Exploring languages and cultures

Introduction

Learning a language requires an understanding the cultures of its speakers. This free course, Exploring languages and cultures, explores the multiple relationships between languages and cultures. You will learn about the benefits and challenges of meeting people from different cultures, what it means to be plurilingual and pluricultural, and the ways in which language and human communities shape each other. You also will look at the role of intercultural competence at the workplace, reflect on the use of English as lingua franca in international contexts, and get a flavour of the skills involved in language-related professions such as translation and interpreting.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course L161 Exploring languages and cultures.

Learning outcomes

After studying this course you should be able to:

• explain what intercultural encounters are and how people can learn from them

• discuss how the use of English as a lingua franca is perceived by native and non-native English speakers

• illustrate how different groups of people (e.g. professions) develop their own languages and cultures

• describe the role of intercultural competence in a business environment

• outline the skills and contexts involved in translating and interpreting professions.

1 Intercultural encounters

An intercultural encounter takes place when you become aware that you are interacting with a member of a different community whose ways of thinking are quite distinct from your own. These experiences often occur when you go abroad, but they can take place in any society that has many different cultural groups, such as the UK, for example. During an intercultural encounter, you become aware that you and the other person are operating according to different sets of beliefs and values. This may mean that you are acting in ways that are unfamiliar to each other, which can provoke a sense of unease in one or both participants. But such encounters can offer significant learning opportunities, provided that you use them to think about your own expectations, and to explore the cultural assumptions that appear to be shaping your behaviour and that of the other person (your interlocutor). Reflection of this kind is one of the main ways in which you can acquire what is known as intercultural competence.

In this section you will look at two different encounters and will begin to think about examples drawn from your own experience.

1.1 An encounter in a shop

In the BBC Bakeation series, two celebrity bikers with a passion for travel and cooking, known as the Hairy Bikers, visited several European countries to discover their baking traditions. Hairy Biker Dave studied French at school and worked in Luxembourg for a few months. In the following video he puts his French to the test to buy saucisson lyonnais (a type of sausage).

Activity 1

Watch the video and write your answers to the questions in the boxes below.

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Transcript: Dave tries out his French

Shop assistant:

Bonjour, Messieurs.

Dave and Si:

Bonjour, bonjour, Madame.

Shop assistant:

[laughs]

Dave Myers:

Madame, Je cherche la saucisson lyonnaise pour fabriquer une grande saucisson-brioche.

Shop assistant:

Yes. Alors, here.

Dave Myers:

Oui.

Shop assistant:

Ha ha ha.

Si King:

Now, fluent. See that? What he just said is good morning, Mrs. Have you got the sausages for my brioche?

Shop assistant:

For how many person?

Dave Myers:

Cinq saucissons, s’il vous plaît.

Shop assistant:

Yes, all right. Three, with truffle?

Dave and Si:

Oh.

Shop assistant:

The best one.

Dave Myers:

This tastes of France, doesn’t it?

Si King:

It does.

Dave Myers:

Merci, Madame. C’est le produit magnifique.

Shop assistant:

Thanks very much. [laughs]

Dave Myers:

Whoa.

Si King:

That means, thanks very much, Mrs. Your produce is fabulous.

Dave Myers:

Oui. [interposing voices]

Shop assistant:

Thanks very much, and I give you the bag.

Dave Myers:

Merci beaucoup.

Si King:

Ah, truffle saucisson lyonnaise! [laughing] Et voilà!

Dave Myers:

Et voilà!

Shop assistant:

Bye.

End transcript: Dave tries out his French

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Dave tries out his French

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1 How does the shopkeeper respond to Dave’s efforts to address her in French?

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Answer

The shopkeeper consistently replies to Dave in English.

2 Why do you think the shopkeeper answers the way she does, despite the fact that Dave addresses her in French?

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Answer

We can only speculate why people like the shopkeeper respond in their own language, but such behaviour is very common. If you are making great efforts to address people in their own language, it can be frustrating to be denied the opportunity of engaging in a two-way conversation in the target language. Here the shopkeeper may be answering in English for a number of reasons:

• She may be trying to be helpful.
• She may be keen to practise her English.
• She may want to appear professional and good at English, able to address customers in their own language.
• She may prefer communication in English rather than in broken French. This does not necessarily imply a negative judgement on Dave’s linguistic ability. She may simply feel that the conversation will be smoother and easier if it is conducted in English.

3 Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? If so, how did you feel?

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Answer

If you have experienced such a situation you may have felt frustrated that the person didn’t respond in the same language, or annoyed about the implication that your use of the foreign language wasn’t very good. Conversely, perhaps you felt thankful that your use of language had obviously been understood.

1.2 A German dinner party

The next intercultural encounter features a British journalist, working in Germany, and his perceptions of a German dinner party.

Dinner parties are a very common type of social occasion and may generate intercultural encounters. The text you are about to read is a personal account of such an encounter. You will probably notice that the author uses two types of argument in his discussion of the experience. The first is argument by analogy, which involves comparing two things in order to highlight a perceived similarity. By its nature, an analogy offers a simplified view of an idea or process – an illustration, rather than a detailed analysis. The second is generalisation, which involves basing general propositions on the observation of particular details. Both are flawed forms of argumentation: analogies invariably break down, while generalisations often prove unsustainable in the face of further evidence. Neither is to be trusted when trying to make sense of other cultures.

Activity 2

Read the article and identify three generalisations and one argument by analogy made by the author.

Reading 1 Frugality rules at German dinner parties

Figure 1 Plain fare

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This photograph shows a large saucepan of boiled potatoes.

Figure 1 Plain fare

There has been much talk in Germany about southern European nations being over-reliant on the country’s generosity but when it comes to entertaining, the Germans display quite an appetite for frugality.

When I first came to live in Berlin, I was invited to a dinner party, a media dinner party. A German director and his wife invited me over and I looked forward to it with great anticipation.

Usually dinner parties are not my cup of tea, as it were, but this would be a chance to see how Germans did these things. A correspondent from The Economist had also been invited.

And it was good, very enjoyable – though not nearly as grand a meal as I had anticipated.

The table was laid in the couple’s flat. We chatted a little, anticipation mounting.

And then his wife proudly produced the food – boiled potatoes, boiled green vegetables and ham, boiled ham.

Now I like boiled potatoes, boiled ham, boiled vegetables even.

But it is not what you would have expected in a similar British dinner.

That would have been a feast, produced to the dictates of Delia, Jamie or Heston and probably involving porcini and crème fraiche, the words the English upper-crust use for mushrooms and sour cream.

The point I am making is that the German idea of luxury is different from the British idea.

Germans really are frugal. They like boiled potatoes – and good for them, say I.

You might argue that this was Berlin and Berlin was, of course, partly in East Germany. So Berlin frugality has a different background. And it is true that East Berliners were mocked by ‘Wessies’ when the wall came down because they knew nothing about fancy food.

Just after the two halves of the city were reunited, a West German magazine [Titanic] had a cover story with a picture of an East German housewife. You could tell where she came from because of her awful East German perm. She is holding a cucumber and the caption says: ‘My first banana’.

The point is that bananas were such a luxury that East Germans could not even recognise one.

But the hosts at my dinner party were not ‘Ossies’ but ‘Wessies’, completely au fait with bananas and even, perhaps, porcini.

No, this was just German frugality. You come across it in lots of ways.

I go to a supermarket under a railway arch and it resembles a warehouse, goods stacked to the red-bricked roof with no sense of style or flashy salesmanship.

It is price that matters – even for fancy wines.

This is not a supermarket for poor people. There is wine there at 60 euros (£48/$76) a bottle. But you can bet your bottom euro that it will be cheaper than elsewhere. Even the rich watch the pennies.

Or think of Media Markt, the electronics retailer, which still refuses to take credit cards or even debit cards.

When I presented a card at the check-out, the assistant looked at me like I had offered to pay with a chicken or the use of my body for half an hour. Credit: nein danke.

So as you follow the debate over the euro, and over German resistance to extra spending in Greece, or extra spending in Brussels, bear this frugality in mind. It is seared into the German soul.

[…]

Much is made of the effects of the inflation of 1923, but to my mind that is overblown – a cliché almost.

Far more important are the effects of the World War II, which are less talked about, partly because German suffering became unmentionable because of guilt.

But it was a personal catastrophe for millions of people. Half the homes in Germany were uninhabitable, either destroyed or damaged.

So these are people who experienced great privation, and within living memory. American cigarettes became a currency as people scrabbled for food.

In this city of Berlin, for example, women – Trümmerfrauen (rubble women) – scrabbled through the streets, scavenging in the years after the war. That kind of experience has to inform your attitude to food and material goods.

On top of that, Germans do not actually earn very much compared to those in other European countries – less than in France and Spain and about two-thirds what a comparable British worker has.

And the German wage has barely risen over the past decade. They are frugal because they hold back on pay.

Accordingly, Germans hold their wallets tight to themselves.

Frugal at the dinner table. Frugal too, in the finance ministry.

(Evans, 2012)

Note: Delia (Smith) is a TV cook and cookery writer in the UK, and Jamie (Oliver) and Heston (Blumenthal) are ‘celebrity chefs’. Titanic was a satirical magazine, so the cover photo described was obviously a joke. Far from not being able to recognise bananas, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans used to buy large quantities of bananas in the West to take home.

Answer

Argument by analogy: ‘Frugal at the dinner table. Frugal too, in the finance ministry.’

Generalisations include:

• Germans are frugal.
• British dinner parties are feasts, cooked to the dictates of celebrity chefs.
• The German idea of luxury is different from the British one.
• Germans like boiled potatoes.
• Germans hold on tightly to their wallets.

1.3 Reflecting on cultural differences

In intercultural encounters we often come across behaviours that would seem odd in our own culture, but there is often a valid reason for such behaviours. It is therefore always worth taking a moment to consider alternative explanations and to remember that, even with an open mind, our own interpretations can be mistaken.

1.4 Interview with Professor Byram

You will now listen to an interview with Professor Mike Byram, who has been very influential in the area of intercultural communicative competence in Europe. Working in collaboration with other scholars, as part of a project funded by the Council of Europe, he developed the concept of intercultural encounters.

Figure 2 Professor Mike Byram

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A head and shoulders photograph of Mike Byram, smiling and wearing glasses, a trimmed grey beard and a suit and tie.

Figure 2 Professor Mike Byram

Activity 7

Listen to ‘Interview with Mike Byram’. As you listen, think about the following question and write your answer in the box:

How does Mike Byram define an intercultural encounter?

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Transcript: Interview with Mike Byram

Mike Byram:

An intercultural encounter can be any situation where someone finds themself noticing that they are interacting with someone from a different social group. In other words, where the group identity, the ‘group self’, as some people call it, is salient and is dominating the situation. So my example of when I’m in the United States, I’m seen as British is a situation where my ‘Britishness’ is salient. But it might be the same if I’m in the south of England or the south-east of England coming from the north of England, and having lived for 30 years or more in the north-east of England, so my identity as someone from the north interacting with someone from the south, in some circumstances, will be the dominant, salient identity. And in that sense it’s an intercultural encounter within the same … within one society.

But we might have a similar situation with an intercultural encounter being between two people of different professions, who, in the situation in question, are talking about and interacting through their professional identities. And there again they have different values, beliefs and behaviours which they need to understand and which … where they need their intercultural competence to help them understand each other. The same thing happens with religious groups. I mean, one of the things which has happened to me over many years as a teacher trainer, as it were, I … being someone with a Protestant upbringing, I often went to see my students in Catholic schools who were, who were doing their teaching practice in Catholic schools. And I found myself in what seemed like a different environment, and I noticed differences in the environment, in the behaviours and the fact that, for example, prayers were said at the end of lessons in some schools, which I … which was not familiar to me, er, so it was a different religious culture. And I think I wanted to use that example within a society rather than taking the more obvious examples of, er, of the contrasts of going to another country where another religion is dominant, a completely different religion is dominant.

Interviewer:

OK. So it’s an encounter where basically you notice different values, beliefs and behaviours, and perhaps feel a little, what, uncomfortable about that?

Mike Byram:

That’s exactly so, yeah, yeah.

End transcript: Interview with Mike Byram

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Answer

Byram defines an intercultural encounter as a situation in which someone interacts with a person from another social group and where group identity plays a prominent role. This means that different behavioural norms and different sets of values and beliefs are apparent and may be the source of some unease.

1.5 What about you?

As you have seen, a culture may seem unfamiliar to you for a variety of reasons. Nation and language may be the most visible sources of cultural differences, but there are many more such as religion, gender, profession, or age. Some of these are very obvious, whereas others are more subtle but no less meaningful.

The two examples provided above show that not all intercultural encounters necessarily revolve around nationality (British meets Spanish; Spanish meets Korean) as the main source of cultural differences, and show that other aspects of culture are important too.

In the first example, differences in musical traditions and practices were probably just as important as, if not more important than, national or linguistic differences. Once the Spanish musician moved from an instrumental folk group to a singing group in the same town, she no longer experienced communication problems despite the fact that in both cases all the other group members were British. Perhaps something about her behaviour did not meet the unwritten rules for interacting with others in instrumental folk groups, whereas the same behaviour was regarded as normal in a singing group. Another explanation could be that she was more assertive or proficient as a singer than as a folk guitarist, and this competence made the other singers perceive her as more linguistically competent too.

In the second example the encounter may have been successful because the two participants shared an interest in harp music and the relationship developed around one person helping the other.

2 Using a lingua franca

People have been on the move throughout history. In the process, they have encountered other people from different cultures who speak different languages. In order to work with them, to trade with them and, in some cases, to govern them, a language was needed that both sides could communicate in. From repeated encounters between peoples, new forms of language emerged. This course looks at the languages which developed and grew at the meeting points between cultures and peoples.

In this section you look at the history and meanings of the term lingua franca and discover how the use of English as a lingua franca is perceived by native and non-native English speakers working together on an international project.

2.1 The term ‘lingua franca’

The first use of the term ‘lingua franca’ was recorded in 1553. The term franca (literally ‘Frankish’) was at one time used to referred to western Europeans, and lingua franca (meaning ‘language of the Franks or western Europeans’) was an Italian expression for the language that came to be used for communication purposes between traders in the Mediterranean area. Since then, the meaning of the term has evolved.

2.2 English as a lingua franca

We now turn to the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen, certainly in terms of the number of speakers – English.

In the next activity, you will listen to various people who have been working together on a project. Only one of them is a native speaker of English, yet they have used English as their lingua franca throughout the project. In this sense, they are like thousands of project teams throughout the world who, at any one moment, are communicating in English in fields such as science and business.

Activity 13

Listen to Teija, Nadia and Jim talk about their experiences of working together in English. Jim is the only native speaker of the language in the group.

As you listen, make notes about the advantages and disadvantages of using English as a lingua franca from the perspectives of the non-native and native speakers on their project. Type your notes into the appropriate spaces below.

