Are standard native-speaker models of English still relevant for

I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N G L I S H
J. Feingersh/Zefa/Corbis
LANGUAGE
E
veryone seems to be doing it. Taxi drivers in
Beijing are learning English in preparation for
the 2008 Olympics. Chile wants to make its
15 million citizens bilingual in Spanish and
English within a generation. “Iraqi Kurdistan
has had an explosion in English-language studies,” reported The New York Times in 2005. And Mongolia’s
former prime minister Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj sees English as “a way of opening windows on the wider world”.
The spread of English is both a cause and result of
globalization. In his report for the British Council, English Next, David Graddol predicts that “within a few
Are standard native-speaker
models of English still relevant
for international business?
GOING
GLOBAL
Englisch ist weltweit auf dem Vormarsch, und überall entstehen Varianten der Sprache, die
vom traditionellen britischen oder amerikanischen Englisch abweichen. IAN MCMASTER ist
www.
medium
der Frage nach einem neuen, internationalen Englisch nachgegangen.
years there could be around 2 billion people learning
English” — nearly a third of the world’s population.
But Graddol warns that this trend is “probably not
a cause of celebration by native speakers”. In a world
in which English becomes a global basic skill, says
Graddol, native English-speakers will lose their historic
competitive advantage (see Spotlight 8/2006).
Another British language expert, David Crystal, has
estimated that only about a quarter of the 1.5 billion or
so people who speak English are native speakers from
countries like Australia, Britain or the US. A further
quarter are in countries where, for historical reasons,
English plays an important role as a second language,
such as India, Nigeria and Singapore. The biggest
group, however, consists of those who have learned
English as a foreign language.
It is also thought that around 80 per cent of the
world’s communication in English is between nonnative speakers using the language with each other as
a lingua franca rather than with native speakers. If
this is true, are the traditional native-speaker models
Beijing ["be'dZŋ]
bilingual [ba'lŋgwəl]
billion ['bljən]
bother sb. ['bɒðə]
British Council
["brtʃ 'kaυnsəl]
competitive advantage
[kəm"petətv əd'vɑ:ntdZ]
estimate (that) ['estmet]
extract ['ekstr{kt]
lingua franca ["lŋgwə 'fr{ŋkə]
Mongolia [mɒŋ'gəυliə]
native speaker ["netv 'spi:kə]
predict sth. [pri:'dkt]
respondent [r'spɒndənt]
some [sÃm]
survey ['s«:ve]
variety [və'raəti]
2/2007
Peking
zweisprachig
Milliarde(n)
jmdn. stören
(Organisation zur
Förderung britischer Kultur
im Ausland)
Wettbewerbsvorteil
schätzen (dass)
Auszug
Verkehrssprache
die Mongolei
Muttersprachler(in)
etw. prognostizieren
Befragte(r)
zirka
Befragung
hier: Variante
such as British or American English still relevant models for learners?
To get a picture of the English needs of Germanspeakers, Business Spotlight regularly does reader surveys (the latest one is included with this magazine). In
the 2004 survey, some 1,300 German-speakers gave detailed information about how they use English at work.
The most common tasks they performed were reading
and writing e-mails, telephoning and making small talk.
Other common tasks included reading job-related literature, looking after guests, taking part in meetings
and listening to presentations.
The survey also found that, although 81 per cent of
respondents used English with non-native speakers,
almost as many (75 per cent) communicated with native speakers. One reason was that Britain (46 per cent)
and the US (41 per cent) were the countries with which
German-speakers were most likely to have business
contacts in English. On the other hand, growing trade
with China and countries from central and eastern
Europe is increasing the importance of communication with other non-native speakers.
Interestingly, despite the importance of business
contacts with Britain and the US, only 12 per cent of
Business Spotlight readers said British English was the
most important variety for them in their jobs, and just
9 per cent chose American English. A clear majority (64
per cent) chose “a neutral, international English”.
The problem is that there is at present no clearly defined version of international English that can act as an
alternative to native-speaker models. Instead, the term4
The future face of English?
ook at the following extract from a (fictional) speech
by a manager at an international meeting. See how
many mistakes (that is, examples of non-standard
English) you can find. Then, think about your answers
to the questions below. For our comments, turn to the
box on page 16.
