2) The child acts on his own initiative according to the logic of the task, figuring out what conditions had been underdetermined by the adult. 3) Methods of fine-tuning the task. Now let the reader figure it out! Thanks everybody."
7 mins

extension of a definition; regularization

.
Something went wrong...
+1
56 mins

determining missing/ addtional conditions/ variables/ data (of the task)

Or: adding missing elements to the underdetermined conditions of the task

It is just a direction of thought, not really a ready-to-use answer.
It is my understanding of the term "доопределение" - adding the missing elements/conditions/variables necessary for solving a task.

Not sure how to express the same idea shortly. Maybe determination of additional/ missing conditions?
Peer comment(s):
agree LilianNekipelov : additonal conditions as an option.
12 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
2 hrs

complete determination

вариант
Peer comment(s):
disagree LilianNekipelov : it means something completely different. Being completely determined.
11 hrs
"complete" is a verb here
Something went wrong...
-1
2 hrs

resolving indeterminacy of the problem

...
Peer comment(s):
disagree LilianNekipelov : No, it is not implied that the problem cannot be solved.
11 hrs
Sorry, but it seems to me you didn't understand the sense of both the question and my answer/
Something went wrong...
13 hrs

further determination, closer determination, detailed specification

some options
Something went wrong...
5 hrs

augment/augmentation

Based on the sentence you've given, all these monster morpheme-rich constructs with"determination" as the core would actually be outright misnomers. Worse yet, they don't mean much for an English speaker and they may be outright confusing - just look at what Ilan posted, QED. Strictly speaking, doopredeleniye is not even a legitimate word in Russian, or if it is, then only to the extent that nedoopredeleniye, pereopredeleniye, nedopereopredeleniye, etc. are words. These wunderkinder they are talking about do not seem to be "determining" anything - they have no way of doing so - but rather postulating, positing, assuming or coming up with whatever they think is missing and preventing them from solving the problem. If you ask me, any of that would sound natural enough in English to describe what is going on. But, seeing that (i) this is not just any kind of psychology but glorious Vygotskian psychology using its own Vygotskian newspeak, and (ii) the guy, as a Russian, thinks in terms of nouns rather than verbs and damn the torpedoes, you are out of luck, because using a clumsy gerund for a term just isn't comme il faut. Hence augmentation - adding ad hoc assumptions about what seems to be missing to what is indeed known. At the very least, this is an actual word that actually means something, it's actually in English and, conveniently, it offers you both a verb and a noun to use as needed. Then again, what do I know about Vygotskian psychology (does anyone?), I just made this all up while smoking a cigar downstairs.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 19 hrs (2016-03-08 15:22:58 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

That was precisely my point - figure out is what it means, but that's a verbal phrase, and you need a noun here. Hence the problem. And for the record, cigar smoking time is 7.30 pm. In the morning, I eat nails instead:)
Note from asker:
Hi Misha, you've woken me up, as usual. Do you really smoke cigars at 7:30 in the morning? I'm thinking what this really means is that the kids are trying to "figure out" how to supply the missing information.
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search