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Transcript: Magicc

Maria:

Hello. My name’s María Fernández-Toro. I work at The Open University and I’m here with three colleagues from the Magicc Project, which is a multilingual project that brings together colleagues from universities all across Europe, and the purpose of this project is to develop a clear description of what it entails to be multilingual and multicultural in higher education. So I’m here with Teija from Finland. Hello Teija.

Teija:

Hello.

Maria:

Nadia from Switzerland.

Nadia:

Hello.

Maria:

And Jim from the UK.

Jim:

Hello.

Maria:

And we are going to be discussing um our experience as part of the Magicc project team. The peculiarity of this project team is that we all speak in English, but there are very few actual native speakers of English in the group. So I wanted to ask you, the first question I wanted to ask you was um, what do you think are the advantages and the disadvantages of speaking English in the project?

Nadia:

Well I think the biggest advantage of speaking English is that everybody understands. We are approximately, except those who are natives, we are at the same level I think mostly and it’s also the language of the theories and of the or … linguistics and … [inaudible] that we are using. So that’s the biggest advantage of using English. But the disadvantage of using English is sometimes it’s tiring. So, it would be so much easier to speak some other languages than English and listening all the time because it’s not the easiest language for instance for me, so for me it’s a little bit tiring.

Maria:

Would you agree with this view of the advantages and disadvantages?

Jim:

Well, um, I have the big advantage that everybody is speaking the language which I speak as a first language. So in terms of feeling tired or not, actually it’s quite interesting to be honest there is something tiring for me or it is sometimes difficult for me to stay focused on some of the … on some of the interactions. We’re dealing with quite complex topics. Added to that is the fact that people are speaking English as an additional or second language and are not always completely um accurate, from my point of view, in the way that they’re expressing themselves. So I am having to make those kinds of adjustments in my listening and I must confess sometimes I drift off.

Nadia:

Yeah, well I would agree that it must be frustrating to listen to people who are always making imprecise er discourse and as a non-native and quite tired person [laughs] I must say that I’m very much frustrated because I cannot be precise in my … in my interventions. I cannot rely on jokes. I cannot rely on quotations that the other people or references that the other people would understand without me explaining what I mean, which would be different in my own language of course. And um the frustration is it can be on both sides. But on the good side it’s clear that if we hadn’t a lingua franca, whatever it be, we couldn’t work together. There wouldn’t be any possibility of switching languages, from languages all the time. So we need to have some kind of common understanding. It would be, but it’s quite frustrating in the long term because you never develop the kind of vocabulary you need in, I mean, you have to learn it. You don’t have the nuance. You don’t have all the special er inflection that you would like to put into your interventions or, this is difficult to … it’s difficult to speak and it’s difficult to listen.

Maria:

What does it feel in terms of your identity? Do you think it does something to your identity when you are in a group like this?

Teija:

I think it does because er I do agree with Nadia because if I were speaking Finnish or even French, I would make jokes and I would have the different kind of vocabulary and different kinds of sentences. And now I’m losing a great part of my identity with English because it’s not a very good language that I speak, though I don’t speak it very well.

Maria:

Does it work both ways?

Jim:

Yes. It’s interesting. I mean, the first thing I want to say is that I’m actually overawed by the language ability of the people in the group, that I feel very inadequate in comparison. What I mean by that is that I’m … most of the time I’m aware that people are speaking English as an additional language and how well they are doing it, you are doing it. So that’s an important thing. It kind of reminds me, when I lived in the Netherlands, where people speak English very well as well, I’d go on and I’d forget that I was in a foreign country, and suddenly they would behave in a Dutch way and I’d sort of think ‘why don’t you behave properly?’ Because I’d forgotten [laughter] that they actually weren’t English people and they were speaking in, they weren’t speaking their own language. So I think there’s a bit of that as well in the group that I can forget that people are speaking English as another language. But a large part of the time I’m very overawed really at the ability which people are showing. And I feel somewhat diminished as well, so my identity feels reduced as well in some way.

Nadia:

I’d like to add that one thing which is really difficult on the long term is that it takes so much time to say the same thing. I mean if I had to explain, well I am working in software design, so we had a software design group today and I had to explain slowly each step because it’s not natural for me to do it in English. I do it in French usually. So it does take so much more time. It’s really difficult for the other people because they could go quickly in the same work. So, and if you add all this time lapse that er everybody is taking to explain things then it doubles the time you need to do the same task which is, well it’s better than not doing the task at all, but sometimes you just say, if we could just spend one sentence and one minute to explain what we need and that’s it because it would take no more than one minute if I had to tell it in French.

End transcript: Magicc

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Magicc

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1

Advantages of using English as a lingua franca on the project:

(a) from the non-native speaker perspective

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(b) from the native speaker perspective

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2

Disadvantages of using English as a lingua franca on the project:

(a) from the non-native speaker perspective

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(b) from the native speaker perspective

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Answer

Given that some sort of shared language needs to be used by the participants in this project, the central advantage of English as a lingua franca, from the non-native speaker perspective, is that it is the language of the domains they are discussing. There are, however, three disadvantages mentioned from a non-native viewpoint, disadvantages that could be applicable to any language in which a speaker does not have native-like fluency: it can be tiring, requiring high concentration levels when speaking and listening; there may be a sense of reduced personality in that it is difficult to do justice to one’s ideas or use humour in the same way in a second language; finally, it is time-consuming.

From the native speaker perspective, the principal advantage is that of working in one’s own first language. Nevertheless, there may also be disadvantages: as for the non-native speakers, it may be tiring, due to the high level of concentration required when listening to non-native speakers, and Jim also mentions his feeling of inadequacy and being overawed by others’ linguistic abilities.

The discussion seems to portray the use of English in a rather negative light. Although its practical advantages are acknowledged in passing, the psychological difficulties of operating in a lingua franca are emphasised, along with the physical strain of maintaining the concentration levels required for successful interaction. The next part of the discussion strikes a more upbeat tone.

Activity 14

As you listen to the next conversation, make notes on the liberating and constraining aspects of speaking English as a lingua franca. Then type your answer into the box below.

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Transcript: Magicc Project

Jim:

I’ve been sort of told this so often in the different places I’ve worked that really English is not the language of England any more or America or United States. It’s a language which has been appropriated by different groups, different countries around the world. So, I kind of think of it in those ways really now, I think.

Nadia:

Quite generous of you …

Teija:

… Actually, actually it means that we are stealing your language. I do …

[interposing voices and laughter]

Jim:

… I still have it.

Teija:

You still have it, but I do agree with Nadia because it’s wonderful to have er a mother tongue like Finnish. No one is understanding and er it’s, actually, I think it’s a good thing and at the same time I can steal your language and use it when I need it …

Jim:

… This was the experience that I got in the Netherlands that um the Dutch people could speak English very well and so I worked in the banks there teaching language in banks, and er, teaching English in banks and if they had English in, er visiting employees the whole of the organisation would um the whole of the meeting would be carried out in English. All the Dutch people would speak in English for one English person and sometimes I did used to think to myself, and Dutch people used to say it, they felt rather proud of the fact that they could do that and that we couldn’t learn their language. So I was determined to learn their language.

[laughter]

Nadia:

There’s one more issue I would like to point out and this has to um something to say with the development of … the scientific language and I find it quite interesting that English is the scientific community language. But on the other hand as a French speaker or German speaker um I resent the fact that the language is, our language, is not going to evolve in a scientific language. And it’s almost difficult for me to make a presentation in French in my research topics because I’ve been spending years and years reading and writing in English and so if I have to explain these things in French now I don’t have the, I mean, I don’t have the proper flow, the proper rhythm and the academic language as it should be used by an academic. So this is one other aspect. It’s not directly an effect of what we’ve been doing in this project, but it’s on the long term it’s like kind of cutting the development of the other languages that we use English so frequently in the scientific circles.

Jim:

It reminds me of an experience from the Netherlands. It’s not from our project now that we’re working on, but I remember working with a group of university lecturers who were learning English for lecturing purposes and there was an Austrian er woman in the group. She had moved from Austria to the Netherlands and she had … and she had learned Dutch and now she was in an English language class. And she actually started crying in the middle of the class because in the course of our discussion, because we were discussing language, she suddenly said, ‘I don’t speak English properly. I don’t speak Dutch properly and I don’t speak my own language, German, properly any more,’ and it was really distressing for her.

Nadia:

It can be. I can understand that.

End transcript: Magicc Project

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Magicc Project

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Answer

Jim talks of how English is no longer the property of British or American native speakers but is being exploited by a variety of different groups and nations. Teija follows this up by mentioning how being able to draw upon the resources of English while also having a first language which others do not understand is a form of liberation. Her words are reminiscent of a vision expressed by Robert Phillipson, a British linguist who sees English as an ‘additive’ resource which speakers can exploit for particular purposes without suffering a ‘subtractive’ effect on their own language (Phillipson, 2009).

However, the drawback of this notion of English as an additive resource is expressed by Nadia who resents the fact that she cannot communicate effectively in her native tongue about her scientific field of expertise. This is because English is the default language of science. If particular fields are predominantly discussed and written about in English, the danger of speakers of other languages experiencing what Phillipson describes as ‘dispossession’ seems to be very real. Jim’s anecdote about the Austrian woman confirms this danger. She suddenly had the sensation of being linguistically dispossessed because exposure to Dutch and English at different stages in her life left her feeling that she had mastery of none of her languages, not even her first language, German.

3 Languages, cultures and communities

Language reflects the groups we belong to. Traces of our class, age, gender, background, profession and pastimes can often be found in the language that we use. As a result, language plays a central role in the identities that we project to the world. In this section you will look at the functions and characteristics of slang and jargon used in different group cultures and subcultures. Every profession also has its own terminology, and you will explore the subtle boundaries between terminology and jargon. The academic world is another context where the appropriate use of language is paramount, and the final part of this section looks at some of the features of academic style.

3.1 Language communities

As well as exploring the relationship between language and the broad categories that people belong to, such as class and age, sociolinguists have in recent years tried to capture the complexity and dynamism of people’s social lives. This has involved investigating the smaller social units they move between, and how their language and behaviour shapes and is shaped by these units. These smaller units have been categorised in various ways. One such category is the ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991). As the name suggests, such a group comes together around a mutual endeavour of some sort. So, a book club or a church choir can each be described as a community of practice. These smaller groupings can easily form, change and disappear.

Doing this exercise should highlight how much the smaller communities of practice that people choose to join are, to some degree at least, influenced by their class, age and gender. The fact that some of the activities listed (such as lawn bowling, bridge and bingo) are not international in scope shows that the nation people belong to also influences or limits their choices.

Furthermore, the typical profiles of members might be different depending on the particular context. There are, for instance, various types of choir. A typical church choir may bring to mind white, middle-class and middle-aged singers. However, you only have to think of gospel or Welsh male-voice choirs to dispel the notion that all choir members fit this profile. Remember also that communities of practice are never static and as a result, the profile of a ‘typical’ member is always evolving. For instance, in a growing number of countries, football is no longer the all-male preserve that it once was.

Of course, people can ignore social conventions when deciding which clubs and groups to join. It simply takes more courage to do so. Think for example of the film Billy Elliot (2000), where a working-class boy challenges the norms and expectations of his community in order to become a ballet dancer.

Although there may not be many explicit rules, there are often particular norms of behaviour and, indeed, ways of talking which people need to learn to become part of a community of practice.

Obviously, some specialist language is needed in order to talk about the particular equipment that is used in archery and the rules of the sport. Archers need to be familiar with the terms of archery, much as a car mechanic has to be familiar with the different parts of an engine and what they are called. However, this practical explanation is only half the story. The use of these terms communicates to the readership of the archery magazine that the writer is part of their community, that he belongs.

3.2 Slang

'Slang’ and ‘jargon’ are terms often used interchangeably because they are both sociolects. In other words, they are both varieties of language used by a particular social group or class. However, while jargon (written or spoken) tends to be terminology associated with certain professions or social activities, slang is more commonly associated with the spoken language, and with social groups whose values and practices differ from, and sometimes antagonise, those of the majority or dominant group in their society. The values, beliefs and practices of such minority/non-dominant groups are sometimes referred to as ‘subcultures’.

In this section you will look at slang from a number of different languages in order to work out what they have in common, especially in terms of their role in relation to the corresponding mainstream cultures.

3.2.1 Cockney rhyming slang

A key social function of the language of a group is that it serves to include some and exclude others. In some cases this constitutes a form of language code which is consciously used so that outsiders do not understand. A famous example of this is Cockney rhyming slang from the East End of London. A Cockney is someone ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’ – that is, within earshot of the bells of the church of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside – but the term ‘Cockney’ is often used more broadly to describe working-class Londoners and their speech.

Rhyming slang probably originated in the first half of the nineteenth century. It works by substituting the word that is meant (e.g. ‘look’) with a common phrase that rhymes with it (e.g. ‘butcher’s hook’). The rhyming word in the new phrase is then omitted (e.g. the word ‘hook’, so ‘look’ becomes ‘butcher’s’: ‘Have a butcher’s at this!’). So, to take another example, if you want to say ‘tie’ in rhyming slang it would be ‘Peckham’ (the full phrase would be ‘Peckham Rye’ – referring to another area of London – with the ‘Rye’ omitted.). It is worth noting here that this only makes sense if you know the geography of the local area.

Figure 3 Pearly Kings and Queens, chosen by each borough to help raise funds for charity, are a colourful tradition in working-class London

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This is a photo of a Pearly King and a Pearly Queen showing a man and woman whose jackets and hats are decorated with thousands of shiny mother-of-pearl buttons.

Figure 3 Pearly Kings and Queens, chosen by each borough to help raise funds for charity, are a colourful tradition in working-class London

Cockney rhyming slang has spread beyond its geographical origins. It is always evolving and often incorporates contemporary cultural allusions. To take just one example, a lower second-class university degree (2:2) can be referred to as a ‘Desmond’, after the famous South African cleric, Desmond Tutu. Speakers are free to make up their own and often do.

3.2.2 Polari, argot and Lunfardo

You will now listen to three audio clips in which members of the Open University’s Department of Languages talk about slang used in three different cultures: English Polari, Argentinian Lunfardo and French argot.

As you listen, it is worth bearing in mind that the origins of particular varieties of language are never easy to date with any precision, especially as they often evolve from the language environment around them.

Activity 18

Listen to the following audios and try to identify the main similarities and differences between these three sociolects. As you listen you may find it helpful to focus on the following aspects:

• how they originated: who spoke them and why
• how words and expressions are formed
• attitudes of mainstream society/culture towards their use
• present usage.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Polari

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Transcript: Polari

Interviewer:

Fernando, what is Polari?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Well, Polari was a sort of slang that originated among gay men to communicate without being understood kind of in the same way that, you know, Cockney rhyming slang did and, and other similar dialects and slang types.

Interviewer:

How did it originate?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Well, it was mostly a language around the beginning of the twentieth century, 1920s, ’30s, that kind of started being used in, in what the equivalent of nowadays would be a gay bar, so establishments where gay people would go, um, the theatre and also the merchant navy, where a lot of gay men kind of enrolled to sort of escape the places where they were.

