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Travailleuse
préimprimés fiscaux

Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

social et sociétal

English translation:

employee and community/social relationships

Added to glossary by Rimas Balsys
Apr 9, 2008 14:09
16 yrs ago
38 viewers *
French term

social et sociétal

French to English Bus/Financial Management
This is a 'corporate responsibility report' by a multinational. The phrase features in 2 similar contexts: "...recherche d'un juste équilibre entre compétitivité économique, progrès **social et sociétal** et respect de l’environnement" and "...les principaux impacts économiques, **sociaux, sociétaux** et environnementaux de nos activités". Does the phrase mean "corporate and societal"? ...or are the two terms redundant (as French sometimes is) and it means just "societal" or "social"?
Grateful for thoughts!
Proposed translations (English)
5 social and societal

Discussion

Charles Hawtrey (X) Apr 9, 2008:
So the value of the company has been increased, both for shareholders and for the community.
Charles Hawtrey (X) Apr 9, 2008:
Couple of small thoughts: "social" as in "capital social" can mean 'share capital'; and can that go-anywhere and largely meaningless term 'community' as seen today be used for "sociétal"?
Rimas Balsys (asker) Apr 9, 2008:
I didn't say there was anything "wrong", I'm just fishing for more thoughts as I'm not 100% happy with it for my particular doc...
Katarina Peters Apr 9, 2008:
Yes, so then what's wrong with "Corporate and Social" as you suggest, and as suggested by Vandor on that link, getting 7 "agrees"?
Julie Barber Apr 9, 2008:
what's wrong with the other recent suggestions on that link? it was only from a few days ago! ;-)
Rimas Balsys (asker) Apr 9, 2008:
Thanks, including Katerina for the prior ref. My hunch is that my author means "social" as relating to the company's relationships with its employees (sort of labour relations but possibly more) and "societal" as relating to the company's relationships with the local community + society at large. Unfortunately, "social and societal" just doesn't convey the same in English and smacks of verbosity. The other problem is that this doc is a pr statement and so needs to be un-wordy and pithy. So at the moment I'm inclining to "corporate and social" and assume readers will read all the connotations into that phrase that English allows. BUT I'm open to more suggestions!! :-)
Katarina Peters Apr 9, 2008:
A similar question has already been answered. Please look at http://www.proz.com/kudoz/2514479

Proposed translations

11 mins
Selected

social and societal

Same thing.

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Note added at 16 minuter (2008-04-09 14:26:23 GMT)
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I just read the information posted, but I'd still tend to go with "societal". In my opinion it refers to aspects that relate to society as a collective. The suggestions in the older discussion all make perfect sense too, though.

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Note added at 1 timme (2008-04-09 15:13:58 GMT)
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Are they really? For me, societal is used to describe things pertaining to a society as a whole. Social is an adjective used to describe interactions/relationships between individual members of a society (i.e. how they deal with each other).

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Note added at 1 hr (2008-04-09 15:59:49 GMT)
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Nothing was wrong with them... it just so happened that I posted my answer precisely at the same time, so I read the hint _after_ having posted.
Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_role_valorization

Note from asker:
...but in English, "social and societal" are actually redundant so you'd say only one or the other.
Peer comment(s):
neutral writeaway : not so sure that social isn't a faux ami
17 mins
I'm a dummy. What I meant was social=social and sociétal=societal, not that they are the same thing...
Something went wrong...
1 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I think in my doc 'social and societal' or 'corporate and social' wouldn't really get across the meaning. I'll have to think some more about a less awkward way of saying 'employee and community/social relationships'"
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