"棲み分けについてはXXX社長との直接交渉が必要かと思います。"
In a court case about collusion and price-fixing, I think the above is the key phrase in the email I am looking at, so I want to make sure I get this exactly right.
Weblio glosses "棲み分け" as "living apart; habitat isolation; habitat segregation."
Given that dividing the market is not explicitly stated (and not absolutely, unequivocally obvious from the email), I need to leave that a little bit vague (rather than imposing my interpretation on the sentence.) Most verbs in English I considered for 棲み分けrequire a direct object, so I have to provide one. Thus my initial take on this sentence was "Regarding how to divvy things up, I think it is necessary to negotiate directly with President XXX."
Whenever I translate, I always try to envision how an attorney might exploit every word choice I make. I can envision the witness being examined: "You talked about 'divvying things up.' What, exactly, did you mean by 'things'?" This of course would confuse the witness; the Japanese sentence had no word that would be translated as "things."
I'm not sure the best way to handle this sentence, to avoid the possibility of such a confusing interrogatory...
(For the record, I deliberately used the awkward "Janglish" construction of "Regarding...," to emphasize the 棲み分けphrase, rather than the more natural English-sounding construction where this phrase would be at the end the sentence.)
Warren Smith
Here is a bonus issue from this email: "Meetingは「暖簾に腕押し、糠に釘」といった感じでした。"
I ended up translating this as "I got the feeling that
the meeting was a waste of time – "like wrestling with a shop
curtain."" I left the Japanese kotowaza with a literal translation,
feeling like the image is quite evocative...
Thank you for this, Joe.
I think your approach is very wise, and your caution is well taken. I worry though that "co-existence" loses the "dividing up" and setting some sort of boundaries that is implicit in the definitions that you so kindly provided.
I guess I will send a note to the client that says that there can (and should!) be a lot of discussion around the meaning of the word.
Warren
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/honyaku/MN2PR22MB19038132D4858CFF77A895DCC7049%40MN2PR22MB1903.namprd22.prod.outlook.com.
What is "divvying things up" if not "segmentation" (aside from the fact that it is the less formal tone required by this email, and lacking a potentially misleading nuance)?
If "divvying things up" hints at collusion, then that is what I am going for. In the definition posted by Mr. Jones, the term (in biology) is explicitly defined as partitioning the living space to enable coexistence *while avoiding competition*. By that definition (which is used, by extension, in business is well), using a translation that merely "suggests" anti-competitive behavior might actually be erring on the other side; perhaps I should have stated this anti-competitive aspect explicitly.
For what it's worth, despite "segmentation" appearing in some J-E dictionaries for 棲み分け, when I think of "segmentation" (after 6 years of business school), I think of a very different concept, one where the market is analyzed into different clusters of preferences, and goods or services are provided to serve those preferences; avoidance of competition doesn't enter into it, and this market segmentation is certainly not something that would be negotiated with the president of a competitor.
(I suppose there is also supplier segmentation, that prevents vertical integration, to thereby prevent competition, but this is not the first concept that would come to mind...)
W
-----Original Message-----
From: 'Herman' via Honyaku E<>J translation list
[mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 6:54 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
I don't think the terminology "divvying things up" is at all
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Thanks, Mika. Your comment is greatly appreciated.
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mika J.
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2022
3:10 PM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
Good question, good discussion.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/honyaku/CAM1PFZKOSK8kq7H1j5zMYjd2PH7sorZ%2Bx-7bYH%2BODVbe8JE74g%40mail.gmail.com.
This is very interesting. Thanks for sending!
Warren
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dale Ponte
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2022
1:03 PM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
Googling
"mutual existence" turns up the following:
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Googling "mutual existence" turns up the following:
The Business Court's opinion by Judge Tennille on summary judgment -- and the Court of Appeals opinion -- turned on the meaning of the word "competition. McKinnon urged a very broad definition saying that Basofil "competed" with CV Industries because they both sold product to the furniture industry. Both Judge Tennille and the COA rejected that argument. The COA said that "competition":
entail[s] more than mutual existence in a common industry or marketplace; rather, it requires an endeavor among business entities to seek out similar commercial transactions with a similar clientele.