Interviewer:

And what was the function of, er, Polari?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Well it was sort of, it was a code, so it protected you from being understood by others, and we have to remember that in those times and for many years after, homosexuality was a crime. So, you needed to make sure that you were speaking to people who would understand you but also that others wouldn’t understand you when you were making references to something that was illegal.

Interviewer:

What kinds of words did they use then?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Well, a lot of them seemed to come from Italian or from Romany culture, because, you know, the kind of, the theatre environment was also often linked to the circus. Some of them have made it to the mainstream, so words like ‘bitch’, ‘camp’, er, ‘drag’, ‘naff’, all those were words that originated in Polari, and actually the word ‘Polari’ is kind of an interpretation of the word parlare in Italian. So, a lot of those would now be understood in the mainstream.

Some other words like, um, cottage or cottaging to refer to sex in a public toilet, or zhoosh for ‘style’, dinari for, um, to mean ‘money’, have remained less commonly known.

Interviewer:

So they would use a combination of words from other languages and words from English but with a different meaning?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

That’s right. There’s also a lot of, er, Yiddish that was incorporated in to it as well.

Interviewer:

What were the attitudes of society at large towards, um, Polari and have these changed over time?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Well, at first, basically society was not aware of Polari. That’s the whole point of a code, that it’s meant to be a secret. It really kind of became prominent with the, er, Julian and Sandy sketches in the ’60s with Kenneth Williams, and so it, it sort of did two things. It brought it fame, so to speak, and made it popular but at the same time, because people outside of that code could suddenly understand these words, the code lost its functionality.

You also have to take into consideration that homosexuality was decriminalised in England in the, in 1967. So, a lot of the reasons for using it sort of went away, at least in legal terms. Obviously it has taken society a lot longer to adapt to that and obviously there are still kind of issues around it and battles to be fought in that, in that sense, but also what happened was that among the gay, um, community, population, it also became sort of a bit not necessarily, old fashioned to a certain extent, but also kind of regarded in a less positive way. Because it was being used by perhaps very camp, very theatrical people, other members of, of the gay population who didn’t identify with those people who were using it rejected it.

Interviewer:

Who use it these days?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

Nowadays it’s not really used as a code. Er, in the 1990s there was a bit of an effort to kind of revitalise it, and it sort of, it was targeted as an endangered language. Nowadays it’s mostly entertainers who use it, you know, people like Julian Clary, Paul O’Grady, Matt Lucas, you know, for sketches and in comedy.

Interviewer:

Fernando, you’re Spanish. Is there a similar phenomenon in Spain?

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

I think most languages have some sort of code that gay people have used to keep what was a clandestine thing secret from others. American English had a similar code, er, Japanese also had a gay code, er, and in Spain, yes, um, a lot of it now is old-fashioned and a lot of the words that were originally used as a secret code are now in the mainstream, as has happened with Polari. But there’s words like entender, literally ‘to understand’. So, if you said of someone, ‘Oh, does he understand?’ what you were asking really is, ‘Is he gay?’ Then words like tener pluma, um, literally, ‘to have a feather’ signified being quite camp or effeminate, and words like reina, ‘queen’ or loca, um, ‘crazy woman’, referred to, to gay men … mostly affectionately: there are plenty of words in every language that are disrespectful to gay men and lesbians, and, um, those were kind of terms of endearment really. Um, people call each other hermana, ‘sister’, or prima, ‘cousin’, mari, which is actually short for maricón which is the word, you know, negative words for, for gay and, um, it’s kind of been adopted and turned around to say ‘actually I will accept the word’.

Then there’s, there’s some funny words that haven’t really made it so much to the mainstream, like buga to refer to a heterosexual person; Elvis was, um, someone who was bisexual; and, um, you talk about someone being ‘in the opposite side of the sidewalk’ en la acera de enfrente, and combinations of these like, for example, loca is quite a well-known expression to refer to a, to a gay man. Um, you can also have variants like musculoca, which is basically a ‘muscle Mary’, as you would say it in English.

Interviewer:

Well, it’s interesting because it looks like all these groups that have their own code also have a term to describe the, the people who are not members of the group.

Fernando Rosell Aguilar:

That’s right, yes. Obviously to, sort of, as a warning you may want to use it and say, oh, people around you may not want to identify with. I think that the clandestine nature of it is, is what’s been particularly interesting about these types of codes, and in a way, nowadays it’s a bit of a double-edged thing isn’t it, because it’s sad that this type of use of language is, is dying. At the same time, at least in many societies nowadays, it means that there’s no need for it and that, you know, gay people don’t have to, to hide and use secret codes because there’s nothing illegal or shameful about it. That is great, but again it’s a little bit sad in the sense that this richness of the language is disappearing.

There are still many places in the world where being gay is illegal, punishable by even death, and as long as there are places like that, codes similar to Polari will be required and in use.

End transcript: Polari

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Transcript: Lunfardo

Interviewer:

What is Lunfardo?

Cecilia Garrido:

Lunfardo is slang with a vocabulary of around 6000 words which emerged among the lower class in Buenos Aires around the second half of the nineteenth century. Its name comes from Lombardo [Lombardy], the Italian region, and it is associated with the tango culture which followed a similar process of going from dark origins to being accepted as part of the Argentinean culture.

Lunfardo has its origins among the lower-class immigrant population arriving in Buenos Aires from Europe and particularly from Italy, and some of these immigrants found themselves quite lost in, in this new city and became involved in criminal activities. Therefore, Lunfardo had two main purposes: one, communication across different languages, and two, the development of some sort of code that would allow them to have something in common that would prevent the police to know about their illicit activities.

Interviewer:

Can you give us a few examples of, um, Lunfardo words?

Cecilia Garrido:

Well, according to José Gobello, who is the president of the Academia Porteña del Lunfardo, the lexicon of Lunfardo came from, in three different ways. One was loans from other languages, so from Italian for instance, so, um, you will have gamba, which is ‘leg’ in Italian. Also, bouillon, from French, which is ‘soup’, um, but also there were redefinition of existing vocabularies. So, for instance quemar, which in Spanish means ‘burn’, was used as meaning ‘killing with a firearm’, so that was kind of using, you know, the words in a different way, but perhaps the more creative way, um, of words … coming in to Lunfardo was the, um, making up of new words by distorting existing words. So for, instance, the word vesre, which is changing the order of existing words, the word revés became vesre in Lunfardo.

Interviewer:

So, it’s said backwards, isn’t it?

Cecilia Garrido:

It says … Well, it’s changing the orders because this is not the, exactly backwards but it’s changing the orders, and others were kind of mutilated. So, for instance, the word comissario became sario. And other things like, for instance, garpar came from pagar. So, it’s, it was changing, you know, playing with the existing words.

Interviewer:

What did society at large think of, er, Lunfardo?

Cecilia Garrido:

Well, the reputation of Lunfardo has undergone the same change as tango, which basically from being not acceptable and very low reputation to become something that is part of the cultural identity, the Argentinean cultural identity. At the beginning, because it was limited to the underclasses, it was not accepted, and when it changed then it became more acceptable and tango became part of the entertainment in Europe and then regained some kind of prestige and became prestigious in Argentina. Similarly, Lunfardo has, has had the same evolution.

Interviewer:

Is it used these days?

Cecilia Garrido:

Well, despite its dark origin some words and expressions have actually entered the mainstream language but only in a colloquial manner, and it is accepted, and the fact that it’s been studied, and that there is literature and its manifestations in poetry are kind of becoming known, it’s given it a different life, and this academy of, that studies Lunfardo looks after not only studying it but looking at its preservation for the future.

Interviewer:

So, there’s actually an ‘academy of Lunfardo’?

Cecilia Garrido:

Yes, the Academia Porteña del Lunfardo, created in 1962, actually devotes its work to studying and looking for the preservation of Lunfardo for the future.

End transcript: Lunfardo

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Lunfardo

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Transcript: Argot

Elodie Vialleton:

Argot is the French word that refers to slang. It’s a word that first appeared in the French language in the sixteenth century, and in those days it referred to the community of beggars and their way of speaking. Of course, it’s evolved through the ages. One of the main meanings of the language is the type of language that the community of thieves used to speak in the nineteenth century. The reason thieves were using their own language was that they did not want to be understood by the police. So, for them argot was a kind of code.

Interviewer:

Was that the only function of argot?

Elodie Vialleton:

There aren’t too many functions of argot. First, it’s a type of language that a community is using so as not to be understood by the rest of the population, or it’s a type of language that a community creates to strengthen the feeling of community, so to make the language their own.

Interviewer:

Can you give us a few examples of how the words enter argot?

Elodie Vialleton:

There are two main ways words enter argot, at least in the French language. The first one is new words or borrowed words. An example of a new word that was formed by a community is the verb cambrioler, ‘to burgle’. That was a fully new created word used by thieves who did not want to be understood by the police.

A second way new words can enter argot is borrowed words. So, particular communities might bring in words from other languages into French argot, especially nowadays the argot spoken in the outskirts of Paris incorporates a lot of Arabic words because the population in that area that speaks that type of language is mainly from Arabic origin.

An example of that would be the word casbah, which is Arabic for ‘house’ [citadel] and which is used instead of maison in French. Or the word maboul also an Arabic word meaning ‘mad’ and that is commonly used to refer to mad people instead of fou in French. That’s an interesting one because it’s become a colloquial word in French that is used by a lot of people.

Another way words are created and become argot is by modifying existing words. So, one very, very well-known example of that is le verlan, which is words used back to front [backslang]. Le verlan means envers in French, it’s back to front, and envers means ‘back to front’. There are many examples of that, for example, le féca, which means le café [coffee], or le tromé, which mean le métro [the underground].

Words can also be modified by adding suffixes to them. So, for example, the suffix -ard produces lots of words in argot. One example is the word costume, which means a suit, becoming un costard in argot and then now used in colloquial French. Another example is -oche. La cantine [canteen] becomes la cantoche. Or –os: le matériel [equipment/material(s)/gear] becomes le matos. Somebody who likes music is called a musiquos.

Many words get shortened in argot, so, for example, un problème becomes un blème, un sandwich becomes un dwich, la prison becomes la zon.

What’s also interesting is that some words get created that have gone through more than one of those processes, so, for example, le métro, ‘the underground’, has become le tromé by being used back to front, and then it’s been shortened to le trome, so le trome is le métro.

Interviewer:

What are the attitudes of society towards argot? Has it changed over time?

Elodie Vialleton:

I think people’s attitudes to argot has changed. Initially argot was mainly spoken by sections of the communities that were not well regarded in society. Also, because a lot of argot was created to talk about subjects or notions that were taboo such as talking about sex, talking about drugs, talking about money, which is a topic that people don’t like using in conversations very much in France, many of the words were considered rude and not words that the mainstream population would want to use ever. However, because that language featured in some works of literature, for example, it became more popular. One typical example is the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, which actually had an entire section dedicated to l’argot, and it also had a character, Gavroche, who spoke that type of language. That made it more popular and that meant that more people wanted to either identify with that use of the language or wanted to borrow from that language, and that is how it started the process of words and structures in argot becoming part of the mainstream language, and that became more and more popular, and there are now numerous words, which initially were argot words, which are now part of the common language and that you would find in any French dictionary.

Interviewer:

Is argot still evolving these days?

Elodie Vialleton:

Argot is still evolving today. One main source of new argot words is the suburbs of big cities, such as Paris and Marseille. There are places where deprived members of the population live and they create a new type of language to appropriate the French language, to make it their own and they certainly consider themselves as a different … as a community within society, and so using common words and common expressions is a way of forging a new identity.

Interviewer:

Does it change very fast?

Elodie Vialleton:

It can change quite fast because as soon as a word becomes mainstream then the community within which it was initially created stops using it because it’s lost its purpose as defining you as a different community. So, it keeps evolving. Some words become mainstream, and some new words are created.

End transcript: Argot

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Argot

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1 What similarities were you able to identify between Polari, Lunfardo and argot? Make a note of them in the box below.

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Answer

• All three evolved, in part, as a secret code for speakers to use as a means of excluding the wider society from their communications. Inevitably, this exclusive function also generated an inclusive one, building a sense of group identity and belonging among users of a particular slang.
• They were (or are) primarily used by marginalised communities, and also often (but not always) related to criminal or covert activity.
• They were (or are) not languages as such because they did not evolve their own syntax. They have, however, forged distinct lexicons.
• Words were (or are) imported from other languages, common words were given new meanings and existing words were transformed by, for example, truncating them and changing the order of the sounds and syllables.
• Initially, mainstream society was either unaware of these slang varieties or regarded them with disdain, reflecting the low regard with which speakers of these varieities were held in the wider community.
• Attitudes towards these slang varieties have changed, in part, because they have featured in the arts and media. One of the indicators of the greater acceptance and even embracing of these varieties is that some of the words have entered common usage. This wider exposure undermined one of the main functions of these varieties, to allow speakers to communicate covertly.

2 What differences did you identify between Polari, Lunfardo and argot? Make a note of them in this box.

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Answer

• There are clear differences in the specifics of the three slang varieties – they originated in different places and among different sections of society. Unsurprisingly, they drew their lexicon from different languages.
• The main generalisable difference between them seems to lie in their relative vitality. Polari, for example, has now become an interesting footnote in linguistic history in contrast to argot which continues to evolve. A slang variety’s robustness seems to be related to the degree to which sections of the community that use that variety continue to feel suppressed. So, in the UK, generally more liberal attitudes towards the gay community and a radically altered legal status may have contributed to Polari’s demise. On the other hand, the immigrant communities in the suburbs of French cities still largely feel excluded from the mainstream, which is one reason why French argot continues to evolve.

3.2.3 The purpose of slang

Tom McArthur is the author of numerous works on the English language, including the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, from which the following extract is taken.

The jargons associated with certain professions and activities, like the varieties of slang featured so far in this section, serve to reinforce a sense of group identity. In the next activity you will listen to an interview in which Nigel White, who teaches intercultural communication skills, discusses his first career, in the City of London’s financial district.

Figure 4 Nigel White

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A head and shoulders photograph of Nigel White, smiling and wearing glasses, a trimmed grey beard and an open-necked blue shirt.

Figure 4 Nigel White

Activity 20

Listen to the interview with Nigel White, then answer the questions that follow.

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Transcript: Broker culture

Interviewer:

I’d like to turn to professional culture and get your insights, Nigel, into working as a broker in the City, and ask you the extent to which you were subsumed into a particular culture when you were working there?

Nigel White: 

Ah ha … yeah, it was a culture shock and there was a feeling that if you didn’t adapt and adjust to this culture you weren’t gonna succeed, and one of, one aspect of it, I don’t know how much I can repeat on this interview because it includes lots of words beginning with ‘F’ and ending in ‘K’, and that was the standard kind of communication in the office, and if you, if you didn’t use that kind of language you were clearly not a player. So, if you asked politely for a foreign exchange quote, people would laugh and you would become very quickly a sort of joke, you know. Um, again, it’s very difficult to give examples because I don’t want to fill the interview with lots of bad language, and yet moving, let’s say, to pharmaceutical industry where a word beginning with ‘S’ and ending in ‘T’ would still be considered risqué. Um, quite clearly very different things and I think you need, we need to be aware that different professions, if you work in a website company the language changes, the tone changes, the speed changes.

