TLDR: native speakers use idioms, abbreviations, and their broader vocabulary in conversation.
Learning these things is a part of learning a language, and this article also applies to native speakers of any language.
I think that there are three other potential components here. They’re hypothetical as I don’t have data to back me up, so take them with a grain of salt. Still, I think that they’re worth sharing:
- Potential selection bias. The comparison being made is between highly educated L2+ speakers with an education-wise mixed bag of native speakers.
- Multilingualism potentially improving communication skills. Perhaps the very fact that you speak 2+ languages allows you to express yourself better in all of them.
- Something in English itself, on a pragmatic level, might lead to poor communication. On the internet I’ve seen all the fucking time native English speakers fighting to understand each other, in a way that I see neither Portuguese (L1) or Italian (L2) speakers doing… it’s like they’re really eager to rush towards conclusions and assume words onto the others’ mouths, almost always violating Gricean maxims. (Poor sampling, I know.)
I can go further on any of those if you want. Of course, they take the premise from the text as true, but it should be actually tested.
Learning these things is a part of learning a language, and this article also applies to native speakers of any language.
Hot take: or perhaps the burden should be put on the native speakers instead. This can be achieved by detaching what’s to be considered “proper international English” from their native dialects. (That’s part of what your TL;DR misses from the text, as it leans towards the same conclusion.)
Perhaps the very fact that you speak 2+ languages allows you to express yourself better in all of them.
It surely can’t hurt.
Something in English itself, on a pragmatic level, might lead to poor communication.
I think this has a lot to do with:
A. The internet is swarmed with Americans, who have notoriously poor educational outcomes and low reading levels. This is not a dig; it’s a fact.
B. The political climate in English speaking countries is absolutely insane right now and people are prone to get defensive, jump to conclusions, et cetera. This also comes through in non-political topics.
perhaps the burden should be put on the native speakers instead. This can be achieved by detaching what’s to be considered “proper international English” from their native dialects.
Absolutely not. Forces in predominantly English speaking countries are already doing their damndest to eradicate English dialects and sister languages; speakers of AAVE, Indian English, Scottish English, the Scots language, et cetera, hardly need another force of cultural imperialism working to erase their culture or offering an excuse to shame them for speaking their own dialect. Linguistic prescriptivism is not the answer here.
The fact that English is so widely spoken is likely a part of the problem; a wide range of disparate features emerge in each place English is spoken. Americans in particular are abysmal, in my experience, at using context clues to interperet idioms or vocabulary they’re not familiar with as they don’t travel or engage with foreign media as often as citizens of other English speaking countries. This causes me problems daily in the US because I’m familiar with a few different dialects and I sometimes forget which phrases / words come from each. People here have great difficulty understanding even the slightest deviation.
I’m rambling a bit now, so I’ll finish by saying that if a standard form of international English is out, it strikes me that English is probably just a poor choice for an international language; it has many flaws. (Even I can’t quite explain to an English learner when and why to use “in” vs. “on” in a sentence) Something designed for the purpose is probably a better answer.
I think this has a lot to do with: [poor American education + political climate]
I’m not sure if this is true, but it does sound reasonable. Specially because this sort of defensiveness tends to create a habit, so the person might behave in the same way even towards other subjects.
Absolutely not. […]
I don’t think that some sort of “international English” would be a threat to the local varieties that you mentioned; the threat is usually the variety backed up by the “upper caste”, either implicitly or explicitly. So for example, varieties in UK would be still threatened by RP and SSB, things wouldn’t get better for them but not worse either.
Linguistic prescriptivism is not the answer here.
I get where you’re coming from but note that some prescription will be always there. Not prescribing anything at all means implicit agreement with the prescriptions already in place, in this case the usage of RP and GA as standards.
I don’t think that some sort of “international English” would be a threat to the local varieties that you mentioned
This is exactly what is already happening with Scots and American English. Scots continues to disappear, and features of American English increase in usage due to the proliferation of American media. Class isn’t the only factor here.
Not prescribing anything at all means implicit agreement with the prescriptions already in place
There is a world of difference between spontaneous consensus between members of a particular culture or ethnic group and the top-down enforcement (as in the case of Scots speakers being physically punished in school for speaking their native language) or promotion of a specific dialect.
This is exactly what is already happening with Scots and American English.
If American media were to affect so much Anglic varieties spoken in Scotland, you’d expect SSE (Scottish Standard English) to increase in rhoticity due to said influence. And yet the opposite is happening.
Granted, the example is from SSE, not braid Scots; it works nice here though, since any potential non-British pressure would affect SSE first, then Scots.
The example also shows which Anglic varieties are threatening Scots: RP and its spiritual successor Southern Standard British English, both non-rhotic. That’s because mere exposition towards another variety is not enough to trigger variety shift, you need some sort of [soft or hard] power over the speakers. Such as attacking their local identity to sell them an alternative one (governments love to do this shit).
Now, back into the hypothetical “international English”: what pressure do you think that a hypothetical standard built upon the speech of L2 English speakers, mostly in continental Europe, would have towards Scots? I don’t think that it would; at most you’d get some entitled corporation drone from London or New York screeching that “learning a dialect for international communication is too hard!” (i.e. a fraction of what others already do.)
