Ali Fazel Feb 27, 2015:

Yes, Thanks.

Reza Rahimi (asker) Feb 26, 2015:

Dear Ali and Edward. Thank you for your kind information.

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 26, 2015:

latest info... I finally got to visit my local bank branch and discuss this with the manager. I had printed out the "branches" part of the organization chart from Bank Melli to show her. Her comment was that it did not sound right in English to say "branches deputy managing director"..."branch deputy managing director" would be better...to her, it would obviously mean there is more than one branch.

The same with "region 2 branches affairs supervisory directorate"; "Tehran branches affairs supervisory directorate"; and "region 1 branches affairs supervisory directorate"...she felt that "branch" would be better...she said "If you are a branch manager, you can manage one or more branches."

In these cases above, "branch" acts as a modifier and generally is singular.

This next part is tricky to explain...

The lower boxes on the organization chart are all like this: "Tehran East Branches Network Supervisory Dept." or "Kerman Branches Network Supervisory Dept"...here it can be argued that "branches" is not used as a modifier.

We can compare the two situations like this:

1. Supervisory Directorate of Tehran Branch Affairs
2. Network Supervisory Dept of Tehran East Branches

Hope it is clearer.

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 20, 2015:

hmmmm...interesting...I was just at the American corpus (the Wikipedia part) and there was nothing for "branches manager" either

Ali Fazel Feb 20, 2015:

Yes, In the British National Corpus there was not a single hit of "branches management".

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 20, 2015:

I will pay a visit to my local branch and see what they say about the Bank Melli chart and let you know, probably next Monday. I am curious, too.

My interpretation of why the manager said they would not use it was because it did not sound like good English...but I will review that again with her...again, to my ear it doesn't sound right.

Ali Fazel Feb 20, 2015:

I dont want to introduce new terminology but...

When I said whether your bank manager's reason is linguistic or otherwise, and when I said I dont know about the organizational structure of banks there, I meant that if it has linguistic reasons, yes, we cannot change it overnight, but if it has its reasons of code of practice, I think we can introduce it since it introduces something that already exists, although not in English. We are not creating things, we are introducing it. So let others see it through lenses other than their own.

Ali Fazel Feb 20, 2015:

Hi,
See and download the organizational chart of Bank Melli Iran and tell me what you think about it. (This does not mean I cite it as a reliable reference)
http://bmi.ir/Fa/DynamicPage.aspx?id=574&smnuid=10011513

I have not asked bankers, but it seems that different titles for more or less the same entities: مدیریت شعب by some banks and مدیریت امور منطقه.. by others.

مدیریت امور شعب as well http://www.postbank.ir/tab-99/index.aspx

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 19, 2015:

comments 2 (your first entry) "branches manager" just does not sound like proper English...when I suggested that to the local manager, her reaction was instantaneous...she "No, no, we would not say that..." You can call it "linguistic reasons" if you want...if native speakers do not accept it, we should not either.
Since we do not want to introduce new terminology we have to find a way to make it clear.

If we look at the Bank Sepah site, we can see a simple solution...
Regional Branch Management...this obviously covers more than one branch.

It would also be OK to add "department" as you suggested, but it would still be Greater Tehran Branch Management Department...and to most English speakers, this would mean "managing more than one branch"...if it is a single branch, and we need to make that clear, we can say Management of the Greater Tehran Branch.

I hope we are getting closer...

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 19, 2015:

comments 1 (your second entry) OK, let me take these one by one:
Manager of the Greater Tehran Branches-- yes, this means one person is responsible for (probably) all the branches in Tehran and nearby areas.

Since you say this is not the case, (although you use "branches" in your suggested translation) we can simply say Manager of the Greater Tehran Branch. However, having said that, it sounds strange that it would be a single branch...we use "greater" in phrases like this to indicate a rather large coverage or large responsibility, which would mean more than one branch.

Ali Fazel Feb 19, 2015:

Also, when you say

Manager of the Greater Tehran Branches (to be absolutely clear)

what is absolutely clear to me is that it means a single person is responsible for more than one branches, which is certainly not the case.

Ali Fazel Feb 19, 2015:

Nice information. Thanks.
I don’t know about organizational structure of banks there. But let me clarify something. مدیریت شعب is a department in the organizational structure of a bank here which is responsible for organizing, supervising, and managing the affairs of some branches subordinate to it, each of which has its own manager. Again, مدیریت شعب here means each branch has its own manager, but there is a manager of managers, a boss of bosses.
In the link below see the duties of a مدیریت شعب at the bottom of the page:
http://www.banksepah.ir/tab-563/مدیریت-شعب-منطقه-اصفهان.aspx

مدیریت شعب is not much directly involved in relations with clients.
Also, when you say Manager of the branches in Abarghu or Manager of the Abarghu branches they mean a single person is the manager of more than one branches. Your bank’s team leader is the same. This is certainly not the case. When I say branches management department, it can help clarify the point.

If they would never say “branches manager” or “branches management,” is it for linguistic reasons or some other ones?

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 18, 2015:

comments, part 2 In checking with my local bank manager, she confirmed they would never say “branches manager” or “branches management”. They would always use the singular in these contexts.

When I asked what they call a manager who is responsible for several branches, she said "that is a Team Leader"...I suppose different banks may have different terms.

So...we need to work with "branch, manager, and management" to make the Persian clear in English. I hope my examples have helped.

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 18, 2015:

comments, part 1 My missing comments started with “this can be tricky”

I just finished speaking with my local bank people about these terms.

First let me address the question of مدیر شعبه فلان شهر and مدیر شعب فلان شهر

مدیر شعبه فلان شهر
Manager of the Hafez Street branch in Abarghu (single branch, but we understand there are others)
Hafez Street branch manager in Abarghu (same as above)

Manager of the Abarghu branch. (single branch, Abarghu has only one branch)
Abarghu branch manager (same as above)

مدیر شعب فلان شهر
Manager of the Abarghu branches. (My bank uses “team leader” for a manager of several branches—for them “branch manager” is only for a single bank)
Manager of the branches in Abarghu

To continue with the word “manager” we can say
Manager of the Greater Tehran Branches (to be absolutely clear) or
Manager, Greater Tehran Branches

If we are using مدیریت to mean the job “managing” we can say
Managing the Greater Tehran Branches

If we mean the position/title in the bank we can say
Greater Tehran Branch Management (we know from using “Greater Tehran” that there are many branches) or we can also do it like this:
Management, Greater Tehran Branches

Edward Plaisance Jr Feb 18, 2015:

my comment disappeared... I posted some stuff here yesterday, but it is gone...I will redo it tomorrow.

Ali Fazel Feb 17, 2015:

To Edward I really want to know your comment.

Tehran Branch(es) here is a modifier for "department," and modifiers are frequently used in a singular form. But consider this:
Imagine two banks... the first with one branch in the city X and the other with more than one. How would this fact reflect in the respective title or titles. In farsi we say مدیر شعبه فلان شهر and مدیر شعب فلان شهر. Now In English would "Greater Tehran Branch Management Department" be used for the two cases?

If I say Greater Tehran Branch Management Department, wont it imply that single branch in Tehran, as especially distinguished from another, say, in Isfahan?