End transcript: Broker culture

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Broker culture

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1 Write a few words about how Nigel White characterises the language of:

• city brokers
• pharmaceutical workers
• website developers.

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Answer

Nigel White characterises the language of city brokers as obscene and aggressive; pharmaceutical workers as far more polite and website developers as ‘different’ in terms of language, tone and speed.

Nigel doesn’t explicitly state how website developers’ language is different in tone and speed, but one would guess that the nature of the job would allow more time for reflection than a city broker’s would, suggesting that the tone and speed are more gentle.

2 The descriptions of Polari, Lunfardo and argot that you heard in Activity 18 focused on their respective origins. What does Nigel White focus on in his description of the language of the different sectors he mentions?

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Nigel’s focus is not on the words used by his fellow workers in the City, with the exception of the swearwords he alludes to. When describing the brokers’ language and that of the other sectors he mentions, he concentrates on their communicative style rather than the specific words they use. This indicates that adopting a group’s mode of communication involves more than merely learning its specialist vocabulary.

Figure 5 The world of the broker

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This is a photograph of a City trader, on the phone, gesturing dramatically.

Figure 5 The world of the broker

In the next part of this section you will look more closely at how language is used in the workplace and at what point specialist terminology becomes jargon.

3.3 Language and profession

The reasons for using words that outsiders may not understand are not necessarily related to a need to keep people in the dark or to assert group identity. In most areas of human activity, the use of specialist vocabulary may be needed in order to refer to specific concepts that everyday language would not be able to express as concisely or accurately. Many professions have developed their own specialist terminology. The glossary that accompanies this course, for example, aims to help you to develop the terminology required in order to talk about linguistic and cultural matters in a more precise way. A professional with good communication skills is aware of the appropriate register to use with each target audience, and adjusts the amount of specialist terminology accordingly.

3.3.1 Same term, different meanings

In the next activity you will watch a video featuring Jan Grothusen, chief executive of an engineering company called Guidance, in which he talks about the potential pitfalls of using particular specialist terms with a member of a different profession.

Activity 21

Watch the video and then complete the drag-and-drop activity that follows.

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Transcript: Specialist terminology and jargon

Jan Grothusen (group CEO):

You don’t even have to have a specific jargon or technical terms to actually get into trouble with language, and a recent example we’ve had is one of our products involves tracking an object at a distance, locating it and tracking it, and to an engineer, you basically say, ‘Ooh, I’m locking on to something as a target. I’m tracking a target.’

However, when we were communicating this to, to customers, what the system does, they had a completely different connotation to them, because a target to them is something you shoot at. They come from a military context and were surprised that this, that this was some kind of, maybe a weapons-related system, which of course it isn’t. It is a completely innocent commercial product, and then you actually realise that even normal terms can get you into trouble, just because other people, your end users, end customers, may have a different understanding of what it means. Then you need to, you know, bring your marketing people in to actually help smooth out the language, maybe use slightly less precise terms but more acceptable terms.

You know, is that jargon or is that just being able to communicate, you know, correctly with your customers? Either way, you have to make adjustments to the language depending on who, who your audience is.

End transcript: Specialist terminology and jargon

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Specialist terminology and jargon

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Taking into account what Jan says and your own understanding of the term, match each meaning of the word ‘target’ to the person who would be most likely to use the word with that meaning.

An object that you locate and track

Jan Grothusen

An object that you shoot at

Jan’s customer, who has a military background

A goal

A lay person, using everyday language

Using the following two lists, match each numbered item with the correct letter.

1. An object that you locate and track

2. An object that you shoot at

3. A goal

• a.A lay person, using everyday language

• b.Jan’s customer, who has a military background

• c.Jan Grothusen

The correct answers are:

• 1 = c
• 2 = b
• 3 = a

Discussion

In its everyday sense, ‘target’ is used metaphorically rather than literally.

As you can see, the connotations of the word ‘target’ are completely different in engineering, military and business contexts. In many instances words which have an everyday meaning also have a specialist meaning in other contexts.

3.3.2 Adapting to your audience

When specialists talk about their field they may tend to use technical language that can only be understood by other specialists. Being aware of your audience’s background and adapting your language accordingly is an important communication skill.

Activity 22

Figure 6 CyScan: a Guidance product

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This is a photograph showing a CyScan navigating device on a ship. An oilrig is visible in the background.

Figure 6 CyScan: a Guidance product

Now listen to another Guidance employee, Łukasz Gawryluk, describing the function of one of the company’s products, CyScan, and answer the questions below.

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Transcript: CyScan (Part 1)

Łukasz Gawryluk (production team leader):

CyScan is a laser-based sensor which measures, er, range and bearing to the reflective targets placed on oil rigs, and based on that, can produce data string for DP systems on the vessel.

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Question 1a

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1 Who do you think this explanation might be aimed at?

Lay people with an interest in the company’s activities.

Potential buyers of the product in question.

Engineers who design similar products.

 

a. 

Lay people with an interest in the company’s activities.

b. 

Potential buyers of the product in question.

c. 

Engineers who design similar products.

The correct answer is b.

Discussion

The description is probably too technical for people who are not familiar at all with navigation systems. A potential buyer is likely to have a need for such a product and therefore be familiar with the ways in which oil rigs, vessels and ‘DP systems’ relate to each other. An explanation aimed at an engineer would probably contain even more detailed technical specifications.

2 Based on Łukasz’s description of the product, what questions would you ask in order to fully understand what it is used for?

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Answer

Here are some questions you could ask about CyScan, though you may have thought of different ones.

• What is its main purpose?
• Where does it measure the range and bearing from?
• What are DP systems?

Note:

A DP (dynamic positioning) system is a computer-controlled means of maintaining a vessel’s position. You might also want to clarify particular terminology in order to check your understanding, e.g. does ‘bearing’ mean direction in this case? Does ‘data string’ mean information?

Activity 23

Listen again to Łukasz and answer the question below.

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Transcript: CyScan (Part 2)

Łukasz Gawryluk (production team leader):

My name is Łukasz. I’m from Poland. I’m production, er, team leader. Product I’m responsible for is, er, called CyScan. This is laser-based sensor which is fitted, installed on vessels that supply oil rigs, and basically, what this sensor does is measures, er, distance between the vessel and oil rigs, and my task is to, er, plan production, make sure we have enough parts, enough resources, and then maintain production line to achieve monthly target.

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Question 1b

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Who do you think this explanation might be aimed at?

Lay people with an interest in the company’s activities.

Potential buyers of the product in question.

Engineers who design similar products.

 

a. 

Lay people with an interest in the company’s activities.

b. 

Potential buyers of the product in question.

c. 

Engineers who design similar products.

The correct answer is a.

Discussion

The function of the product is now clearer: it ensures that vessels do not collide with the oil rig. The first explanation shows that terminology is only one challenge for the non-specialist. Technical descriptions often presuppose knowledge which a member of the public does not possess.

3.3.3 Jargon

Every profession has its own terminology, but it is only meant to be used with people who are able to understand it. The use of jargon can be frustrating for those on the outside. Yet, the impulse to have an in-group way of communicating is obviously a strong one, which is why business jargon is always being developed and copied, despite being mocked or despised.

Figure 7 Does your accountant speak your language?

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This is a cartoon featuring four people sitting at a table. One is making a long speech, including the words, ‘Considering the fiscal blah blah blah.’ One of the others is asking the person sitting next to him, ‘Did you understand any of that?’ to which the other is replying, ‘Only the blah! blah! bit’. The cartoon is captioned: ‘Does your accountant speak your language?’

Figure 7 Does your accountant speak your language?

3.3.4 Features of technical language

Specialist vocabulary is not the only feature of language relating to a particular profession. Other areas of the language, such as its grammatical structures, can be affected by what it is used for and who the audience or readership is, and these are the areas on which you now focus.

Measuring the weather involves action on many levels, from the weather itself to the people and instruments doing the measuring. Yet, in Version 1 (above) many of these actions are described grammatically in terms of nouns instead of verbs. This process of turning verbs, adjectives and adverbs, such as ‘how hard the wind blows’ into a noun, ‘wind velocity’, is called nominalisation and is a common feature of scientific and academic writing.

It is noticeable in the original text (Version 1) that when verbs are used they often take a passive construction, for example ‘wind measurements are taken’ rather than ‘people take wind measurements’. You may well have heard it explained that such a construction emphasises the processes (taking measurements) rather than the agents (people). In a sense, when describing how a weather station works it doesn’t matter who takes the measurements. Such a focus also holds true in academic writing in areas of study beyond science (although styles do vary according to the discipline). Concepts and ideas are at the forefront of much academic writing (more so than the people who created them), so passive constructions are used more often than they would be in everyday communication, where the focus is usually on what people say and do.

3.3.5 Rewriting specialist phrases

In this section you will apply some of the features that you have just observed in order to practise basic report-writing techniques.

So, particular professions not only use words and phrases that are specific to them but can also assume a particular style of communicating which, in part, is shaped by the purposes for which they use the language. This is one of the challenges that you face when entering the world of academic study. Not only do you have to learn new words and their meanings, but you also have to adopt a new way of communicating.

4 Intercultural competence at work

This section concentrates on issues arising from doing business in different languages and cultures. You will focus on a company called Guidance, a couple of whose employees you met in Section 3. Guidance has a multicultural workforce and operates in diverse markets.

Figure 8 A Guidance radar sensor at work

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This is a photo showing a Guidance RadaScan on the deck of a vessel in the foreground, and an oilrig in the background.

Figure 8 A Guidance radar sensor at work

4.1 Introducing Guidance

Guidance is experienced in managing the challenges of working in a multilingual and multicultural environment.

Activity 28

Watch this video in which the Guidance company is introduced by group CEO Jan Grothusen. Select any statements that apply to the company from the list below.

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Transcript: Guidance (Part 1)

Narrator:

Guidance, an internationally successful company based in the English midlands, was founded in 1991 as a technology consultancy business.

[cuts to colleagues talking]

Narrator:

Since then, it’s grown into a technology product business, making navigational positioning equipment for a range of marine and industrial uses.

Jan Grothusen (group CEO):

The company is based here in Leicester, both with its headquarters, its manufacturing facilities, but we also have an innovation centre here in Leicester, where a lot of the research and development is being done, and we have a small group working out of Oxford, a small group working in Hitchin, and we’ve recently established our first overseas office in Brazil.

The company sells typically globally. All our customers are globally distributed from Australia all the way to the Americas or Japan, and we serve a wide variety of vessel owners, oil companies, shipyards in our marine division, as well as, er, a range of industries, whether it is car manufacturing, paper industries, food-processing industries, with our automation products for factories.

Narrator:

The workforce is drawn from one of Britain’s most culturally diverse cities.

Jan Grothusen:

Guidance has grown quite quickly over the last ten years. At the moment, we have a headcount of around 105, mainly full-time people. We’re very culturally diverse, reflecting both Leicester with its population, but also reflecting the recruitment we’ve done recently, in particular in the R&D division, where we have a lot of qualified PhD-level employees coming from Spain, Italy, and also further afield, Poland, all the way to China.

We’re also very strongly connected to universities, and they have a very, very international student community reflecting the diversity in the UK, so it is quite natural that we’d get a lot of applicants from those sort of backgrounds. Also, it’s word of mouth. Once people have been here for a while, they know their mates back in Italy or Spain, um, they’re telling them about career opportunities and then we do get a couple of referrals that way, and therefore, our recruitment has recently been taking in more and more people from outside the United Kingdom.

End transcript: Guidance (Part 1)

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1. Guidance’s customers include:

the oil industry

the government

ship builders

the food processing sector

 

a. 

the oil industry

b. 

the government

c. 

ship builders

d. 

the food processing sector

The correct answers are a, c and d.

Select the answer for

Question 1b

here

2. The company needs to be culturally and linguistically flexible because:

it exports goods to customers overseas

it is based in a multicultural city

it has an office overseas

it imports goods from customers overseas

 

a. 

it exports goods to customers overseas

b. 

it is based in a multicultural city

c. 

it has an office overseas

d. 

it imports goods from customers overseas

The correct answers are a, b and c.

Select the answer for

Question 1c

here

3. The company attracts a multicultural workforce because:

it uses recruitment agencies abroad

it has close links with the university sector

it recruits locally

foreign employees recommend contacts and friends

 

a. 

it uses recruitment agencies abroad

b. 

it has close links with the university sector

c. 

it recruits locally

d. 

foreign employees recommend contacts and friends

The correct answers are b, c and d.

4.2 Benefits and challenges

You will now hear what the staff have to say about the benefits and challenges of working in a multicultural and multilingual company. You’ll have seen the first part of the video in Activity 28, but this is an extended version, and lasts about 15 minutes.

Activity 29

Watch the next video about Guidance and answer the three questions below by making notes in the boxes.

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Transcript: Guidance (Part 2)

Narrator:

Guidance, an internationally successful company based in the English midlands, was founded in 1991 as a technology consultancy business.

[cuts to colleagues talking]

Narrator:

Since then it’s grown into a technology product business, making navigational positioning equipment for a range of marine and industrial uses.

Jan Grothusen (group CEO):

The company is based here in Leicester, both with its headquarters, its manufacturing facilities, but we also have an innovation centre here in Leicester where a lot of the research and development is being done, and we have a small group working out of Oxford, a small group working in Hitchin, and we’ve recently established our first overseas office in Brazil.

The company sells typically globally. All our customers are globally distributed from Australia all the way to the Americas or Japan, and we serve a wide variety of vessel owners, oil companies, shipyards, in our marine division as well as, er, a range of industries, whether it is car manufacturing, paper industries, food-processing industries, with our automation products for factories.

Narrator:

The workforce is drawn from one of Britain’s most culturally diverse cities.

Jan Grothusen:

Guidance has grown quite quickly over the last ten years. At the moment we have a head count of around 105, mainly full-time people. We are very culturally diverse, reflecting both Leicester with its population, but also reflecting the recruitment we’ve done recently, in particular in the R&D division where we have a lot of qualified PhD-level employees coming from Spain, Italy and also further afield, Poland, all the way to China.

We’re also very strongly connected to universities, and they have a very, very international student community, reflecting the diversity in the UK, so it is quite natural that we get a lot of applicants from those sort of backgrounds. Also, it’s word of mouth. Once people have been here for a while, they know their mates back in Italy or Spain, um, they’re telling them about career opportunities and then we do get a couple of referrals that way, and therefore, our recruitment has recently been taking in more and more people from outside the United Kingdom.

Shuja Ahmed (embedded hardware and software engineer):

My name is Shuja, my surname is Ahmed, I’m Muslim and I’m originally from Pakistan, and I’m working in this company as a vision system engineer.

