What English Do I Need?

by Marina Bezrukova, Khakasia, Russia

Various traditions of education have always placed an importance on the learning of other languages, though the motives have often varied. Knowing a second or third language was supposed to round out an individual’s personal education, just as knowledge of science or the arts did.  Regardless of any theoretical value, however, there are many practical reasons students of any nation should learn foreign languages. The knowledge of even one more language has distinct effects on an individual.

More than 350 million people speak English as their first language:

(Adapted from Farrell, M. (1996))

That means English is the world's number two language after Chinese (with about one billion speakers).  But English is also the ‘second language’ of perhaps 400 million more people in countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan.  More than sixty countries have English as one of their official languages.  The government, business and universities use it (India).  In total, almost 1,500,000,000 people have some knowledge of English.

Certainly English is the worldwide language of technology and communication.  The majority of the world’s mail is addressed in English.  English is the language of international air controllers, and English is the medium of eighty percent of the information stored in computers around the world.  Scholars from every nation publish in English in order to reach the widest possible audience.

These are the reasons why everyone needs to know English. And we need not only Standard English, but also Conversational English and Internet English.

A standard language is a variety of a language that is socially and culturally predominant and is generally accepted as the most proper form of that language (Millward, 1987).

Standard English is the kind of English that is, on the whole, used by people of education and standing in the community; and it is standard simply because such people use it. We will get along much faster if we can manage to get rid of the mysterious idea of “perfect English.” There isn’t any such thing.

Standard English is generally used in the news media and literature; described in dictionaries and grammars; taught in schools; and taught to non-native speakers.

English is one of the hardest languages, because of the spelling.  People say that the spelling of English is not easy because many English words do not have the same number of sounds and letters. For example, house has four sounds and five letters, different has seven or eight sounds and nine letters, and enough has four sounds and six letters.

George Bernard Shaw thought that it was terrible. He asked what English word could the letters ghoti spell. Answering his own questions, he said that these letters could spell the word fish. How? Sometimes the letters gh are used for an f sound (in words like cough and enough), the letter o for an (i) sound (in a word like women), and the letters ti for the sh sound (in words like nation and station). Ghoti is not a real English word, of course. Shaw created it to show the problems of English spelling (Saitz & Stieglitz, 1997:6).

Another difficult aspect of the language is its punctuation.  

An English professor wrote the words  “Woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.

The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing." 

The women wrote: “Woman! Without her, man is nothing."

And the professor (a man) marked all the women's answers wrong.  He claimed that the instructions were to punctuate this sentence (singular).  He refused to acknowledge he had not said that - even when someone played back a tape of the class (Author unknown).

Here is an adapted version of Richard Lederer's introduction to his book "Crazy English: the Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language." (Pocket Books, 1989):

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant 

or ham in hamburger;

neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

          Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. 

But if we explore its paradoxes, 

we find that quicksand can work slowly, 

boxing rings are square,

and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig.

            And why is it that writers write, 

            but fingers don't fing, 

            grocers don't groce, 

            and hammers don't ham? 

            If the plural of tooth is teeth, 

            why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? 

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, 

what do you call it? 

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? 

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed 

to an asylum for the verbally insane. 

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? 

But it is evident that English was invented by people, not computers, 

and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). 

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, 

but when the lights are out, they are invisible. 

And when you want to shut down your computer you have to hit start. 

So we can come to the conclusion that if you want to be able to know English well, you should learn Standard English.

Discussing Conversational English, it is worth remembering that Americans are generally verbal, and long, silent periods are uncomfortable to them. Nancy Masterson Sakamoto analyzed American conversation, and compared it to a game of tennis. The topic is like a ball and conversational partners “hit” the ball with questions and responses. Whether you agree or disagree, your response will return the ball to the speaker (Sakamoto, 1995:181).

Oreström, B. (1983:22) gives the following characteristic features of American conversation:

                  ·        private rather than public

·        casual and spontaneous (planning and production are more or less simultaneous)

·        not institutionalized (informal setting; turn order, length, aim, and topic are not specified in advance)

·        focuses on the interaction (facts are not always central)

·        free to introduce new topics

·        frequent use of ‘tag questions’ and ‘intimacy signals’ (isn’t it, you know)

·        frequent use of ‘listener responses’ (mm, yes, that’s right).

In conversations it is not only important to know grammar and have a large vocabulary. You also need to know things like puns, homonyms and homographs, because all English and American jokes are based upon them. You will just feel uncomfortable when someone tells a joke, everyone laughs, but you don’t understand anything.  Here are some examples of jokes based on homonyms:           

- Knock, knock.

 - Who’s there?

 - Willie.               

 - Willie who?

 - Willie be home for dinner?

                                        Hint: Willie be = will he be.                      

- Knock, knock.