L
“Our firm operate in 20 different countries. Last week,
we have signed joint venture in China, who is important
market for future. We want that we will sign more
such agreements. We are now collecting more informations and are discussing about the possibility to
move into India. If we would do this, it would be a big
step forward, isn’t it? We certainly sink so.”
1. How do you feel about the manager’s English? Does
it bother you if your business partners speak English
like this?
2. Would/do you find it acceptable to speak English like
this yourself?
3. If you are a teacher/trainer, do you find it acceptable
for your students to use English like this?
Business Spotlight 15
B. Sonnenberg/Stock4B
LANGUAGE
The world’s
language: what
will it look
like in future?
The future face of English? Comments
Below, we have corrected the manager’s
speech according to standard British
English. The corrections are in blue.
“Our firm operates in 20 different countries. Last week, we have signed a joint
venture in China, who which is an important market for the future. We would
like that we will to sign more such
agreements. We are now collecting more
informations and are discussing about
the possibility to move of moving into
India. If we would do did this, it would
be a big step forward, isn’t it wouldn’t
it? We certainly sink think so.”
Here are the specific mistakes in more
detail:
n not using the third person presenttense “s” (“operate”);
n using the wrong past tense: (“have
signed”, not “signed”);
n not using the indefinite articles “a”
and “an”;
n using the wrong relative pronoun
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
(“who”, not “which”);
using a “that-clause” (“we would like
that”) instead of “to+infinitive”;
using a plural form of “information”;
using a preposition where none is
needed (“discussing about”);
using an incorrect particle (“possibility to” instead of “possibility of”);
putting “would” in a conditional “ifclause” (“if we would do this”);
using an incorrect question tag
(“isn’t it?”, not “wouldn’t it?”);
pronouncing “th” incorrectly (saying
“sink”, not “think”).
Whatever your mother tongue is, you
probably found that few, if any, of these
mistakes caused misunderstanding.
How you feel about such mistakes is,
of course, an entirely personal matter.
Typically, people — whether learners or
trainers — fall into one of two groups
in their opinion:
“international English” is used to cover a number of
very different concepts:
n To some people, it means a specific, reduced form
of English, with a limited vocabulary and a simplified
grammar. One example is the 1,500-word “Globish”
developed by Jean-Paul Nerrière, a former vicepresident of IBM (see box page 18). Other simplified
models exist within individual companies and for specific professions, such as pilots, but there is no widely
accepted version. And it is doubtful whether such simplified versions of English can really meet the needs of
the highly sophisticated modern business world.
n To others, international English means a simpler and
clearer style of English that native speakers should learn
to use internationally (this variety is also sometimes
called “Offshore English”). Non-native speakers often
16 Business Spotlight
(see box, page 15)
1. Some people believe that acceptance
of such mistakes means falling language standards. They also believe
these mistakes can create a bad impression on international business
partners, particularly in writing and
on formal occasions.
2. Others think effective communication
is what matters, and that it is a waste
of time trying to correct typical mistakes. Indeed, some people argue that
typical deviations from native-speaker
norms should not be called mistakes
if they cause no misunderstanding
(see page 18).
Tell us what you think!
You can let us know your views on the
importance of native-speaker models
of English, and of using such models
correctly, by answering the readers’
survey that is included with this issue of
Business Spotlight.
say they have few difficulties communicating with each
other but have problems when a native speaker enters
the discussion. “This means that native speakers really
need to improve their international communication
skills,” says Steve Flinders, a director of York Associates,
which now offers courses to British business people.
A simpler style of English would include:
n not talking too quickly;
n using shorter sentences and simpler grammar;
n avoiding false friends (“eventually”, “actually”, etc.);
n avoiding abbreviations (“asap” or “MD”);
n avoiding culturally specific idioms (such as “we are
on a losing wicket” from cricket).
A clearer style also means checking regularly for understanding, rephrasing things that are not clear, and
summarizing frequently.
