Page 80 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

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Standard or

variant English?

t’s strange how a lot of businesses don’t actually define what
Ithey mean by business English. It can be a must if you work in a
multicultural team, a cosmopolitan office, a multinational organi-
zation, or have a potential global reach through social media.
So let’s get specific. We know English is a major language of
commercial communication and a world language of the inter-
net and of global access to knowledge, spoken by around a
quarter of the world’s population! When we use the term ‘busi-
ness English’ though, it’s a generic term used for dealing with
business communication in English. You may still have to design
communication that specifically covers the many variants you’ll
encounter.

‘Standard’ and ‘variant’ English

Globally there are actually more non-native speakers of English
than native English speakers. It belongs to no single culture but
acts as a bridge across borders and cultures.
When I first worked abroad, I saw how multinationals wanted
to seize the competitive edge in their use of English as a global
business language. It was then that I realized how puzzled both
foreigners and native English speakers can be by the way English is
so often used. Sometimes it’s because non-native English speakers