Shazia Maqbool (senior embedded systems engineer):

My name is Dr Shazia Maqbool. I work as a senior embedded systems engineer. I’m originally from Pakistan. I did my first degree from there, and then I worked for a year there, and then it was in 2001, 12 years ago, that I came here, and since then I’m living here and working here.

Brian Tse (software engineer):

My name is Brian Tse. I’m a software engineer on the vision team. I’m from Hong Kong. I came over to the UK about 15 years ago and throughout this time mostly study, and I graduated last July and, and then moved on to Guidance.

Marina Magnabosco (navigation systems engineer):

I’m Marina Magnabosco, um, I’m a software engineer for Guidance Navigation and I’m Italian, been living, er, in Italy until 2009, since I was born, and been in UK since, so four years now.

Łukasz Gawryluk (production team leader):

My name is Łukasz. I am from Poland. I work for Guidance for two years now. I’m production team leader. I speak, er, Polish and English.

Sharda Bhalsod (purchases and payments supervisor):

My name is Sharda Bhalsod, I’ve been working in this company for past eight years and I work as a purchase payment supervisor. I’m actually born in East Africa, Nairobi, but then I went to India for a few years. I am Hindu. We speak Gujarati. That’s our main language. The company is based in the multicultural city, so that gives a good multicultural understanding, background, and the company employs people from all over the world, so that makes it very interesting to be friends with multicultural people and come to know the backgrounds and technical issues that they bring in.

I celebrate Diwali. I bring in food and everybody joins in. Polish people celebrated their own New Year’s, er, I think the Chinese people did their New Year’s, so, like Muslim people did their Eid, so whoever has their occasion, they all come and celebrate together, and I think everybody enjoys that. So it makes, like a family event when everybody takes part, so it’s really nice to be working for a company that respects individuals.

Narrator:

But cultural differences can sometimes affect the running of an organisation, perhaps influencing the way people behave with or talk to each other. At Guidance, staff at all levels are good at understanding cultural differences and at putting their own culture into perspective.

Łukasz Gawryluk:

I think here in UK everything is less formal and the biggest difference for myself is that you can call your bosses by his, their first names, which is a bit unusual in Poland. In Poland I used to start earlier and also finish earlier. We have actually flexible working hours, er, so I can start few hours later.

Brian Tse:

China in general, the people work for, er, longer hours during the day, and then meetings, er, business meetings, are held over lunch as well as dinner, whereas in UK, generally we have very fixed working hours, so after work, people don’t tend to talk about work too much.

Shazia Maqbool:

Generally speaking, environment in the UK is more informal, more flexible, whereas in Pakistan it is more formal and does not support too much integration, if you like, between people at work. People won’t call each other with their first names at work, for colleagues, they would rather call each other with surnames, Mr and Mrs, and then for boss and for seniors we don’t call them with their names at all. We either call them as Sir or Ma’am.

[cuts to colleagues talking]

Marina Magnabosco:

At the beginning was a bit strange, try to get used to call your boss with his nickname instead of his full name. Talking with colleagues in Italy, you would interrupt each other in a meeting. You might try to find the, the right spot to interrupt people, so always with respect, of course. Certain culture is allowed, some other are not, but from where I come from, I think it is allowed [laugh].

Narrator:

An awareness of linguistic and intercultural differences is essential when conducting business abroad.

James Wheeler, managing director (marine):

This year I’ve been to America, south-east Asia, last year I was in Rio, um, across Europe, and in various places, so I do get to experience not only other cultures and countries but doing business in other places around the world, and it … changes everywhere you go, and people will do and say different things in a different way. Sometimes it’s the tiniest details, so in south-east Asia, for example, or China, if somebody gives you a business card, they give it to you with both hands, and then you receive it with both hands, and then you leave it on the table and you refer to it during the meeting. Well, you wouldn’t do that in America or in Europe.

[cuts to James Grimshaw speaking on the phone]

James Grimshaw (marketing assistant):

So, in order to support the marine division of the company and the products we have a worldwide support network that is made up of 14 service partners. So they’re based in key regions around the world, the States, the Middle East, um, Brazil, India, a lot of key regions, and we use them for service and maintenance of our products, but really the key thing for us is they have a relationship with suppliers in that area. They understand the customers, the traditions, the culture, and they’re the kind of benefits that really, um, you can’t learn here in the UK.

[cuts to Alessandra Bunel speaking Portuguese on the phone]

Narrator:

The company has recently recruited a Brazilian national to be their business development manager in Brazil.

Alessandra Bunel (business development manager):

It is a very potential market. There are lots of progress in Brazil, and the oil and gas industry is booming, but, er, the problem is, is not an easy market to work, so you have to understand the market to work in there. We Brazilians, we have a Latin root, so we’re very personal. We like to interact with people. We like to know who we are actually doing business with, so I believe the reason why Guidance hired me first, I’ve got a good grasp of the language, because Portuguese is my mother tongue language, and communication is very important. Second, I’ve got a very good network, because different than the majority of, er, European countries, you need to know people to do business with them, and networking is really important. I would say that’s important in all the industries, but in Brazil especially, if you know people, they will make your life much easier and they will help you out.

Narrator:

In addition, Guidance sponsors language classes at the workplace for employees involved in business with Brazil.

[cuts to Portuguese class]

James Wheeler:

We sponsor Portuguese classes specifically because we identified Brazil as a target market for us. Brazil is, is fairly unique. The level of English speaking in business is not hugely commonplace. As well as now employing a Brazilian person, we’ve also got our staff involved in learning, er, Portuguese, which is extremely helpful, and whilst they’re not going to become fluent Portuguese speakers, it gives them an appreciation of other languages and other cultures. We’ve learned a lot about Brazil as a consequence, which is really important.

[cuts to Peter Paxton speaking Portuguese on the phone]

Peter Paxton (finance director):

I find it quite difficult to learn languages, so I think it’s very useful to show that you are making an effort when you speak to people in their country.

[cuts to Peter Paxton speaking Portuguese on the phone]

Declan O’Dea (international sales manager (Marine)):

After a year now, I would say that I’m able to understand basic conversation. I can certainly pick up the gist of emails, which is really useful, and I think what is most important in Brazil is to be seen making the effort. So, that first exchange of three or four sentences, if you can say, ‘Hello, how are you doing? How’s business? How’s the family?’ in Portuguese, they love it.

Narrator:

For staff at Guidance, having more than one language or experience of several cultures, are assets that can enhance their career and the profile of the company.

Peter Paxton:

In terms of the CV, yes, I certainly put down that I’ve got the London Chamber of Commerce exam in French and O-level German. I think the conversational Portuguese is stretching the point a little bit, but it certainly helps, I think, shows that you’ve got a, a wider understanding of what’s going on in the world.

Shuja Ahmed:

In my career I believe, er, having a multicultural experience is really, really important. If I apply for a job somewhere and if I mention that I have been to these different countries, and I’m OK going on with people from any different origin, then people really respect my, this adoptive, er, ability, and yeah, it’s, it’s easy getting more job offers from different countries.

Shazia Maqbool:

UK is a multicultural country. It is very commonplace that you will end up finding a multicultural team, yeah. Now, having my background as being part of another culture, you know, it’s very easy for me to connect with, er, with the fears, concerns, motivations, desires of a person with a different culture, yeah, and therefore I feel that it’s very easy for me to connect with them, and I feel that that confidence is very important for any managerial role, it has been very useful, and I really value this experience.

[cuts to Łukasz Gawryluk speaking Polish]

Łukasz Gawryluk:

The fact that I’m bilingual, well, I’m pretty sure it affects my career. Maybe Polish is not so useful like Spanish or German, however it is another skill and I’m pretty sure this is something employers look for. I think it led me do have a look on some things from another point of view.

[cuts to Jan Grothusen speaking German on the phone]

Jan Grothusen:

I’m originally from Germany, Hamburg in the north of Germany, and my main language is obviously German, as a native language, and I speak English, and I’ve got a bit of a knowledge of French and possibly Spanish.

Jan Grothusen

[inaudible] stage gate 2 process, um, if we can have a VOC, voice of customer activity.

Jan Grothusen:

English is a dominant language, but you get a lot further in particular markets by investing into the local language, and apart from all of that, not just from normal business transactions but also just for the social level. You need to establish some rapport with the people you’re dealing with, and then at least they feel you’re not putting your particular view across immediately. You’re not imposing your culture and your interaction onto the meeting. You’re leaving it open, and you’re letting maybe the hosts respond, and you just get a much, much warmer reception.

Narrator:

The management team at Guidance understands that to work successfully in international markets, the company not only has to be outward looking but also ensure that their employees are open to and engaged with the different cultures of the countries in which they do business.

[cuts to Alessandra Bunel speaking Portuguese on the phone]

Narrator:

Celebrating the different cultures of the workforce, sharing experiences about cultural encounters, and encouraging language learning are some of the ways the company goes about achieving this.

[cuts to Portuguese class]

Jan Grothusen:

It’s really important to be aware of all the cultural differences and use the local languages wherever you can.

End transcript: Guidance (Part 2)

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Guidance (Part 2)

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1 What benefits of working in a multicultural and multilingual environment do the Guidance staff list?

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Answer

Guidance’s staff list the following benefits: 

• it encourages ‘multicultural understanding’
• it is interesting to work with people from different backgrounds
• it allows an appreciation of other languages and cultures
• it facilitates the establishment of a rapport with clients in different countries
• it makes it easier to empathise with people from different cultures and see things from a different point of view
• it means that language skills and multicultural experience are prized by employers.

2 What are the differences in cultural working norms that the staff identify?

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Answer

Guidance’s staff list the following cultural differences they have encountered:

• that the business culture in the UK is less formal and more flexible than in other countries
• they can use their bosses’ and colleagues’ first names
• that the UK working day starts and ends later than in other countries, but allows for flexible working
• that business meetings in the UK are rarely held over lunch or dinner, and that people in the UK tend not to talk about work outside their set working hours
• different rules with regard to interrupting in meetings
• different cultural practices around the giving and receiving of business cards.

3 What are the company and its staff doing to meet the challenges of doing business internationally?

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Answer

Guidance uses ‘service partners’ in the regions where they do business, who understand the cultures and traditions of their clients there and can maintain a positive relationship with them. For cultural, linguistic and networking reasons they have appointed a Brazilian business development manager to tap the market in Brazil. They are sponsoring Portuguese language classes for those employees who will be involved in doing business with Brazil. This has taught them a lot about Brazil and is an important factor in building rapport with Brazilian clients.

4.2.1 A multicultural workforce

In the next activity you listen again to Sharda Bhalsod, a Guidance employee, talking about the advantages of working with colleagues from different backgrounds.

Activity 30

Look at this extract from the video you watched in Activity 29, in which Sharda Bhalsod gives her views about working in a multicultural setting. Then answer the questions below.

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Transcript: Guidance (Part 3)

Sharda Bhalsod:

The company’s based in a multicultural city, so that gives good multicultural understanding, background, and the company employs people from all over the world, so that makes it very interesting to be friends with multicultural people and come to know the backgrounds and technical issues that they bring in. I celebrate Diwali. I bring in food, and everybody joins in. The Polish people celebrated their own New Year’s, I think Chinese people did their New Year’s, so, like Muslim did their Eid, so whoever has their occasion, they all come and celebrate together, and I think everybody enjoys that. It makes it like a family event when everybody takes part. So, it’s really nice to be working for a company that respects individuals.

End transcript: Guidance (Part 3)

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Guidance (Part 3)

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1. What two reasons explain why Guidance has such a multicultural workforce?

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• It is based in Leicester, which is a multicultural city.
• It recruits its staff internationally.

2. What example does Sharda Bhalsod give when she says that Guidance respects individuals?

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Answer

In this particular extract, she refers mostly to the company culture that encourages the celebration of different religious and cultural festivals such as Eid, Diwali, and Polish and Chinese New Year celebrations.

4.3 Doing business in different languages

Having a multilingual workforce and doing business around the world has benefits and also poses challenges. You will now begin to explore the issues arising from the use of different languages in such an environment, through the experiences of some of the people you have met in this section. Section 5 will take the subject of multilingual communication further, as you go on to consider the role of the professional translator and interpreter.

Figure 9 Doing business around the world poses challenges

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Figure 9 Doing business around the world poses challenges

4.3.1 Using interpreters

When doing business with international partners, the lack of a shared language can be an issue. Both of the speakers in the next two videos use the term translation as they describe interpreting jobs. These two skills are often confused, and you will learn more about each of them in Activities 31 and 32.

Activity 31

In this video, Declan O’Dea, sales manager at Guidance’s international marine department, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using plurilingual staff as interpreters to facilitate communication in international business situations.

Watch the video and complete the sentences below.

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Transcript: Interpreting (Part 1)

Declan O’Dea, international sales manager (marine):

When I go to meetings in Brazil, in the first year going there on my own, I often had to rely on a service partner, for example, er, translating in the meeting because one thing that surprised me initially was that very few people, um, have fluent English. Depending on the level of education, er, some will have, you know, basic English, but, you know, I was relying on most of the customers being able to understand me and me understand them but that wasn’t the case, so fortunately, that we have a couple of service partners out there who would do the translation. However, it is a disadvantage because you lose control of the situation. You’re relying more on your service partner to deliver your sales message rather than yourself, and of course, you don’t know if they’re doing that effectively or talking about a completely different topic. So, that’s why the Portuguese lessons are a great help because even though it just gives us a basic knowledge, sometimes it’s enough just to pick up what’s being said. If you are using a translator, it means you know the topic and sometimes you can jump in and just indicate by your response that you are understanding, er, you know, the flow of the conversation. You don’t have enough to ever conduct the, er, the discussion totally in Portuguese because you won’t have that level of fluency, but often, it’s very beneficial just to have the gist of what’s being said.

End transcript: Interpreting (Part 1)

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Interpreting (Part 1)

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1. The advantage of using an interpreter is that …

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It enables people to understand what their interlocutor is saying.

2. The disadvantage of this approach is that …

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You rely on somebody else to deliver your sales message and so you lose control of the situation.

3. One way to get around this problem is to make sure you have …

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Answer

A basic knowledge of the other language, so that you can at least figure out the gist of what is being said.

Activity 32

You will now watch another account of an experience involving language mediation, this time from the perspective of the person doing the interpreting. Alessandra Bunel is a business development manager who occasionally also acts as an ad-hoc interpreter. Watch the video and answer the question below.

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Transcript: Interpreting (Part 2)

Alessandra Bunel, business development manager:

I have done this kind of translation a lot and recently, we did a offshore test which I suppose not be involved because that would be a technical job, and the captain which was in charge of the vessel, a whole crew were Portuguese, Brazilian actually, and he asked me to be on board because he, he wasn’t comfortable to communicate. So, was quite a experience because one thing is when you do a translation on like a meeting, which is, there is no risk involved, but we are doing some operations off a vessel and I have to kind of guide the captain which way he should go to move the vessel and everything like left, right, give instructions basically, and it was very tricky, and one thing as well that just make me remember is the fact we Brazilians sometimes speak everybody at the same time [laughs]. So, especially in this situation where I have the captain, I’ve got the pilot, I’ve got some er Brazilians that they were from the [inaudible], and I have some English, em, personnel from Guidance on board. So I could see two or three people speak at the same time and even myself I was confused, so I have to say, ‘Come on, let’s talk one each time’, which is quite common as well. So, I have done this kind of translation on job. It’s very tricky, but it’s very rewarding at the same time because you can make everybody understand each other.