 - Who’s there?

 - Harriet.              

 - Harriet who?

 - Harriet up and open the door!

                                        Hint: Harriet up = hurry it up.

- Knock, knock.

 - Who’s there?

 - Ken.                

 - Ken who?

 - Ken you see me?

                                        Hint: Ken = can.

In fiction, some authors like to use puns to make the conversation and descriptions more colorful.  Books written by Pears Anthony, an writer, are full of puns. For example: 

Ichabod smiled with certain scholarly resignation. ‘There is indeed that. I confess to being somewhat of a Don Quixote at heart’.

‘Donkey who?’ Chameleon asked, blinking.

‘Donkey Hotey to you,’ the archivist said, smiling obscurely. ‘It is not spelled the way it sounds, even here in Xanth.’ (Xanth, 1993:98).

            Another example from the book:

Imbri leaped through the wall, phasing into intangibility.  She had misjudged the client’s reaction to the dream and had almost been caught visible.  It was very bad form for any night mare to be seen by a walking person, even one insignificant as a goblin. She galloped out into the night, leaving only a single hoofprint behind as a signature. That signature was important; Imbri was a perfectionist, and liked to put her personal stamp on every bad dream she delivered. (Xanth, 1993:3).

What the Internet has done is to create a space for language that runs and slips over the boundary of public and private language. The Internet is a giant context that invites informal communication, and there is lots of experimentation going on.  

Then there is the fluency in the chat room, where written and spoken language slur together. Here a correctly spelled word is a sign of the inarticulate, and a clever abbreviation is prized above all else. The basic principles governing the abbreviations are quite simple. Certain words or syllables can be represented by letters or numbers that sound the same but take up less space.

For example, look below. Do you understand what the words in capitals mean? 

WERV U BIN? 

PPL R starting to use SMS abbreviations all the time, OTOH not everyone understands what     BCNU means.

The decoded phrases look like this:

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? 

PEOPLE ARE starting to use SMS abbreviations all the time.  ON THE OTHER HAND, not everyone understands what 'BE SEEING YOU' means.

Many of those abbreviations are rapidly attaining the status of accepted conventions familiar to most users of the ‘language’. It is a method of communication that can be endlessly exploited and developed by individuals or small groups to create a kind of personal language that will remain opaque to the uninitiated.  This will doubtless serve to increase its popularity.

When you are writing an E-mail, all too often you need some sort of trick to eliminate ambiguity. This usually happens in phrases that can be misunderstood or the tone of the conversation you are trying to drive. In usual face-to-face language, these ambiguities are clarified by facial expression: the same word may be an insult or a compliment depending upon whether you say it with a disdainful look or a friendly smile on your face.

To work around this problem, network users have derived a collection of "symbols" that reflect in some way body language.  These symbols, called emoticons, are built using common letters and orthographic signs so that they pass as text through any computer system. To interpret them you must look at them as faces drawn horizontally: for example [ :-) ] would be a smiley face, with the [ : ] being the eyes, the [ - ] the nose and the [ ) ] the smiling mouth.

Below you can see a list of the most popular emoticons and abbreviations that are used in e-mail, chat rooms and SMS. In my opinion all people should know them. 

One effect of knowing a second language is that a person can experience first hand the great literature of other people. One can experience directly the power and the subtleties of the original, which are often lost in translations. One can feel the flow of the language, the combinations of sounds and word order, all of which combine to bring the work alive – alive as the artist intentionally planned.

The ability to read in another language reinforces a second effect: the gaining of knowledge about another culture. Through reading and speaking a second language, one can gain insight into the fabric that enfolds the life of another culture.

Perhaps the most powerful effect of learning another language is communication. All too often we see ourselves divided from other people by notions of nationality, race, or religion. Language is one more barrier that separates humans. If we overcome that barrier by learning other languages, we can experience our common humanity; no longer are we isolated from each other.

So I come to the conclusion that the English I really need is not only Standard English, but also Conversational and Internet English.

References 

Farrell, M. (1996), The World of English. Longman. 

Millward, C. (1987) A Biography of the English Language. Thompson International. 

Oreström, B. (1983), Turn-taking in English Conversation. Doctoral Dissertation. Lund University: Sweden.

Saitz R.L. & F.B. Stieglitz (1997), Workout in English. A Reader-Workbook.  Pearson ESL.

Sakamoto N.M. Masterson (1995), 'Conversational Ballgames'. In:  Smalley, R.L. & M.K. Ruetten, Refining Composition Skills: Rhetoric and Grammar for ESL Students, pp181. Heinle.

Xanth, P. (1993), Night Mare. Ballantine Books: New York.

Marina Bezrukova is a tenth grade student from Khakasia in the Russian Federation.

©Marina Bezrukova, 2003. All rights reserved.