Also note that the basic idea (“you aren’t supposed to speak this natively”) isn’t too far off from how Esperantists promote Esperanto, except that it’s towards a dialect instead of a full-fledged constructed language.
There is a world of difference between [spontaneous consensus between members of a particular culture or ethnic group]#1 and [the top-down enforcement (as in the case of Scots speakers being physically punished in school for speaking their native language)]#2 or [promotion of a specific dialect]#3.
I numbered them for convenience. #1 is a specific case of #3, and rather close to my “hot take” proposal. Nobody is proposing #2, this sort of Vergonha style linguicide is inhumane.
[I’d also like to reinforce that the idea is a “hot take”. As in, I knew that it would be contentious, and I’m not exactly sure myself if it would be the best approach.]
If American media were to affect so much Anglic varieties spoken in Scotland, you’d expect SSE (Scottish Standard English) to increase in rhoticity due to said influence.
I was specifically referring to Scots words and phrases disappearing from use and even British English words being replaced with americanisms. This absolutely is happening; as someone from Scotland, I have seen it first hand.
what pressure do you think that a hypothetical standard built upon the speech of L2 English speakers, mostly in continental Europe, would have towards Scots?
It’s the way these sorts of efforts tend to be held as “correct speech.” Scots is already denigrated as mere slang or a language of the uneducated. Whether created by academics or the aristocracy, I believe the result would be the same; social pressure develops surrounding ‘prestige’ langauages / dialects, and those using others eventually wind up facing employment discrimination, and so on. It’s a story that has played out many times in the British Isles and around the world.
This is likely the last reply that I’m going to arse myself with. The reasons should become evident across the comment.
I was specifically referring to Scots words and phrases disappearing from use and even British English words being replaced with americanisms.
You’re disingenuously (or worse, idiotically) moving the goalposts from your earlier claim, that contextually conveyed that “American English” (bloody umbrella term, you likely mean General American) was directly threatening Scots (false).
That said, addressing your new claim poorly disguised as the old one: the reason why Scots and most British varieties are picking those words and expressions is not American media itself, it’s Southern Standard British English (SSB) and perhaps SSE. And SSB picks words and expressions from every bloody where, including American dialects.
SSB picking new lexicon is a natural and expected process for any living variety, not part of the problem; that variety is thriving, prestigious to the point that your likely next king (prince William) speaks it, it’s slowly displacing RP’s role as standard due to societal changes, and it has enough of an international presence that even some L3 muppet across the globe might use it as reference pronunciation. It is not at risk of being displaced, not even lexically.
What is part of the problem is that SSB is cannibalising other varieties spoken in the islands. You can literally see it in those maps:
In layman-friendly words: the speakers of those local varieties aren’t “urrm” (arm) or “sliver” like some American “youruberr”. They’re saying “ahm” (arm) and “splinter” like mid-high class Londoners.
(And the only exception in those maps that shows a feature from SSB being displaced instead of displacing is the [ɑ:]→[a] usage in “last”, that still has nothing to do with typically American [æ].)
Before you complain about including phonological data instead of just lexical one, given that your new claim was about “words and expressions”: when it comes to language displacement, both walk side-by-side.
This absolutely is happening; as someone from Scotland, I have seen it first hand.
Your “as a” = “I’m expecting you to be gullible trash and «chrust me»” backfires badly here. It shows that, as a layman, you’re perhaps in the worst position ever to get a clear picture of what’s happening, for three reasons:
- biased sampling - you aren’t basing your conclusions on wide data, but on anecdotes
- ideological bombardment - remember when I said that “governments love this shit”?
- the de facto standard language of your government is the lingua franca - so it’s hard for you to gauge why English is threatening those local varieties, and if that threat would apply to a hypothetical “International English” or not.
I stopped reading here as Brandolini’s Law is a thing.
I think the problem occurs because English has two uses:-
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as an everyday language, with slang, idioms, dialects, etc.
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as a business lingua franca, with a need to be precise and concise.
These requirements are contradictory. People who learn English as a second language usually learn Queen’s (or should I say King’s?) English and RP for unambiguous communication. Whereas native English speakers learn the language, or rather, their dialect, organically, and therefore use slang, idioms, and so on.
So it makes sense to separate English the lingua franca from English the everyday language, although I don’t understand the benefits this ‘Globish’ would have over QE / RP.
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Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one.
The native English speaker should have made a better word choice. However, the recipient of the email basically flipped a coin instead of asking for clarification. That person sucks at communication as much or more.
I get the feeling they didn’t include what word was misinterpreted because it would be laughable.
Best fun are contract negotiations between two languages.
I wonder what the word was. On a related note, I often see native English speakers saying “apart” when they mean “a part”. Those are not quite opposites, but are pretty different. “Apart” means “separated by a distance” whereas “a part” means “an element of a greater whole”.
It’s part of the whole “alot”, “aswell” “noone” trend where people just remove the space between words. Sometimes this results in a new “word”, but occasionally the new “word” already exists and already has its own definition.