End transcript: Interpreting (Part 2)

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Interpreting (Part 2)

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In what way do the challenges described by Alessandra Bunel differ from those mentioned by Declan O’Dea in the previous step?

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Answer

While Declan O’Dea considered the potential impact of mediation on sales, Alessandra Bunel’s concerns are principally related to safety. She also mentions the added difficulty resulting from the Brazilians’ habit of talking at the same time as each other.

4.3.2 Using a shared language

At the time of writing, English is the default language of international communication, especially in the field of business. When communicating with people with different first languages, native speakers of English need to bear certain considerations in mind.

Activity 33

You will now listen to Nigel White, who you first encountered in Activity 20, when he described his experiences of working as a broker in the City of London. He now specialises in intercultural training for a company called Canning. In this interview, he talks about the responsibilities that speakers have when operating internationally. Listen to the audio clip and answer the questions below.

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Transcript: Communication in the business world

Interviewer:

In the international, global context of communication in business, most of which takes place in English, what do you think people have to do in order to accommodate to that? I mean, is this as much a responsibility of native speakers as it is of everybody else?

Nigel White:

Well, I think you start with the native speakers because we have the, the advantage of being able to do this in our mother tongue, and to show and demonstrate, it’s quite easy, to demonstrate what adjustments they could/should/probably must make to level the playing field. I think that’s an acceptable, offshore English phrase. It’s not about eliminating all colour. I mean, the expression like ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ is understandable in most languages. But if you say, ‘We need to put him bang to rights on that’, or ‘What’s he after?’, that kind of language and the effect, once you’ve identified this for the native speakers is that they stop and start to think a little bit more before they speak, which gives more opportunities to the second-language speakers, which makes them usually but not always, clearer in what they’re saying. So, this is a good thing. Then we need to make other second-language speakers aware of what is it that comes from their language that can cause misunderstandings and issues. Is the objective that we all speak some kind of CNN Hilton-esque? No, it isn’t. It’s to increase awareness and to focus on we need to be clear, we need to control more, so we need to be consciously using much more of ‘So, what you’re saying is … x, y, is that right?’, ‘So, are you asking me about this?’, ‘So, what do you mean by …?’ Yes, that can become irritating if you use it too much but we, we need more of that and we need to be aware of how do we find the right balance between, to get cooperation between being clear on the task and being sensitive to the person. So, different cultures around the world, and it is a generalisation, but we would argue very strongly a truth, there is a tendence [tendency], some cultures, British culture, generally speaking is more sensitive to, to how somebody will react because of language. If we take one example of ‘I’m afraid we can’t …’, when you’re working with most Spanish people they will say, ‘Well, what are you afraid of? Why are you saying “afraid”?’ So, we will use lots of ‘Would you mind if …?’, ‘I wonder if you could possibly …?’, and generally speaking if you’re in Moscow somebody will say, ‘Do it.’ Um, so we need to be aware of that as language trainers and to make learners aware of it at the same time.

End transcript: Communication in the business world

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Communication in the business world

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Decide if the following statements are true or false.

Nigel recommends that ...

Select the answer for

Question 1a

here

1. Native speakers of English should never use metaphorical language.

True

False

 

a. 

True

b. 

False

The correct answer is b.

Discussion

Nigel says that native speakers shouldn’t avoid ‘all colour’ but need to be aware of idiomatic language which non-native speakers might find difficult.

Select the answer for

Question 1b

here

2. Native speakers of English should think carefully about how they phrase their ideas.

True

False

 

a. 

True

b. 

False

The correct answer is a.

Discussion

This has the added advantage of allowing more thinking time for the non-native speaker interlocutor.

Select the answer for

Question 1c

here

3. Non-native speakers of English should be made aware of the direct translations from their own language that can cause communication problems.

True

False

 

a. 

True

b. 

False

The correct answer is a.

Discussion

This is something he mentions. However, it needs to be remembered that not all non-native speaker mistakes come from first-language interference.

Select the answer for

Question 1d

here

4. All speakers should clarify each other’s messages when they are unsure what the other means.

True

False

 

a. 

True

b. 

False

The correct answer is a.

Discussion

Although there is the danger this might get a bit irritating, it is important for smooth communication.

4.4 Doing business in different cultures

So far, the issues that have been discussed in this course have focused primarily on the use of different languages in a business context. However, doing business in international settings is not only about linguistic differences and closing language gaps: cultural differences, something already alluded to by some of the staff at Guidance, can raise just as many issues and are often more difficult to identify and understand.

Activity 34

Watch this video, which is an extract from the one you saw in Activity 29, and features four Guidance staff talking about the differences in cultural expectations and behaviour between the UK and other countries they have worked in. Then answer the questions below.

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Transcript: Cultural expectations

Łukasz Gawryluk:

I think here in UK, everything is less formal, and the biggest difference for myself is that you can call your bosses by his, their first names, which is a bit unusual in Poland. In Poland, I used to start earlier and also finish earlier. We have actually flexible working hours, so I can start a few hours later.

Brian Tse:

China, in general, the people work for longer hours during the day and then meetings and business meetings are held over lunch as well as dinner, whereas in UK, um, generally we have very fixed working hours, so after work, people don’t tend to talk about work too much.

Shazia Maqbool:

Generally speaking, um, environment in UK, it’s more informal, more flexible, whereas in Pakistan, it is more formal and does not support too much integration, if you like, between people at work. People won’t call each other with their first names at work for colleagues, they would rather call each other with surnames, Mr and Mrs, and then for boss and for seniors, we don’t call them with their names at all. We either call them as Sir or Ma’am.

Marina Magnabosco:

At the beginning, it was a bit strange, trying to get used to call your boss with his nickname instead of his full name. Talking with colleagues in Italy, you would interrupt each other and everything. You might try to find the, the right spot to interrupt people, so always with respect, of course. Certain culture is allowed. Some other are not, but from where I come from, I think it is allowed. [laughs]

End transcript: Cultural expectations

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Cultural expectations

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List the examples of countries and behaviours that they mention, dividing their observations into the following areas.

1. Attitudes to time:

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Answer

• In Poland, the working day starts and finishes earlier.
• People have longer working hours in China, and may hold business meetings over lunch or dinner.

2. Attitudes to hierarchy:

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Answer

Poland, Pakistan and Italy are more formal than the UK. More formal forms of address for colleagues and bosses are used in all three countries.

3. Attitudes to turn-taking at meetings:

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Answer

In Italy it is more acceptable to interrupt each other than in the UK.

4. Attitudes to mixing business and personal life:

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Answer

In China it is more common to discuss business outside working hours and to have business meetings over dinner or lunch.

The Guidance employees’ responses show that attitudes and behaviour in different cultures are not always straightforward or predictable. For example, although Italian workplaces are more formal than in the UK in some ways, people are more likely to interrupt each other in meetings.

Remember that supposed characteristics of national behaviour are not absolute and that generalisations of this sort are always potentially risky.

4.4.1 Managing diversity

Diversity is an asset but, as you have just seen in Activity 34, people’s understanding of what constitutes acceptable behaviour at work can differ from one culture to another. So how can staff from different cultures learn to work together?

Activity 35

In this next audio clip, Nigel White discusses recognising differences in any working relationship. He talks specifically from the perspective of someone helping to facilitate a merger between two companies from very different cultural backgrounds. Listen to the audio and complete the task below.

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Transcript: Recognising differences

Interviewer:

So is the key there an awareness, awareness of your own culture and an awareness of the other culture? Does that help people to accommodate?

Nigel White:

Yeah, it does. I mean, we always, always have to be careful that if we focus too much on difference we can reinforce it, er, and that’s one of the challenges we face as facilitators because in these situations where we are usually more facilitating than training. It’s a little bit like if you go on a honeymoon and you recognise there are some things that, you know, he snores and she does strange things with the toothpaste: if we don’t address these things early, it might be a bit painful early on, but in the longer term it’s gonna be a better thing to do. If we skate over the surface we’re leaving problems to build up, so we have to try and get these issues out, but we have to do it in a way that’s always focused on ‘we’ve got to live with each other, we’ve got to work together, we’ve got to find a way, a modus operandi in the new here’.

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Recognising differences

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Summarise Nigel White’s key message in one sentence.

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Answer

Here is one possible answer:

Recognise differences but try to accommodate to them.

In this section, through the example of Guidance Navigation, you have seen how a company can learn to work in a multicultural and multilingual environment, and how this benefits the organisation in terms of its flexibility and potential to innovate. However, it also means that employees have to learn to accommodate different behaviours and adapt their approaches and language use accordingly.

5 Translation and interpreting

In the previous section you considered how important language skills and intercultural competence are to any working environment where staff or clients speak different languages or have different cultural backgrounds. But there is one particular sector that specifically relies on these skills, namely translating and interpreting. You will now take a closer look at these professions and will see that while the two modalities are very different from each other, they also have much in common.

5.1 What is interpreting about?

Interpreting is the spoken mediation of a message delivered by a speaker of one language to a listener who does not understand that language. Interpreting takes place in a range of contexts (such as daily community life, international conferences, business meetings and courts) using a variety of modalities (such as simultaneous, consecutive, whispering and liaison interpreting). In addition to having an excellent command of both languages, the interpreter must have a number of other professional, technical and interpersonal skills, and must adhere to a strict code of professional ethics.

Figure 10 Whispering interpreting at an international meeting

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This photo shows the interpreter (left) whispering her interpretation of the speech of the speaker (right) to the listener (centre).

Figure 10 Whispering interpreting at an international meeting

Activity 36

In the following extract from the television series Bakeation, Dave and Si (the ‘Hairy Bikers’) are questioning a Spanish baker about her methods, helped by an ad hoc interpreter who tries to translate a Spanish saying. Despite the Hairy Bikers’ best efforts to understand both parties, they finally resign themselves to the communication breakdown and move on. Watch the video and answer the questions below.

Download this video clip.Video player: The missing word

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Transcript: The missing word

[whispering]

Baker:

Lo tapamos para que no enfríe deprisa …

[Caption: We cover it so that it does not cool down too fast.]

Dave Myers:

Sí.

Baker:

Para que el calor termine de hacer la miga por dentro. El pan lo tenemos que tener en fermentación tapado …

[Caption: so that its own heat finishes the cooking from within. We must keep the bread covered … ]

Dave Myers:

Sí.

Baker:

Ya cuando sale de cocer …

[Caption: when it comes out of the oven]

Dave Myers:

Sí.

Baker:

Porque en Asturias hay un dicho …

[Caption: because in Asturias we have a saying that goes …]

Si King:

Asturias, tradition in Asturia [Asturias], yeah …

Baker:

En Asturias, que dice ‘El pan y el niño en agosto tiene frío’.

[Caption: … ‘bread and babies will be cold even in August’.]

Si King:

Bravo, María, bravo!

Off-screen speaker:

Can you translate …?

Interpreter:

The bread must be kept, er, to keep the humidity.

Si King:

Yes.

Interpreter:

And, er, she told also that here in Asturias, it, it is said that in August, because of this, the humidity, and, in August, childs and, um, bread must be keep.

Si King:

Ah, OK. Child, so children and bread must be kept?

Interpreter:

Yes.

Si King:

Ah, OK. So, so they don’t go out in the hot sun?

Interpreter:

What?

Si King:

I don’t know, just a suggestion. [laughs]

Dave Myers:

That smells great. Wahey, back to the job.

End transcript: The missing word

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The missing word

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1 At which point did the communication breakdown occur?

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Answer

The communication breakdown occurred when the interpreter tried (and failed) to translate an idiomatic Spanish saying.

2 What caused the communication breakdown?

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The interpreter clearly omits a word when he says ‘must be keep’. If you speak Spanish, you can see that he should have said, ‘Children and bread must both be kept covered’. Instead, he says ‘must be keep’, which does not make sense in this context.

3 How did Hairy Biker Si try to help?

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By indicating through his behaviour that the interpreter has got his full attention, using words like ‘yes’ and ‘OK’; repeating sentences and trying to guess or supply the missing information.

4 What did Dave and Si do when they finally gave up on trying to understand

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Answer

Si puts his arm round the interpreter’s shoulders (a friendly gesture expressing support), and Dave puts an end to an embarrassing situation by moving swiftly on to the next task (a face-saving strategy).

In a friendly environment, people will normally do their best to understand each other by using a range of strategies. However, when a professional interpreter is present, the idea is to allow communication to flow naturally as if both parties were using the same language. A good interpreter is inconspicuous and should be ‘invisible’ in the sense that the two parties feel that they are communicating directly with each other without an intermediary.

5.2 Comparing translating and interpreting

Figure 11 Interpreting involves spoken language, translation involves written language

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The photograph shows a woman sitting at a desk, talking into a microphone.

Figure 11 Interpreting involves spoken language, translation involves written language

The main difference between translating and interpreting is that translation uses the written language whereas interpreting uses the spoken language. While both share many features, the fact that they use different channels (visual versus auditory) results in some important differences.

5.2.1 Two different professions

Insofar as translation means turning a message from one language into another, translating and interpreting can both be defined as types of translation. However, there are also some differences between the two modalities. While a translator may occasionally act as an interpreter and vice versa, these are two distinct professions with very different demands.

The following extract is a personal account by Sarah Halys, a professional translator, who describes her experiences the first time she was asked to step out of her specialist area and do an interpreting job.

Translators normally work by themselves with a text that is fixed and complete. They can think at length about language choices, look things up, take breaks and revise what they have written. Interpretation, on the other hand, generally takes place in a group of people and the interpreter must interact with these people in real time. This means that whereas a translation can be fine-tuned, the instant turnaround required of an interpreter means that they must go straight to the core meaning of the language to be mediated.

While a translator must be good at writing, possibly in different specific styles, an interpreter must have the ability to speak to people, perhaps from different backgrounds and in different settings. Interpretation may also involve speaking in multiple languages – in other words, within one conversation a Spanish/English interpreter may have to switch between interpreting Spanish-to-English to Person A and English-to-Spanish to Person B. Some translators may also work in both directions but this is highly unusual. Interpretation also poses particular challenges for the concentration, memory and note-taking skills of the interpreter. In simultaneous interpretation they must listen and speak at the same time; in consecutive interpretation, the statement to be interpreted may be long and complex before there is a break to repeat it in the target language. You will learn more about these two kinds of interpreting in the next section.

5.3 Methods of interpreting

Interpreting can itself take many forms, depending on the languages that need to be translated into and from, the number of speakers and listeners involved, the facilities available, the formality of the occasion, and so on.

