Whose property?
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Whose property?
"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?
Do you agree?
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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.
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.
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.

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.

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