The fun part is that the word is an abstract concept inside your head, not in the text. They’re removing those spaces from “a lot”, “as well”, “no one” etc. because they’re already functionally words for those speakers.
I like this reply alot.
I think it’s the opposite. That for a lot of people, words don’t really exist in any other way than as sounds.
That could work too. In both cases you get the word being formed in the spoken language, and then interfering on the spelling only afterwards. The difference is if defining the word syntactically (like I did) or phonologically (like your reasoning leads to).
[Kind of off-topic trivia, but for funzies] I’ve seen similar phenomena in other languages, like:
- Italian - “per questo” (thus, therefore; lit. “for this”) vs. *perquesto
- Portuguese - “por que” (why; lit. “for what”) vs. “porque” (because)
Both of our explanations would work fine for those two too, mind you; they both sound like unitary words and behave as such. (e.g. they repel syntactical intrusion).
My guess is the word was biweekly, bimonthly, or biannually. If they agreed to pay bimonthly, there’s a big difference between twice a month and once every two months.
Non native English speakers are the worst at asking for explanations when they don’t understand something, assume meanings then blame others when things fail.
Flipping the stupid article title aside…it seems like the ones in this article can’t seem to understand internet shorthand and abbreviations. Who the hell, in this day and age doesn’t know what ETA mean… I can maybe understand OOO, but ETA? Come on…
Pretty much my takeaway, too. This whole article just reads “talk down to me.”
Pretty much my takeaway, too.
My takeaway was a chicken tikka.
At the same time I very often end up misinterpreting what my English colleagues are telling me because they’ll use words that mean X thinking they mean Y or they’ll simply write a phrase in a confusing way that makes sense when spoken, but won’t when it’s written.
What many unilingual people don’t realize (and I’m sorry but… Anglophones tend to be in that category more than most) is that if you’re bilingual, the second language you learn is taught to you using the “official rules” from the beginning, you don’t spend years building bad habits that need to be forgotten in order to pass an exam. What that means is that you’ll often realize that a person who knows English as their second language will be better at writing it and spotting mistakes than native speakers.
One such example is native speakers writing “could of”, something that non native speakers know right away makes no sense… Or my personal pet peeve, “I could care less”, damn this one triggers me!
Ain’t make no nevermind to me.
Pop quiz: do you think “ETA” means “Estimated Time of Arrival” or “Edited To Add?”
spoiler
Trick question: it depends on context!
Pop quiz answer: Ask if you’re unsure.
ETA is much older than the Internet.
I once had a drawn out argument with a Greek guy who wouldn’t shut up about mosques. He just ignored me and called me stupid when I asked why he was specifically talking about Muslims when his point was applicable to any place of worship. Multiple paragraphs later, I found out he thought mosque was a generic term for any place of worship. He then claimed the miscommunication was my fault and that I was expecting too much of a non-native English speaker.
Seems like an advertisement for his course in Globish a stripped down English.
I’ve worked with companies in France and Germany. I just ask the person across the line or table to repeat back what they understand from what I’ve said. Then I’ll further clarify if needed or answer questions they have.
Communication is a 2-way street. By definition you can’t blame it on one person.
Having said that, there are definitely issues caused by monolingual English-only speakers. Someone who speaks English as a second language is, by definition, multi-lingual, and has the experience of knowing nuances between different languages and dialects. Often there are no exact 1:1 translations of concepts between two languages. So, they will have experienced that.
A monolingual English speaker probably doesn’t have that experience. If they’ve traveled in the Anglosphere, they may have run across some of it, as different English dialects are different, and interpret things in different ways. But it’s not the same as struggling with “to be” vs. “ser” and “estar”.
It also happens that people speak too quickly, use slang, etc. OTOH, that’s not just a problem with native English speakers. Indian English speakers (virtually always “English as a second language”) have some strange expressions like “do the needful” or “what is your good name?”. Singapore English (Singlish) has expressions like “Can” for “Yes I can” or “using Lah” to emphasize something.
It seems to me that the problem is more with people who spend too much time in an English monoculture who then try to communicate with people of a different culture. If you’re Californian born and raised and have never left the state, you’re probably going to have a hell of a time communicating with someone from Glasgow, let alone a French or Japanese person speaking English as a second language. At the same time, if you’re Indian and speak English as a second language and the only English you’ve ever used or heard is Indian English, you’re going to have the same problems.
Communication is a 2-way street. By definition you can’t blame it on one person.
Even if communication works two ways, sometimes you can blame it on a single person. Shitty drawing time:
I’m representing the people as houses, and the bits of info as vehicles. “A” sent “B” a problematic bit (the orange car), and everything stopped - because once those cars/bits of info won’t be able to circulate further between “A” and “B”, even if “B” did nothing wrong.
…that said I agree with the core of your text, I think that it’s reasonable.
People using of instead of ‘ve are fucking stupid
I know right? And people are out here using “today” as if it isn’t two entirely separate words! And they’re saying things are “awful” or “egregious” as if they’re bad things! And don’t get me started on contemporary use of the word “meat!” People are saying bread isn’t meat! It’s madness!
That’s literally just basic language change
Nuh-uh.
Ya-ha
Eta 16:53 is my favourite bible verse.