• In simultaneous interpreting, the interpreter delivers the message in the target language while the speaker continues to speak in the source language without stopping. The simultaneous interpreter usually works in a sound-proofed booth, listening to the speaker through headphones and conveying what is said into the target language through a microphone into the headphones of the listeners.
• In consecutive interpreting, the interpreter speaks after the speaker finishes or pauses their speech. The consecutive interpreter generally sits next to the speaker and takes notes to aid their memory of what has been said.
• Whispered interpreting is essentially simultaneous interpreting but with the interpreter speaking softly into the ear of a listener rather than working in a separate booth with a headset. For practical reasons, whispered interpreting is usually only used in one-to-one meetings.

Figure 12 Consecutive interpreting

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This photo shows two people sitting at a table. The speaker is looking at his notes while the interpreter relays what has just been said.

Figure 12 Consecutive interpreting

• When there are a large number of source and target languages involved (for example, in major international conferences), it may not be possible to find interpreters for all possible language combinations. In such cases a method known as relay interpreting may be used. It consists of getting an interpreter competent in the relevant source language to interpret into a language common to all of the other interpreters present, so that each of them can then render the message into their own target language. For example, a message in Swahili might first be rendered into English and then into a number of other target languages.
• In conversational situations, a single interpreter may be used as the only mediator through the entire conversation, alternating languages as different speakers take their turn. This is known as liaison interpreting. It is a highly demanding modality due to the constant language switches involved.
• Sight interpreting is a peculiar mixture of interpreting and translation, where the interpreter relays in speech the content of a written document to one or more listeners. It is sometimes used in legal or medical contexts, where previously unseen documents may become available during the proceedings.
• Remote interpreting, where the interpreter is not physically present in the same location as the speakers and listeners, has become another option since the arrival of technological advances such as video conferencing. This is especially useful when an interpreter is needed at short notice and/or there are few local interpreters available.

As you can see, there are a number of different forms of interpreting, but the mechanics are only one of the elements that differentiate one form from another. To gain a better understanding of interpreting professions, it is essential to consider the social contexts in which interpreting is performed.

5.4 The contexts of interpreting

Interpreting may be used in any situation where people who do not speak each other’s language need to communicate with each other. Such situations are a common occurrence in a variety of social contexts. Some of these contexts involve very specific communication needs and constraints, therefore a variety of specialist areas have emerged in the interpreting profession. Settings may include community, conference, business and court interpreting. Here you will look at court interpreting.

5.4.1 Who is entitled to a court interpreter?

Under the legal system of England and Wales, everyone should have equal access to justice. (This is, of course, also true of Scotland and Northern Ireland, but since they have distinct legal systems, the following examples refer only to England and Wales.) Access to an interpreting service is therefore necessary to ensure fairness and equality where a defendant, litigant or witness cannot speak or understand English or is subject to another linguistic challenge such as deafness or hearing impairment. But who should be responsible for providing this service and who should pay for it?

5.4.2 Remaining impartial

Figure 13 Court interpreting poses particular challenges

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The photo shows the imposing façade of the central law courts in Caen, France.

Figure 13 Court interpreting poses particular challenges

You might have noticed from personal experience or from watching courtroom dramas on television, for example, that the behaviour of witnesses may affect their credibility in the eyes of the jury, and this also extends to their language. Where a testimony is mediated by an interpreter, this could have potentially serious consequences for fairness and equality. In a research paper published in 1996, Gibbons and Grabau considered how the conduct of a court interpreter might influence the legal process. As might be expected of a legal journal, the language in this extract is quite complex.

Gibbons and Grabau based their discussion on an experiment investigating how the English-language interpretation of testimonies given in Spanish influenced the perception of the credibility of witnesses in the eyes of mock jurors. Interpreters will often use a polite form of address even if such was not used in the original. An example of this is the witness saying ‘No’, and the interpreter saying ‘No, sir’. Research suggested that jurors viewed witnesses who used terms like ‘sir’, ‘ma’am’ or ‘miss’ relatively more favourably. Other interpreters rendered the Spanish testimony of witnesses into a more formal style of English than was the case in the original Spanish. These witnesses were evaluated more favourably than those whose testimony was interpreted in a less formal style. On the other hand, witnesses whose testimony was interpreted in the passive voice were generally evaluated as less intelligent or trustworthy than those whose utterances in Spanish were interpreted in the active voice. ‘Hedging’ (avoiding making a definite statement) and the use of words like ‘well’ were considered to indicate uncertainty in a witness, so the addition or deletion of such words by the interpreter could affect the perceived credibility of a witness.

Gibbons and Grabau concluded that:

5.4.3 Accuracy versus effectiveness

Court interpreters face further challenges, such as when court personnel use language whose literal translation may be confusing to a witness, or when a witness makes a slip of the tongue, the literal translation of which could create confusion. Court rules require that interpreters should translate exactly what has been said, preserving the original linguistic register, and should not address questions directly to witnesses to request clarification. But what if following these rules to the letter creates obstacles to communication? Can court rules come into conflict with the need for interpreting to be fair and equitable?

These examples and the research reported by Gibbons and Grabau (1996) show that the performance of an interpreter may affect how the jury views what happens in court. The researchers conclude that, just as the appearance and behaviour of a witness affects their credibility in court, the performance of an interpreter as they relay the words of a witness may influence how the witness is perceived by the jury in the areas of convincingness, competence, intelligence and trustworthiness, all of which are important to their overall credibility. Therefore, it is essential to have qualified, trained interpreters in court. You will look at the skills required for interpreting in the next section.

5.5 Computers and translation

Translating requires knowledge of both language and culture, as well as problem-solving skills and creativity. A professional translator who has mastered these skills is always better suited to the job than a machine. However, there are aspects of translation that a computer can handle very well, so that human and computer together make an excellent team. In this section you will find out more about the role of computers in translation, and will consider the differences between machine translation and computer-aided translation.

Computer-assisted translation is where professional translators use computers to help them access, develop and search terminology databases, where words and phrases can be entered along with the users’ own translations, sometimes as well as additional contextual information. This method can be time-consuming in the beginning, but can save time in the long run, particularly for specialised translation. A legal translator, for example, may spend hours translating one short piece of text because it contains phrases that need checking against the respective legal systems. Professional translation software will help them to easily reapply this work where appropriate at a later stage.

5.5.1 The back-translation test

There are many translation tools freely available online. You may already be familiar with Google Translate, for example. In the next few activities you will apply a simple technique to compare its performance in different languages.

The English text (Text 1) below has been put through an online translation tool to translate it into French and Urdu, and then both translations were retranslated back into English. This procedure is known as back-translation.

5.5.2 The limits of computer translation

One advantage of using translating software is that it can deal with many more languages than any human ever could, and it can translate between them extremely quickly. In the early days of machine translation there was much excitement about the possibilities, but also some worry that eventually computers would replace human translators.

Online translators are constantly improving as they access an ever-larger corpus of (human-generated) translations. As mentioned previously, this is why tools such as Google Translate work better for frequently translated languages, such as French, than for languages such as Urdu, where the corpus of translations is much smaller. Even so, quirky and unusual turns of phrase will continue to be a problem for translation software. Judging to what extent ‘equivalence of meaning’ has been achieved in a translation should always be left to a human language expert.

5.6 Improving a translation

Editing is an important part of translation. You will now try your hand at polishing an extract from a French newspaper article about Chinese immigrant children in Paris, which was translated into English using an online translation tool.

5.7 Mediating through ‘transcreation’

Translating literature requires a large amount of creativity on the part of the translator, but there is another area where highly creative approaches to translation are equally in demand: marketing. When creating high-impact promotional content, such as global advertising campaigns, straight translation is rarely enough. Culturally inappropriate translations of marketing material can potentially cost millions. Conversely, a creative approach that is well adapted to the target market can prove very effective and lucrative.

5.7.1 The skills of a transcreationist

As you have just learned, transcreation involves a complex range of skills. In the next activity you will examine a few examples illustrating the specific relevance each of these skills can have in the process of mediating culture through transcreation.

Activity 46

Select the answer for

Question 1a

here

Read through the four further examples of transcreation shown below. Decide which skills and what knowledge the transcreationist needed in each case. (Note that each example of transcreation may have required more than one set of skills/knowledge.)

Example 1

Car maker Volkswagen is using its ‘Das Auto’ line worldwide. It highlights the fact that the cars come from Germany – a country known for high-quality engineering.

But in Brazil the strategy has backfired.

The VW Beetle was made there for decades, and the brand was seen as an ‘honorary Brazilian’. This was reflected in its previous slogan, ‘você conhece, você confia’ (‘you know, you trust’). By emphasizing its foreign-ness, VW threw away an emotional bond built up over many years.

By contrast, the German line was well received in Russia. Market research is crucial!

(Humphrey et al., 2011)

(a) Market awareness

(b) Linguistic knowledge

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

 

a. 

(a) Market awareness

b. 

(b) Linguistic knowledge

c. 

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

d. 

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

e. 

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

f. 

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

The correct answers are a, c, d and e.

Answer

The required skills are (a), (e) and, to a limited extent, (c) and (d). The transcreationist would have needed more market awareness, including some understanding of the trade history of Volkswagen in Brazil, as well an understanding of psychological factors governing trust in a product.

Select the answer for

Question 1b

here

Example 2

Northern Ireland has a strong sectarian divide between Catholics and Protestants that does not exist elsewhere in the UK.

In 1690, Protestant King William of Orange defeated a Catholic army.

Ever since, orange has been a symbol of Protestantism.

Mobile network Orange had great success with the tagline ‘The future’s bright, the future’s Orange’ on the UK mainland, but this would not have gone down well with the Catholic population in Northern Ireland.

(Humphrey et al., 2011)

(a) Market awareness

(b) Linguistic knowledge

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

 

a. 

(a) Market awareness

b. 

(b) Linguistic knowledge

c. 

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

d. 

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

e. 

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

f. 

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

The correct answers are c and d.

Answer

A knowledge of the sectarian nature of Northern Irish society (d) and the history of Ireland (c) was needed to avoid a marketing disaster.

Select the answer for

Question 1c

here

Example 3

Figure 14 ‘A pleasure in the mouth’

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A Coca-Cola bottle with Chinese writing on it

Figure 14 ‘A pleasure in the mouth’

When Chinese shops first imported Coca-Cola in the 1920s, they wrote the name in Chinese characters.

Unlike our letters, Chinese characters have both a meaning and a sound.

The characters pronounced ‘Coca-Cola’ often had nonsensical meanings like ‘mare stuffed with wax’ or ‘bite the wax tadpole’. So for its official Chinese launch in 1928, the brand chose a different name: 可口可樂 (in original traditional form).

The pronunciation was only slightly different (‘Kokou-Kolay’), and it meant ‘a pleasure in the mouth’. It is a transcreation that is almost as successful as the brand behind it.

(Humphrey et al., 2011)

(a) Market awareness

(b) Linguistic knowledge

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

 

a. 

(a) Market awareness

b. 

(b) Linguistic knowledge

c. 

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

d. 

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

e. 

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

f. 

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

The correct answer is b.

Answer

Linguistic knowledge (b), including knowledge of phonology and the correlation between the written sign and its sound in Chinese, was needed to come up with this solution.

Select the answer for

Question 1d

here

Example 4

Luxury French hotel brand Sofitel took a novel approach to creating a signature for use on the French and English versions of its website. Instead of creating one in English, and then having it transcreated into French, or vice-versa, they came up with ‘Life is Magnifique’.

The dual-language line works in both France and the UK, as the word ‘magnifique’ sounds similar enough to the English word ‘magnificent’ for it to be understood by the English audience, while the word ‘life’ is easy for French people to understand. Yet at the same time, the overall line has a certain feel of French elegance.

(Humphrey et al., 2011)

(a) Market awareness

(b) Linguistic knowledge

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

 

a. 

(a) Market awareness

b. 

(b) Linguistic knowledge

c. 

(c) Understanding of the history of the target culture

d. 

(d) Understanding of the target culture today

e. 

(e) Understanding of psychological factors

f. 

(f) Awareness of stereotypes

The correct answers are b, d and f.

Answer

The correct answers are (f), and also (b) and (d). The campaign was built on stereotypical views of the French as particularly elegant. The creator of this campaign also needed the cultural and linguistic knowledge to judge whether the code-switching in the slogan was easy to understand and would be received positively in both France and Britain.

5.8 Mediation and power

Being plurilingual puts individuals in a powerful position. It is through mediation between languages that they can exercise this power, but with power come responsibility and duty. In order to provide a faithful translation of the original, it is the mediator’s duty to be impartial, to follow ethical principles, and to remain true to the source.

A translator working on written text usually also has the opportunity to check that what they intend to do is acceptable to the parties concerned. In the next activity you will look at an example of this in practice.

5.9 Subtitling

Subtitling is a specialised branch of translation, and comes with its own challenges. In order to ensure that subtitles can be read easily and quickly, they have to adhere to strict rules, such as respecting the maximum number of characters per line, no splitting of words, etc. It also needs to be borne in mind that people process written language more slowly than spoken, so the subtitler often has to cut out non-essential meanings while trying to remain faithful to the original. Working within these parameters, translators writing subtitles still have to give as faithful a rendering of the original as they can.

Activity 48

Watch the following Hairy Bikers video, where the producers deliberately use inaccurate subtitles to make fun of Dave and Si, and later explain how the joke came about. Then answer the questions below.

Download this video clip.Video player: Using the language gap

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Transcript: Using the language gap

Richard Sharman:

This contributor spoke no English. He spoke Italian, um, very, very fast as his colleague pointed out. So, it just seemed to ram home that it, it sounded utterly impossible for anybody to understand. It’s that kind of thing where you’d think as a, as a native English speaker that this is a language that nobody could ever understand, so it just seemed like an impregnable wall. Um, and I think that was spotted by the editor I was working with to give him credit.

He said, ‘Why don’t we have some fun with this?’ because, you know, it just sounds so mad that this could actually be intelligible to anybody. Um, so we just innovated this idea that we would give subtitles, but they would not necessarily be trustworthy ones. And we felt we were allowed to do that because it was the bikers, and we could have a bit of fun.

Dave Myers (narrating):

Fed’s mate, Chicco, is one of the chefs here. He’s a local lad and has agreed to show us how to make his family’s version of Ferrara’s pasta pie.

Si King:

Hey, Chicco.

Federico Pellegrini:

Chicco.

Dave Myers:

Hi, Chicco.

[on screen caption points to Chicco Calanchi]

Federico Pellegrini:

Oh, fantastic.

Si King:

So is this the pastry, Chicco?

Chicco Calanchi:

Questa è la pasta frolla.

Federico Pellegrini:

Chicco don’t speak English but speaking Italian very, very quickly.

[interposing voices] [laughter]

Dave Myers (narrating):

Hold on a minute. Italian? Very fast? Oh, we’re going to struggle with that.

Si King: (narrating):

Ah, but luckily, our director speaks Italian, and he’s offered to put subtitles on to explain what Chicco was saying. How fab’s that, dude?