Dale, this is fascinating! In business contexts, this mutual existence sounds like a perfect match for 棲み分け as per the nuances described by Mika and in the 大辞泉 definition someone (you?) posted earlier. Would you mind if I quoted you in the J<>E Translation group on Facebook?
Thank you, Dale. Much appreciated.
W
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dale Ponte
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2022
9:43 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
I'd probably vote for "working coexistence." Mere "coexistence" seems ambiguous, not to the point.
Dale
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I'd probably vote for "working coexistence." Mere "coexistence" seems ambiguous, not to the point.Dale
On Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 7:16 AM Dale Ponte <morines...@gmail.com> wrote:|棲み分けについてはXXX社長との直接交渉が必要かと思います。For the instance at hand, dealing with "collusion and price-fixing," to my ear "segmentation" or "coexistence" sound most likely the best, the most pragmatic out what we've come up with so far, as in:"Regarding/As for segmentation/coexistence, I think one would need to negotiate with the president directly (about that).""Mutual existence" seems likely too theoretical sounding, abstract.The kokugo dictionary's second sense as cited by Joe earlier, 「 銀行と消費者金融、トラック輸送と鉄道輸送と海上輸送のように競合関係にある業界が、それぞれの特色を生かすことで共存している状態。類似したものがうまく共存すること。「パソコンと携帯との棲み分けが曖昧になってきた」, makes me think of a working coexistence.
Hmmm... Thanks, Jim.
I think that, by definition, any time you negotiate with the president of the "competitor," you are entering into a collusionary (anti-competitive) relationship (that is, suppliers colluding against the consumers by defining a type of mutual (non-competitive) coexistence.
Whether or not this includes price fixing or not is unclear to me, but this is definitely collusionary...
Warren
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of JamesALockhart
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2022
9:25 AM
To: Honyaku E<>J translation
list
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
On Wednesday, November 23, 2022 at 11:43:28 PM UTC+9 morines...@gmail.com wrote:
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There's this word out there, coopetition, a "neologism" getting 391K googits that has me wondering if it's not our holy grail:
"Coopetition is the act of cooperation between competing companies; businesses that engage in both competition and cooperation are said to be in coopetition. Certain businesses gain an advantage by using a judicious mixture of cooperation with suppliers, customers, and firms producing complementary or related products.
Coopetition is a type of strategic alliance that is particularly common between software and hardware firms. "
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coopetition.asp
Fished it up googling "cooperative competition."
Dale
coopetition [...] wondering if it's not our holy grail:
Googling "Japan" with "sumiwake" finds near the top a downloadable master’s thesis all about 棲み分け, "Protecting Defense: Making Sense of Japan's Post-WWII Arms Procurement Policies," by seemingly an NJS (her handling seeming so intimate) at Georgetown University. Here's its abstract:
This research explores the root of the conventional practices of sumiwake in Japan’s post-war defense industry and procurement policies, which have minimized domestic competition between firms thus rendering the industry costly and inefficient. It attempts to provide explanations as to why the Japanese government has pursued the custom of sumiwake to date despite knowing that absence of competition will necessarily generate inefficiencies in production and procurement of arms.
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1043809
Its opening paragraph runs:
"One key characteristic of Japan’s defense procurement system is that there are
conventional practices of sumiwake (棲み分け), which intentionally protects contractors
from competing with one another by allocating them production of different arms or
splitting the share of a contract to multiple contractors. Although sumiwake was never
articulated as a blueprint (i.e. it was not promoted as “Sumiwake Policy”), it is a tendency
that persists today since its advent in the late 1960s."
By thus describing and analyzing 棲み分け in this context for thirty-some pages, this paper translates the concept into English quite effectively.
