Unit 5 trade within and across language barriers

In this unit ,you will able to

1) Define what is meant by pidgin, crecole, and lingua franca and give examples.

2) Understand what is meant by creativity or inventiveness in language.

3) Recognize the importance of faxed English to international trade proceedings.

4) Use this information in discussion of the present position of English as the major languages of international business

Activity 1 markets , trade and language

Task 1 identifying the essentials of trade

Trading is an essential human activity that has a long history. It is necessary to all except the most undeveloped societies. And language is involved when people trade because they have to talk or communicate in making trade deals. As we can see, this provides people a powerful motivation to use language and sometimes we see language use at its most inventive(有创造力的 ) and creative degree.

Task 2 analysing the component of a trade deal

• Commodity

• A currency

•A seller

•A market

•A means of communication

As far as trading is concerned, it’d be helpful to take a look at a trade deal. The purchasing of something is called a deal or transaction. That something (sold or bought) is called commodity. To make a deal happen, we need a commodity, a seller, a buyer, a currency, a market and a means of communication. And people communicate by using a language.

Task 3 understanding negotiation, or bargaining ,and language use

In trading, the most effective and convenient means of communication is a language understood and used by both buyers and sellers. If the 2 parties share a common language, then trading would be easy. And, as we all know that, English is currently the most commonly used language of international deals between Asian and other countries though this situation may change in the future.

Task 2 learning something from story 2:a need for lingua franca(通用语）

Task 3 finding out what is mean by a pidgin

Then what do people do if they have no common language for trading purposes? They use ungrammatical English which is termed as Pidgin or a deviant of English. There are different Pidgins used in different places in the world.

Pidgins are languages for a very narrow range of purposes - those have to do with coastal trade. They develop wherever traders want to do business with who, they do not share a common language and where there is no lingua franca (通用语，混合语 ) for them to use. Most Pidgins are mixtures of Asian or African languages and those of major European trading nations (e.g. Spain, France, Germany & Britain, etc.).

In general, the sound and grammatical systems of a pidgin are those of the language used locally: The vocabulary is supplied by the voyagers. Pidgins were not a rule written down; they change rapidly and they were quickly learned by those who needed them. When trading stopped, they were discarded and soon forgotten. There must have been many pidgins of which we have no record. Pidgins are makeshift(临时凑合的 ) languages and evidence of human inventiveness. They have low prestige.

Activity 3 new language in the making

Task 1 understanding what is mean by creoles and creolization

When does a pidgin become a creole(混合语 )?

Now we know that pidgins and creoles are alike in some way. They are both the result of languages in contact and used for trading purposes. They are different in important ways: creoles are the only language for some users or the language of a speech community.

Task 2 examining the case of an English based creole—black English

An English-based creole is Black English. We already covered in the former chapters about Black slaves being captured and shipped to America. They picked up some English just enough to survive. This is important for women as they taught their children a creole which was different from Standard English. Black English is also called Black English Vernacular(土语 ) (BEV) or Ebonic. It is no longer a creole but a variety of English with some creole features.

Pidgins change rapidly and don’t last long. They are unstable. But the pidgin becomes a useful language rapidly. It is useful for certain group of users. Contact between different languages produces another language which is related to both, and different from either. The resulting language is called a creole. And the process of this is called creolization. See the examples .p229

Task 3 finding out how an English –based creole differs from standard English.

How does a creole differ from Standard English, then? Creoles use a writing system. We will take a look at the example of an English-based creole used in Hawaii. e.g. He lazy, a’s why he no like play.p234We can understand the sentence without trouble.It has rules but they are not exactly the same as the rules of Standard English .

The answer is affirmative (yes)to a creole and negative(no) to a pidgin. A pidgin is restricted to buying and selling or to the giving and taking of orders while a creole is a language that can serve as a national language. A good case in point is Papua New Guinea. The new country adopted a creole named Tok Pisin as its national language. p235

--------Could a creole/pidgin be used as a national language?

When learning about the differences between a creole and a pidgin we need to keep in mind that:

1. A pidgin has only some of the language functions. However, a creole may do.

2. Pidgins and creoles are both mixed languages usually mixtures of languages belonging to different families.

3. By saying that English has some creolized features, we mean some varieties of English include some, but not all the features of a creole

4 Speakers of varieties of English that have creolised features sometimes have difficulties in an English using educational system because of the differences between their mother tongue and the Standard English used in schools.

5 Tok Pisin is a creole, with English and German vocabulary, currently in use as a national language.

Activity 4 English in contemporary international trade

Task 1 examining stable and changed aspects of trade practice

Now, let’s turn our eyes back to trade. How is today’s international trade different from that across the barriers of language that has gone on for centuries in the past?

We may find that something has not changed: 1.There are still buyers and sellers. 2.There are still commodities. 3.There has still to be some sort of currency exchange. 4.There has to be some means of transferring ownership from one to another.

It is true that the scale of trade today is much larger than before. However, there has still to be communication between buyer and seller by means of language, a language that can be used by both. Besides English, there are other international languages such as German, Spanish, etc. But English is most commonly used worldwide.

Two new factors are the effect of the increase in the scale of trade and the scope of international trade. The 1st is that the costs involved are very much larger. The 2nd is that present day trade is regulated by national and international law. In international trade at the present day language is used not only to negotiate deals and track their progress to completion, but also to finance them, and regulate them. Language, especially written language, allows permanent records to be kept, is as important as before and even in a greater variety of ways.

Task 2 finding out how English is used in some areas of international trade

Traditionally, the essentials of trade are buyers, sellers, commodities, markets, currency and communication, which is still so. But, the essentials of present day international trade between Asian countries and the rest of the world are more than those above.

They are:1.international banking2.national and international regulation3.bilingual merchandisers with access to fax machines

Activity 5 faxed English for international business

Task 1 fax meets the needs of the international business community p244

Task 2 interpret some examples of faxed English p245

If we look at the written correspondence between international companies, most likely we will find that English is used and faxes are in use all the time. There are advantages of faxed messages. The most obvious one is their speed. And they can be sent at any time. Moreover, they are easy to write and read. We can even send illustrations such as drawings, diagrams, etc. by faxes.

One thing needs to be pointed out here is faxed English is a distinct variety of English as it is similar to a pidgin at the surface level. It can be shorter than the same meanings in Standard English.

It is concise and not a word is wasted. Besides, information is condensed and abbreviations are often used (e.g. attn---attention; etd ----estimated arrival date).

The headings of a fax signal changes of topic. Both the sender and the receiver of the fax take it for granted that the fax conveys shared knowledge between them. Superficially faxed English is similar to a creole too.As a matter of fact, faxed business English is not like a pidgin or a creole. It is just a variety used when the topic seems to require it, or when the level of formality makes it suitable.