User:Dr. Koyel chakrabarty/*Business Communication

Communication in English Language: An Evaluation 

English as a language has gained special significance in smooth conduct of business correspondence since the inception of globalization. The credit goes to the joint venture endevours of the multi-national companies and enterprises that have taken a few steps to come forward to gain benefits out of this multi-cultural trade and commerce and have thus contributed to a great rise in GDP of the nations involved. With globalization, employees are now exposed to myriads of possibilities for gaining exposure in the world and are often used as mouthpieces of the company for several projects worldwide. This introduces them to a platform that demands good knowledge of the subject that they are dealing in and a common medium of communication. English language, being a language of the colonies easily overtakes the other languages of the world for its easy acceptability and recognition.

Many Asian countries which were colonies themselves of the British Raj got an advantage over other countries that did not have English language in their linguistic demography. While the countries like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh had a fair exposure of the language because of the reign of British on them, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, on the other hand, had a minimal exposure. With the dawn of globalization, the mother-language centric countries too felt the necessity of grooming themselves to the language which bears a universal appeal in business and trade. With the passage of time they too have opened their rigid doors for English language learning and are enthusiastic in introducing English as a mandatory subject in their curriculum from school level for the present generation learners. Moreover, with the turn of the century, consciously or unconsciously all nations of Asia have accepted the English language in their socio-cultural linguistic demography just like a man accepts a fine sophisticated garment as part of a party dressing, though not ethnic, which he feels, is essential and also elemental to make him look common in order to get a place on the same platform made for global business. But because of the technical, accentual and the grammatical correctness that English language demands, it is commonly noticed that the second language learners often fall short in writing and communicating in English and take a longer time to be adept in it so as to use it effectively in business communication. Mother language influence is another big hurdle in pronouncing and writing English. So an easy way to cope with problematics of the language becomes very essential. This paper, by analyzing the concept and subject of introducing Functional English for specific purpose, tries to put forward the possibilities of effective and fast learning/using of English language in the foreign speakers of Asia for business correspondence.

Communication is a dynamic process between the sender and the receiver through a medium where an understandable feedback occurs. So to have an effective communication, the sender(s) and the receiver(s) is/are to exchange his/their thought, ideas, feeling through a medium and understand the message well to produce a feedback. The medium of expression in such a case must be common for the fullest understandability of the message. A language is the easiest and most effective medium that can help in effective communication. A language is nothing but the organization of words in such a manner that a meaning evolves; when spoken the pronunciation is important as alteration in sounds may cause misunderstanding. So to avoid misinterpretations and misgivings the two things that an effective communication needs are understandable pronunciation and the knowledge of sentence construction of the language concerned.

It is very interesting that English as a language has gained its importance not only for business communication but to show oneself ‘cultured’ or white collared in the Asian countries. English language as a medium of communication in the countries like India, Japan, Pakistan, is used by the educated elite masses as a language of daily communication and the poor, middle class sections of the society also try to follow the footsteps. In India, English has taken its own course and Indian English dominates all other regional languages. English is treated as a first language in the Secondary Education Board in many cases and International Boards in India totally focus on American and British English teaching. In India English is very often considered as the language of the snob, of the rich. In Japan, English is spoken in a very Japanese way and the Japanese people enjoy communicating in their own Japanese accent. School teachers stress on imitating the American English and the Japanese now are quite skillful in their English language speaking and writing. China, very conservative as she was, had kept English far away from its curriculum. But with change of perspectives, the Chinese are also liberating themselves and English is introduced in their school curricula. But because of their mother language influence and taboo, the Chinese have to go a long way for learning English as a medium of expression. Whatever the way or mode of acceptability and its working may be, English is used now by all Asian countries for business correspondence to bridge in the multi-cultural gap.

English language teaching in schools of Asian countries are taught by both conceptual and translation methods. The teaching curricula are quite exhaustive comprising grammar, phonetics, literature, comprehension, speaking, reading, writing and listening skills. Major thrust is given on grammar and writing skills and speaking fluency. Speaking comprises two kinds of adeptness—fluent speaking of the language and pronunciation. Pronunciation and accentuation in English language plays a major role but sadly, speaking accents vary from country to country and is a matter of contention among scholars advocating the subject. Again with globalization, the shift of power structure has changed from UK to US; and so many countries follow the style of speaking that they have to encounter the most. Japan, China, Korea stress on American English while India, Bangladesh and Pakistan bear a mixed tendency as they are heavily influenced by the British being a colony and by the US based corporate culture in the modern times. English for the Indians is now a medium to reach the white collar world. The schools, colleges of the entire country are interested to develop English speaking skills to all its citizens and that is why English as a second language has been endorsed at every level. Metropolitan cities where the earning of the people is considerably high tend to overpower themselves with the English language, speaking at schools, colleges, offices and even homes. English speaking is somewhat considered elite than the vernacular speakers of the country. The linguistic researchers fear that English in India is largely responsible for chasing away the regional languages. But if a survey be done among the youth of the metropolitan cities of India, it clearly reveals that the non-native speakers speak English grammar partially incorrect and spellings are a great problem for today’s youth. Smsese and e-mailese have killed the age of proper sentence construction and spellings. But it is interesting to consider that the multinational companies who hold tele-conference calls do not often stumble to understand the Indians speaking English and understand the crux of the sentence spoken. This is the point that we should focus on and ponder about certain things for development of English language in the rural backward youth/students so that they can compete with the students of the urban sectors.