2/2007
n
International English is also sometimes used to mean all the various
different “Englishes” in the world. These include not just native-speaker
varieties, such as American, British and Australian English, but also
varieties that combine English and a local language, such as Singlish (Singaporean English), Taglish (a combination of Tagalog and English,
spoken in the Philippines) and Hinglish (a combination of English and
south Asian languages, such as Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu). Some people
fear that these varieties may become so different that they will be mutually unintelligible. For example, Hinglish has the word “prepone”,
which means “bring forward”, the logical opposite of “postpone”,
and an “air dash” is a flight taken at short notice. Such words may not
be understood by speakers of other varieties of English.
n Another use of “international English” is to describe a new standard
that may emerge internationally. In English as a Global Language, David
Crystal argues that, even if the different varieties of English do diverge,
“the consequences for world English would not necessarily be fatal…
a new form of English — let us think of it as ‘World Standard Spoken
English’ (WSSE) — would almost certainly arise”. In this scenario,
says Crystal, people would have “their dialects for use within their
own country, but when the need came to communicate with people from
other countries they would
slip into WSSE”.
Which current form of English might have the most influence on WSSE? “It seems
likely that it will be US (rather
than UK) English,” Crystal
says. This prediction seems
perfectly plausible if one considers the influence US English
has had on the language in4
“Native speakers
really need to improve
their international
communication skills”
abbreviation [ə"bri:vi'eʃən]
actually ['{ktʃuəli]
argue ['ɑ:gju:]
arise [ə'raz]
asap (as soon as possible) ["e es e 'pi:]
clause [klɔ:z]
deviation ["di:vi'eʃən]
diverge [da'v«:dZ]
doubtful ['daυtfəl]
emerge ['m«:dZ]
eventually ['ventʃuəli]
grammar ['gr{mə]
idiom ['diəm]
indefinite article [n"defənət 'ɑ:tkəl]
issue ['ʃu:]
losing wicket ["lu:zŋ 'wkt] UK ifml.
MD (medical doctor; managing director) ["em 'di:]
meet the needs ["mi:t ðə 'ni:dz]
mother tongue ["mÃðə 'tÃŋ]
mutually unintelligible ["mju:tʃuəli "Ãnn'teldZəbəl]
offshore ["ɒf'ʃɔ:]
Philippines: the ~ ['flpi:nz]
postpone sth. [pəυst'pəυn]
prediction [pr'dkʃən]
present tense ["prezənt 'tens]
question tag ['kwestʃən t{g]
rephrase sth. ["ri:'frez]
short notice: at ~~ ["ʃɔ:t 'nəυts]
simplified ['smplfad]
slip into (a language) ["slp 'ntu]
sophisticated [sə'fstketd]
summarize (sth.) ['sÃməraz]
survey ['s«:ve]
2/2007
Abkürzung
eigentlich
den Standpunkt vertreten
aufkommen
Haupt- oder Nebensatz
Abweichung
sich auseinanderentwickeln
zweifelhaft
entstehen
schließlich, irgendwann
Grammatik
Ausdruck, Redensart
unbestimmter Artikel
Ausgabe
vertrackte Situation
Arzt, Ärztin; Geschäftsführer(in)
den Anforderungen entsprechen
Muttersprache
gegenseitig nicht zu verstehen
Auslandsdie Philippinen
etw. verschieben
Vorhersage
Präsens, Gegenwart
Frageanhängsel
etw. umformulieren
kurzfristig
vereinfacht
in (eine Sprache) verfallen
entwickelt; hier: vielseitig
(etw.) zusammenfassen
Befragung
Langenscheidt –
zum Download
Sprachen lernen
mit Langenscheidt
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dem PDA, dem MP3-Player. Ob Wörterbuch, Vokabeltrainer, Sprachführer für
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J
From English to Globish?
LANGUAGE
Hat es Sinn, fürs Geschäftsleben eine Einfachversion des Englischen zu entwickeln?