Chicco Calanchi:

Adesso bisogna spiegargli che comunque la dobbiamo fare riposare trenta minuti.

[caption on screen: Are these two clowns going to do anything or just watch?]

[interposing voices]

Dave Myers (narrating):

Hang on. I smell a rat. I think the director is having a bit of a laugh.

Si King (narrating):

At our expense.

Chicco Calanchi:

Quando diventa liquido ma ancora prima che bolla, come dire che frigga, cominciamo a aggiungere la farina. La tostiamo nel burro, farina e burro tostati insieme.

[caption on screen: Weren’t Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver available? Or even Gino D’Acampo? I’ll do the flour and butter …]

Si King:

So flour and butter …

Dave Myers:

… Flour and butter cooked together.

Chicco Calanchi:

Piano piano del latte.

[caption on screen: … why don’t you two pop out and get me a latte?

Dave Myers:

Just milk?

Federico Pellegrini:

Yes, but warm it.

Dave Myers:

Warm milk?

[interposing voices]

Dave Myers (narrating):

Right, seeing as these subtitles don’t seem to be reliable, we’d better tell you what’s going on. Chicco is making béchamel sauce, and he starts by adding flour to melted butter.

Si King (narrating):

But he seems in no hurry.

Si King:

Helping Chicco, the king of the béchamel sauce.

Federico Pellegrini:

You fall in love with many, many, many women with this recipe.

Si King:

There you go, lads, teenagers, anybody that’s on the pull, learn how to cook, you’re laughing.

Dave Myers:

See? There’s passion in the pan.

Chicco Clalanchi:

Questo l’ho capito anch’io.

[caption on screen: In their dreams, eh!]

Dave Myers:

Right. That’s it. Enough of this subtitles lark.

Richard Sharman:

Um, I was concerned slightly that we were going to misrepresent him, so, er, I made sure to clear it with him, um, and talk about it with his colleague and show them a little cut of the piece, but, er, they were very happy. So, really, it was just, it was for fun. It was just to make a comic effect in programme.

End transcript: Using the language gap

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1. When is it OK to do something like this?
2. Where would you draw the line?
3. Have you experienced anything similar in your own life?

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Discussion

Your answers here will depend on your own views and experiences, but here are some thoughts.

The producer shows that he is fully aware of the ethical considerations of using wrong/joke subtitles, and confirms that he sought permission from the Italian chef. It would not be OK to leave the victim of the joke entirely in the dark, for example, by widely distributing an unfaithfully subtitled film while leaving the contributors to believe that their speech has been rendered accurately. Nor would it be OK to introduce invented content that is offensive.

6 Interview with Reeta Chakrabarti

In this section you will listen to an interview with BBC correspondent Reeta Chakrabarti, whose plurilingual background and life experience illustrate key themes of this course. Reeta Chakrabarti was born in England to Bengali parents, who spoke English to their daughter but Bengali to each other. She learned French at school and then at university, where her course also included a year abroad in France. Reeta has worked for the BBC since the 1990s and has been a political correspondent in Westminster since 1999. In an interview recorded for this course, she reflects about aspects of different languages and cultures that have shaped her identity.

Figure 15 Reeta Chakrabarti

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Figure 15 Reeta Chakrabarti

Activity 49

Listen to Reeta Chakrabarti’s account of her time at school in India and her thoughts on how languages affect encounters with other people. Make a note of the key points she mentions under each of the headings below.

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Transcript: Reeta Chakrabarti

Interviewer:

You went to school in India for a while, was that an English-medium school?

Reeta Chakrabarti:

Yes, it was. I went twice. I went once when I was nine, and that was just for a few months, and it was an English-medium school, and then I went again when I was 15 and that was for 18 months, and I did my O-levels there, (this was in the eighties), and that was also an English-medium school, and it was an international school, so there were children from all over the world there, most of them part of the Indian diaspora, but not all. Er, and I loved it, I really loved it. I loved the fact that there were different nationalities, different languages, we all spoke English but there was a certain amount of Bengali as well, and for me it was a nice buffer really between, you know, leaving the UK and arriving in this exciting, but very strange and different place, which was India.

Interviewer:

What language was spoken in the playground?

Reeta Chakrabarti:

English, yeah.

Interviewer:

Because that was the common language?

Reeta Chakrabarti:

That was the common language, yeah.

Interviewer:

Some people are said to be gifted for languages, for learning languages, did it come easily to you? You said French was a bit difficult at first.

Reeta Chakrabarti:

Yes, French was difficult at first and I think it was more a question of my putting my mind to it and deciding that’s what I wanted to do. I think I’m better at some aspects of language than others. Er, with French, for example, I’m very literary, I love literature, I did English and French at university, and so when I did French, um, the thing I really loved was the studying of French literature, but also the spoken word. I got a great deal out of my year abroad in France, I really loved it, and I became really a good speaker, but I was not very good at, um, writing French, and that’s partly laziness, but I also sometimes wonder, is it because I have oral Bengali? And perhaps I’m quite good at communicating, but not actually particularly good at writing.

Interviewer:

They say language learning opens doors to cultures,have you found that the languages you speak helped you get to know other cultures or people better?

Reeta Chakrabarti:

Yes, very much so, very much so. You can get under the skin of a culture in the way that you can’t if you don’t speak the language, and you can make connections with people, have very immediate connections with them if you speak the language and that’s true, true in India and in France, and we all know when we go on holiday, don’t we, if you can speak a few words of the local language, people appreciate it and you can just get on better with people.

Um, one other occasion, when I was in Calcutta and I was, I was quite young, I was in my early twenties, and I was wandering around a market, and there were two other young women there, Bengali women, and one nudged the other and said, ‘Etake dhak, etake dhak’ which means, ‘Look at this one, look at this one’, and I turned round and glared at them, and they looked very worried and said, ‘Oh Bangla bhoje’, which means, ‘She understands Bengali’, and I burst out laughing actually because they looked so mortified, and I said, ‘Yes, my parents are Bengali’, and we, and then it was a warm exchange, and that was nice, and that sort of brought us together.

Interviewer:

Do you feel sometimes you become almost a different person in a different language?

Reeta Chakrabarti:

Yes, a little bit, a little bit. Um, again, going back to the uncles who would tease me, and still do, they say when I speak Bengali I sound like a child, I’m a ‘chibya chibya bholi’ which means I, I chew the language because it’s, it’s more, I think you use your tongue more in Bengali and so there’s a slight amount of chewing, um, so yes, I think, er, in Bengali I do. I probably become a bit younger because I’m feeling my way round the language more. Er, French it’s harder for me to tell but I’ve seen it in reverse. I’ve seen people, because when I spent time in France, I was teaching in two schools and we came to Britain with some of the children, came to, er, Oxford to travel round, and, um, one of the teachers who I liked very much in France, in French, when she spoke English became terribly artificial and simpering, and I know that friends of mine didn’t like her, French friends of mine didn’t like her and in French I couldn’t understand why, and in English I could.

End transcript: Reeta Chakrabarti

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Reeta Chakrabarti

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Multicultural experience in an English-medium school in India:

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Answer

Reeta Chakrabarti loved her experiences at this school. Her classmates came from all over the world, so were from different national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. They all spoke English as a lingua franca, but some Bengali was also spoken.

Different levels of competency French and Bengali:

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Answer

Reeta Chakrabarti’s French is a result of her decision to study the language at university. She has literary French (from her university study) and her spoken French (acquired during her year abroad) is good, but her written French is less developed.

Bengali is largely a spoken language for her.

Value of any level of language skills:

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Answer

Reeta Chakrabarti says that you need to speak the language to ‘get under the skin of a culture’ which means that you can make very immediate connections with people. Speaking even a few words is usually appreciated by locals and you often get on better with people if you share a language. She recounts an incident in a market in Calcutta, where her language skills allowed her to overhear two local women talking about her. However, these language skills also helped her to defuse the situation, resulting in a ‘warm exchange’ with the women, that ‘brought [them] together’.

The way people express themselves in different languages affects how others see them:

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Answer

Reeta Chakrabarti recounts how her uncles tease her for speaking Bengali like a child. She says she may ‘become a bit younger’ when she speaks Bengali because she is feeling her way round the language.

Reeta Chakrabarti mentions the example of a French teacher friend who sounded ‘artificial and simpering’ when she spoke English, which was not something Reeta had picked up from speaking French with her.

Conclusion

In this free course, Exploring languages and cultures, you explored the multiple relationships between languages and cultures and the way these work at an individual level and within the workplace. You considered intercultural encounters and how people from one culture may be led to make generalisations about those of another culture. However, you also considered the importance – particularly within the professional environment, and when operating on a global level – of intercultural and multicultural perspectives and insights, and how these insights can help overcome negative initial impressions of others. You considered the vital role that English can play as a lingua franca – when operating across linguistic and cultural boundaries – but also the difficulties of communicating successfully in English as a second language. Finally, you considered how interpreting and translating provide a way to address such problems, but also demonstrate the complexities of mediating between speakers of different languages from both a linguistic and a cultural perspective.

Glossary

Argument by analogy:

an argument which involves comparing two different things in order to highlight a perceived similarity. For example, ‘Raising children is like training horses: you only succeed if you strike the right balance between trust and discipline’.

Auditory:

concerned with hearing. Speaking and listening both use the auditory channel.

Back-translation:

the process by which a translated text is translated back into its original language. Comparing the retranslated text with the original is one means of assessing the quality of the initial translation.

Channel:

the mode of transmission – visual, auditory or tactile – through which a message is communicated. Different media may belong to the same channel. For example, books may be available in different media (print or ebook), but in both cases information is conveyed through the visual channel.

Community of practice:

a group of people who form in pursuit of a mutual endeavour. Communities of practice ‘are focused on a domain of knowledge and over time accumulate expertise in this domain. They develop their shared practice by interacting around problems, solutions, and insights, and building a common store of knowledge’ (Wenger, 2001, p. 1).

Computer-assisted translation/computer-aided translation (CAT):

translation that is carried out by a human with the help of tools such as terminology managers, corpora and translation memory tools.

Consecutive interpreting

a method of interpreting where the speaker stops speaking to allow the interpreter to relay the message in part or in full.

Corpus (pl. corpora):

an online collection of texts, which may include printed books, newspapers and transcriptions of recordings from spoken interactions. The technology allows these to be searched through in a matter of seconds, for example to find patterns in the usage of words.

Generalisation:

an argument which involves basing general propositions on the observation of particular details. For example, ‘In a sample of 1000 US residents, 59% had blue or green eyes and 41% had brown eyes. Therefore, over half of the American population have blue or green eyes.’

Intercultural competence:

a person’s ability to communicate with people from other cultures in a manner that is both effective and appropriate.

Intercultural competencies:

the ‘knowledge, skills and attitudes that comprise a person’s ability to get along with, work and learn with people from diverse cultures.’ (The Higher Education Academy, 2014.)

Intercultural competence:

a person’s ability to communicate with people from other cultures in a manner that is both effective and appropriate.

Interpreting:

in a multilingual context, the action of turning speech from one language into another. Interpreting may also be used between a sign language and a spoken language.

Liaison interpreting:

interpreting where a single interpreter renders both sides of a two-way conversation, switching language as speakers take their turns.

Jargon:

‘applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons’ (Oxford University Press, 1989).

Lexis:

the vocabulary of a language.

Lingua franca:

A language used by speakers of different languages as a common medium of communication; a common language.

Mediation:

the process of acting as a link between two people or things. In the context of multilingual and intercultural communication, the term ‘mediation’ generally refers to translation, interpreting, or any other intervention aimed at facilitating communication between people from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds.

Nominalisation:

the grammatical process by which actions, events, qualities of events and qualities of objects are represented, not as verbs, adjectives and adverbs, but as nouns (things, concepts). This process in its simplest form involves using a verb as a noun. For example, ‘when you arrive’ becomes ‘on your arrival’. Sometimes a structural transformation of the verb is involved, often with the addition of a suffix, e.g. ‘precipitate’ becomes ‘precipitation’.

Overgeneralisation:

a generalisation, based on little evidence, that is applied more widely than it should be. For example, ‘I know two blue-eyed men and they are both very poor dancers: blue-eyed men are poor dancers.’

Relay interpreting:

the relaying of a message from a particular source language into a language common to all interpreters, who then render the content into their own target language.

Remote interpreting:

interpreting performed at a distance, when participants are in different physical locations.

Sight interpreting:

a method of interpreting where a written text in the source language is rendered orally into the target language.

Simultaneous interpreting:

a method of interpreting where the interpreter relays the message without the speaker stopping speaking.

Slang:

a ‘type of language consisting of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people: “grass is slang for marijuana”’ (Oxford University Press, 1989). Slang is often used by the underworld or by particular subcultures in order to assert their group identity and make their speech incomprehensible to outsiders.

Sociolect:

a ‘variety of a language used by a particular social group or class’ (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Subculture:

an ‘identifiable subgroup within a society or group of people, especially one characterized by beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger group; the distinctive ideas, practices, or way of life of such a subgroup’ (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Tactile:

concerned with touch. The Braille system uses a tactile channel to enable blind and partially sighted people to read and write.

Terminology:

‘the system of terms belonging to any science or subject’ (Oxford University Press, 1989).

Translation:

‘the action or process of turning one language into another; also, the product of this; a version in a different language’ (Oxford University Press, 1989). (In that sense, interpreters and translators both produce translations. However, the term translation normally refers to written translation, whereas spoken translation is referred to as interpreting.)

Visual:

concerned with seeing. Writing, reading and sign language all use the visual channel.

Whispered interpreting:

a form of simultaneous interpreting where interpreters whisper into the ear of the listener instead of using interpreting equipment.

References

Acknowledgements

This free course was written by María Fernández-Toro.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated in the acknowledgements section, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course:

Images

Course image: © V. Jung/F1 Online/Corbis

Figure 1 © Silvia Bogdanski/Thinkstock

Figure 2 © Professor Mike Byram.

Figure 3 © Paul Thompson Images/Alamy

Figure 4 © Nigel White

Figure 5 © Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Figure 6 © Guidance Marine Expert Positioning Technology

Figure 7 © Cartoon Stock

Figure 8 © Guidance Navigation Ltd

Figure 9 © Clear Focus

Figure 12 © Bill Alder

Figure 13 © Ann Alder

Figure 14 © istockphoto.com/robtek

Figure 15 © Richard Gardner/REX/Shutterstock

Videos

‘Dave tries out his French’, ‘The missing word’, and ‘Using the language gap’ © BBC

Text

Reading 1: extract from Evans, S. (2012) ‘Frugality rules at German dinner parties’, BBC News Magazine [Online].

Activity 11: definition of ‘lingua franca’ adapted from Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Activity 25: Version 1 from Wikipedia.

Reading 7: extract from Bass, S. (2013) ‘Transcreation for marketing: why you need it more than translation!’, ALT TranslationWireBlog, 14 August [Blog]. Available at http://blog.advancedlanguage.com/blog/bid/331074/Transcreation-for-Marketing-Why-you-need-it-more-than-translation.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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