Michael Halliday, the founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics, was the key figure in linguistics to focus on the meaning of language as communication rather than just its structural form. He saw ...language as meaning and as a semiotic representation of values, attitudes and behaviours and in doing so introduced a vital area of academic study of languages. This paper explores the origins of Systemic Functional Linguistics and semiology, as well as the relationship between them, especially in applied professional discourse, both spoken and written. It analyses the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics in three case studies based on communication, semantics and non-verbal communication, and examines the implications for foreign language learning and teaching. The objective of the paper is to analyse Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and to show how it is exploited in newer communication approaches of Semiotics and UXD in intercultural business communication in English. The methodology is based on secondary research and focuses on three case studies, each presenting a new dimension of professional communication discourse. The first is the introduction of Globish, a simplified business vocabulary and grammar based on the requirements of international business negotiation. The second is the use of semiotics – signs that convey meaning and register. The third is the use of non-verbal communication based on the experiments of Albert Mehrabian. The results show that in a globalising economy Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics is an essential tool in managing international intercultural communication and professional discourse, but that ways of using discourse to convey meaning need to be considered.
This article proposes to reassess the dynamic history of English in the 20th century up until the turn of the 21st century through the prism of communities in transit. Combining the perspective of ...the language with diaspora studies the article argues that diasporas are not only shaped by a language of former colonial origin but in turn shape it, inflecting its grammar to suit their needs, bending its rules when necessary and most of all speaking their home language through English in a sort of creative polyphony. This position, at the crossroads between diasporic and global studies, proposes to look at the diasporic perspective as a dynamic perspective on globality which allows one to gauge the degree of cultural resilience of cultural diversity and local moorings which continue to exist and are expressed in and despite a language which has become global.
International advertisers often wonder whether to adapt their copy to each country they operate in or to globally standardize their message, especially in non-Anglophone markets. While the current ...business lingua franca is English, how easily can it be introduced into advertising without alienating consumers, and would a simpler English message work better? Does the culture of a brand also influence the impact of English use in non-Anglophone markets? This research examines the interaction between language choice and brand culture in a non-Anglophone market. Specifically, the studies review the value of Globish, a non-cultural form of English. The results suggest that using standardized English copy has relevance in non-Anglophone countries for global brands, but that Globish can also be useful for local brands seeking to upgrade their value in a local market. Globish is shown to be an interesting alternative option in adapting or standardizing advertising strategies. Managerial implications close the paper.
Translation as Politics Cassin, Barbara
Javnost (Ljubljana, Slovenia),
04/2018, Volume:
25, Issue:
1-2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The experience of translation is read through the experience of Untranslatables, as symptoms of differences between languages: not what one does not translate, but what one does not stop (not) ...translating. The Dictionary of Untranslatables shows how we philosophise not only, or not primarily, in concepts, but in tongues. It provides a way between Globish, which pays no attention to languages as such, and ontological nationalism, Heidggerian type, for which Greek and German are the only philosophical languages. Translation could then be defined as a know-how with differences. As such, it has to be considered as a good paradigm for human sciences as well as a political committment for contemporary citizenship.
Cet article explique comment la politique linguistique de l’UE en servant les exigences économiques des apprenants en langue contribue à la rapide éradication des langues minoritaires européennes. Il ...reconnait ce problème comme un exemple classique de la « Tragédie des biens communs » de Hardin (1968) dans laquelle l’intérêt personnel détruit le bien commun. Une solution différente a été présentée à la tragédie des biens communs par Elinor Ostrom et Oliver Williamson, lauréats du Prix Nobel en économie en 2009 émergeant des huit principes de gestion durable des biens communs proposés par Ostrom en1990. Cet article applique ces huit principes à la tragédie du bien commun linguistique de l’UE et suggère une restructuration de sa politique linguistique visant la dotation en ressources durables pour sauvegarder les biens communs irremplaçables que constituent les patrimoines linguistiques européens.
The activity of Romanian users in digital spaces oftentimes exhibits a dynamic code containing Romglish (the combination of Romanian and English features), which also reverberates in offline ...discourses and has an ongoing boomerang effect between offline and online interactions. By means of a survey, this paper investigates the Romanian collective imaginary which is set in the linguistic data. As the Romanian language constitutes a matrix in which English and Globish (a simplified pragmatic form of English) are embedded and they become part of a new dynamic code, destined to be changed at all levels (lexical, morphological, and syntactical), Romanian native speakers' perception of Romglish is an important dimension. As such, this paper will analyse how individuals perceive their personal use of Romglish online and in face-to-face interactions: the use of the code created, the preferences and mechanisms of linguistic choices and linguistic creativity, the frequency of code-switching and code-mixing both in formal and informal contexts, and the degree of universality of the code used. The findings will provide insight not only specific to the aspects of the Romglish, but also related to the cognitive processes involved and the reasons which trigger such processes.
The proposed adoption of ‘scientific Globish’ as a simplified language standard for scholarly communication may appeal to authors who have difficulty with English proficiency. However, Globish might ...not justify the hopes being pinned on it and might open the door to further deterioration of the quality of English-language scientific writing.
What if the language of the world were not Globish but translation? This article proposes translation to be the best paradigm for human sciences, exportable to other fields of politics and society. ...As a know-how with differences, translation provides an articulation between the one and the universal, on the one hand, and diversity or singularities, on the other. Translation helps to think anew the nature-culture relationship, far from any rootedness or nationalism, and it practices a consistent relativism. The author starts from her own experience of the Dictionary of Untranslatables to philosophize in tongues.
Caribbeanists working on the Francophone Caribbean within the Anglophone academy are perhaps particularly well placed to bring into focus the linguistic and cultural losses of the dislocations and ...relocations of High Capitalism. Although our object of study should facilitate critical insights into the fundamental linguistic and cultural indifference and irresponsibility of capitalist extraction models and into what is at stake politically and ethically in contemporary versions of those profiteering models, the commercialist reductionism currently (re-)formatting not just our own pulverized academic universe, but the entire globe over which it has by now comprehensively spread, surely works against any such truly critical positioning.
U radu se razmatra hipercentralni status engleskog jezika u suvremenom svijetu kao rezultat uglavnom britanske kolonijalne prošlosti i globalnog procesa amerikanizacije u novije doba. Polazeći od ...Kachruovog modela triju koncentričnih krugova, podrobno opisanog u relevantnoj sociolingvističkoj literaturi, ukratko se analizira rasprostranjenost engleskog jezika, način njegova učenja i usvajanja, te područja djelovanja u kojima se upotrebljava radi povezivanja jezika i kultura. Zahvaljujući velikoj zemljopisnoj rasprostranjenosti engleski jezik obilježen je brojnim varijetetima, od kojih su britanski i američki najpoznatiji, zbog čega se nerijetko postavlja pitanje njegove (ne)jedinstvene jezične strukture. Jedan od načina da se učini što funkcionalnijim najširem krugu korisnika, posebice u međunarodnom poslovnom okruženju, doveo je do pojave Globish-a, dok ljubitelji pasa na Internetu imaju čak svoj jezik proizišao iz osnova engleskog jezika. U zaključku se navodi da XXI. stoljeće vjerojatno pripada engleskom jeziku, što ne bi trebalo uzrokovati ozbiljniji jezični (neo) imperijalizam.
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