ROBERT MCCRUM ist auf die Ideen des Franzosen JEAN-PAUL NERRIÈRE gestoßen.
or 65-year-old Frenchman
Jean-Paul Nerrière, the key
moment of his career came
in the late 1980s. As a vicepresident of IBM in America, he
Jean-Paul Nerrière was in charge of international
marketing. And on company
trips to Tokyo and Seoul, he communicated with the locals as best he could in his heavily accented English.
Nerrière noted that his conversations with the Japanese
and Koreans were “much easier and more efficient than
what could be observed between them and the British and
American IBM employees who came with me”. The language non-native speakers used together, he noticed, was
“not English but something vaguely like it”. It was, he
decided, “the worldwide dialect of the third millennium”,
which he called “Globish” (spoken “globe-ish”).
Globish is “decaffeinated English or English-lite”, says
Nerrière, who began to codify a Globish vocabulary of just
1,500 words, compared to 615,000 in the Oxford English Dictionary. In 2004, he then published Don’t Speak
English, Parlez Globish, a book in French. The book has
since been translated into Italian, Spanish, Korean and
Japanese, but not yet into English.
F
We are still a long way from
describing a coherent
alternative model of English
Britain and elsewhere. Yet many people seem to have
mistaken Crystal’s prediction for a recommendation
that US English should become the world model.
n A very different concept, English as an International
Language (EIL), looks at the way English is really used
internationally, particularly by non-native speakers .
Researchers in this field — such as Jennifer Jenkins at
King’s College, London, and Barbara Seidlhofer at the
University of Vienna — prefer the term “English as a
Lingua Franca” (ELF) to emphasize the communication
between non-native speakers. Indeed, they reject the
terms “native speaker” and “non-native speaker”: they
argue that the contrast is irrelevant now that so many
people grow up bilingual or multilingual, and that the
term “native speaker” suggests a superiority of the language norms of British and American English.
In their research, Jenkins and Seidlhofer have identified features of standard native-speaker models that are
18 Business Spotlight
A typical conversation in Globish would be painful for
a native speaker to listen to, but might help communication between non-native speakers. So, for example,
“nephew” becomes “son of my brother” and “kitchen” is
the “room in which you cook your food”. But “pizza” is
still “pizza” because Globish recognizes the word as international currency, like “taxi” or “police”.
The idea of a simple form of English is not new. In
the 1930s, English literary critic I. A. Richards and
philosopher Charles Ogden developed Basic English, using 850 words as its base. In 1959, Voice of America
(VOA), the US government-sponsored news organization,
started broadcasting in a simplified, 1,500-word vocabulary called Special English, one of the sources of Globish.
Nerrière emphasizes that Globish is not a real language
but just a tool for international business. “If you want to
read Shakespeare or Harry Potter, learn English. If you
want to do business, learn Globish.” Indeed, he hopes
Globish can limit the international influence of English:
“I am helping the rescue of French, and of all the languages that are threatened by English today but will not
be at all endangered by Globish.”
© Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2006
not essential for clear communication. Examples include the “correct” pronunciation of “th” at the start
of words, the use of the “s” in the third person singular
(“she works”), and the standard question tags (“do
you?”, “didn’t she?”, etc.). For more examples, see
the boxes on pages 15 and 16. The researchers argue
that if deviations from these norms are common and
cause no misunderstanding, they should no longer be
regarded as mistakes. They also say that examinations
for English qualifications should be more tolerant of
such typical deviations from native-speaker norms.
The insights from ELF research certainly challenge
learners and teachers to think about their views of what
“correct” English is. Some teachers use Jenkins’s insights to concentrate on pronunciation features that
do cause misunderstanding, including such things as the
mispronunciation of consonants (confusing “b” and
“p”, for example), and failure to distinguish between
short and long vowel sounds, as in “ship” and “sheep”.
But the ELF research is still a long way from describing a coherent alternative model (or models) of
English. As business English author Ian MacKenzie
says, “a handful of widespread grammatical patterns
and pronunciation features do not constitute a fully
fledged lingua franca”. And the researchers have been
careful not to recommend the active teaching of nonstandard forms, such as “she work”, “informations” or
2/2007
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N
An A–Z of ELT, Scott Thornbury, Macmillan/Hueber,
ISBN 978-3-19-022576-7, €27.50.*
Don’t Speak English, Parlez Globish, Jean-Paul
Nerrière, Eyrolles, ISBN 978-2-7081-3642-7, €18.