Dale
"One key characteristic of Japan’s defense procurement system is that there are
conventional practices of sumiwake (棲み分け), which intentionally protects contractors
from competing with one another by allocating them production of different arms or
splitting the share of a contract to multiple contractors. Although sumiwake was never
articulated as a blueprint (i.e. it was not promoted as “Sumiwake Policy”), it is a tendency
that persists today since its advent in the late 1960s."
From this it seems like some form of, or multiple-word term involving "contract/-ing" might make for a handy rendition. I wonder whether Ms. Kato in her paper ever offers something term-for-term.
Dale Ponte
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Here's perhaps the most germane passage from Ms. Kato's paper:
"These uniquely Japanese defense policy events have had important implications
for Japan’s defense industry; they have essentially rendered the military market small, with
its Self Defense Force (SDF) as the only viable customer, in which then economies of scale
is not possible. As the sole consumer of defense, the government has adopted a
procurement mechanism that allocates contracts very carefully, so as to allow coexistence
of a large number of firms. Sumiwake – literally translated as “habitat isolation”, is a
process of intentional allocation of procurement order or contract work designed to prevent
internal competition among firms. Sumiwake have taken three main different forms. First,
JDA has sought to prevent competition by ordering specific types of arms consistently to
the same firms, as mentioned in the introduction. As a result, it has led to creation of
“territories” of systems within the industry by creating the “go-to” firm for specific arms.
Second, JDA has deliberately split a single contract among multiple contractors. For
example, in the procurement of Patriot, missile systems, Mitsubishi Electric and Nissan
Motors received sufficient subcontracting work even though MHI was chosen the prime
contractor. Third, JDA has procured the exact same system from multiple firms. As
already mentioned, submarines are a shining example of this; JDA has procured a single
submarine from the only two shipbuilders in the country with production capability, MHI
and KHI, alternatively every year since 1977. In essence, procurement is designed so that
there will be no clear winners and losers of the recipient of the production." (pp. 4-5)
I can't help wondering if this term got adopted due significantly to its respectability as conferred by the ecologist/anthropologist Imanishi Kinji, as pointed out earlier by Nagasaka様. It would therefore have sounded nice and natural, organic and evolutionary; to gloss over the fact of its being an imposed form of 'cultivation'. Or something along such lines..
Dale Ponte
The author defines sumiwake as "a process of intentional
allocation of procurement order or contract work designed to
prevent internal competition among firms". It is not entirely
clear to me what the somewhat oxymoronic expression "internal
competition among firms" means - maybe the author meant to say
"competition among firms in the Japanese defense industry"? In any
case, especially given the fact that there is only one customer
(SDF), practices intended to allow coexistence of a large number
of firms, including ones that supply the same or similar products,
and the resulting situation, is a situation of maintaining
"competition" in an economic sense, while if there were to be one
clear winner that dominated the market, that would be a situation
of lack of competition. I don't think the above definition of
sumiwake is generally correct, nor does the author's use
terminology such as "competition" make much sense.
Herman Kahn
This thread has been so interesting! Many thanks to all participants.
While my original posting was mostly just a check to see if this phrase might have a common idiomatic meaning beyond its dictionary meaning, it was interesting to find that this phrase is slippery enough that Mr. Kato decided to leave it in Japanese in his paper -- an acknowledgement that, in his mind at least, it has no English-language equivalent.
Be that as it may, in retrospect, I wish I would have translated this as "negotiating our mutual co-existence" (instead of "negotiating how to divvy things up").
If I end up having to take the stand over this one, this long thread has left me very well equipped to discuss this word!
I am quite grateful to my colleagues who have been so generous with their time in discussing this.
Warren Smith
後の祭り, but a direct-import way of putting it seems worth hanging upon this thread for all time:
“as for/regarding the sumiwake [system/arrangement/structure/network/framework/state of affairs/など], one might need to …”
This should outright force a discussion around the meaning of it, from general to contextual.
Dale
Thanks.
I think this would have been a good solution.
W
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dale Ponte
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2022
9:10 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Nuance of 棲み分け
後の祭り, but a direct-import way of putting it seems worth hanging upon this thread for all time:
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