Teacher Discussion Forums

"English is the property of its users native and non-native, and all English speakers need training for effective international communication" (Smith. 1987:xi).


Do you agree?

You can say that again.

Do you agree?

If you could translate it into English I might be able to tell you.

Some the hardest people for a NNS to understand are NSes who have only used their language to communicate with very similar people to themselves and/or have never given much thought about how best to use their language in other situations.

My brother-in-law comes to Spain and says to a girl in a bar "Canst tha gimme anoother glasser thet stoof, loov?" and later says " Didnsttha seh that lass could spake rate good English?". I don't mean to criticise his English at all, just his assumption that he would be understood. Goodness knows he loses me sometimes, what with me being a (poncy) Southerner.

Or a US Eng teacher, who should have known better: " You got any leads on where you might go to school?" to an 18yr old at one of those evening class places with a very pukka Brit name like "The Oxbridge Academy" and who was about to go to University.

Both people needed to switch into some kind of neutral IntEng, not dumbed down by any means but something akin to the English that the person they were speaking to had learnt. Perhaps they needed training in this but I imagine a bit of common sense and imagination would have gone a long way too.

Stephen Jones wrote:

Do you agree?

If you could translate it into English I might be able to tell you.

Whose English? Yours?

So, Juan, being a poncy southerner, would you understand this?

But, soft! wot Isle Of Wight through yonder burnt cinder breaks? it is the east, and juliet is the current ban. arise, yogi bear current ban, and kill the envious moon, who is already Uncle *beep* and pale wif Omar Sharif, that thou 'er maid 'rt far more yogi bear than she: be not 'er maid, since she is envious; her vestal livery is but Uncle *beep* and green and Current Ban but fools do wear it; cast it Frank Bough.

Do wot? Yes, mate. Born and raised. Stooled to the rogue, me. Wel wivin the sound of the bells.

Whose English? Yours?

As long as the translation makes some sense, I don't mind.

JuanTwoThree wrote:Do wot? Yes, mate. Born and raised. Stooled to the rogue, me. Wel wivin the sound of the bells.

R U Quasimodo!

Stephen Jones wrote:

Whose English? Yours?

As long as the translation makes some sense, I don't mind.

Is this cryptic hour?

What did you mean by this, Stephen?

If you could translate it into English I might be able to tell you.

Translate what?

Anyway, the point being that there is often not much to choose between me "trying not to be understood" and my inlaw's "not trying to be understood" from the point of view of the bemused listeners, or readers in the case of my sad attempt at 18th century thieves's slang (such erudition )

<thieves's slang >

??

The sentence has got two halves, which have nothing to do with each other.

The first half is meaningless; the second half underspecified.

Stephen Jones wrote:The sentence has got two halves, which have nothing to do with each other.

The first half is meaningless; the second half underspecified.

Do you mean "meaningless" for all, or just you?

The two halves are connected by the idea that many NESs feel the language is theirs alone to control usage upon and that many of the same people do not wish to do anything in order to understand the many variants of English.

If I said I was being deliberately Gollumesque, would anybody believe me?







Thought not.