English as a Global Language, David Crystal, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-53032-3,
€16.90.*
English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles,
Rani Rubdy, Mario Saraceni (editors), Continuum,
ISBN 978-0-8264-8906-7, €41.90.
English Next, David Graddol, British Council, free
online at www.britishcouncil.org/learning-researchenglishnext.htm
Teaching English as an International Language,
Sandra Lee McKay, Oxford University Press/
Cornelsen, ISBN 978-3-464-12248-8, €29.95.
The concept of international English and related issues: from “real English” to “realistic English”?,
Barbara Seidlhofer, Council of Europe, free online
at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Liste_EN.asp
The Phonology of English as an International Language, Jennifer Jenkins, Oxford University Press/
Cornelsen, ISBN 978-3-464-12245-7, €48.80.
World Englishes: A resource book for students,
Jennifer Jenkins, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-41525806-7, £16.99.
the use of “isn’t it” in all
situations as a question
tag (similar to n’est-ce pas
in French: “That was a
nice meal, isn’t it?”). At
most, they suggest that
learners should be made
aware that such forms
exist internationally.
Perhaps the most serious criticism of ELF and
simplified varieties of
English such as “Globish”
is that they underestimate
the desire of many language learners to aspire to
a native-speaker model —
even if they are not communicating mainly with
native speakers, and even
if they are unlikely to
reach native-speaker levels. This doesn’t mean
that learners or teachers
should spend excessive
* Available from
time on the details and
culturally specific aspects
of a particular native-speaker model. On the other hand, as English
teacher and author Scott Thornbury says in his recent book, An A–Z of
ELT (English language teaching): “It is unlikely … that most teachers —
and many learners — will accept anything less than some notion of ‘StanBS
dard English’ as their goal, at least for the foreseeable future.”
n
aspire to sth. [ə'spaə]
broadcast ['brɔ:dkɑ:st]
challenge sb. to do sth. ['tʃ{lndZ]
codify sth. ['kəυdfa]
coherent [kəυ'hərənt]
constitute sth. ['kɒnsttju:t]
currency ['kÃrənsi]
decaffeinated ["di:'k{fnetd]
deviation ["di:vi'eʃən]
distinguish [d'stŋgwʃ]
emphasize sth. ['emfəsaz]
endanger sth. [n'dendZə]
feature ['fi:tʃə]
foreseeable future: for the ~~
[fɔ:"si:əbəl 'fju:tʃə]
fully fledged ["fυli 'fledZd]
insight ['nsat]
lite [lat]
literary critic ["ltərəri 'krtk]
multilingual ["mÃlti'lŋgwəl]
nephew ['nefju:]
non-native speaker ["nɒn"netv 'spi:kə]
notion ['nəυʃən]
pattern ['p{tən]
question tag ['kwestʃən t{g]
reject sth. [r'dZekt]
rescue ['reskju:]
research [r's«:tʃ]
researcher [r's«:tʃə]
suggest sth. [sə'dZest]
superiority [su"pəri'ɒrəti]
vaguely ['vegli]
vowel sound ['vaυəl saυnd]
2/2007
etw. anstreben
senden
jmdn. herausfordern, etw. zu tun
etw. festlegen
schlüssig
etw. ausmachen
Währung; hier: Standardbegriff
entkoffeiniert
Abweichung
unterscheiden
etw. hervorheben
etw. gefährden
Merkmal
in absehbarer Zeit
eigenständig
Erkenntnis
kalorienreduziert; hier: abgespeckt
Literaturkritiker(in)
vielsprachig
Neffe
Nicht-Muttersprachler(in)
Vorstellung
Muster
Frageanhängsel
etw. ablehnen
Rettung
Untersuchungen
Forscher(in)
etw. vermuten lassen
Überlegenheit
vage; hier: entfernt
Vokal(laut)