scholarly journals CASE STUDY ON LANGUISTIC MEANS OF EDITING FOR VOICE AND TONE IN CORPORATE MARKETING COMMUNICATION

Author(s):  
Александар Петар Кавгић

The research analyses a small corpus of in-house writing of a multinational SME by non-native speakers of English and the edits and revisions made by a marketing expert and a technical writer (native English speakers). The analysis focuses on identifying, classifying and analysing edits regarding the voice and tone guidelines, i.e. how pragmatics concepts (politeness and audience accommodation) are grammatically and semantically encoded. The research uses style guides to analyse the “comparable” monolingual corpus of drafts and final versions, while the annotation includes tags for pragmatically motivated changes whose purpose is establishing a friendly relationship with the target audience. The research employs norms for qualitative research in public relations and marketing communication (Daymon & Holloway, 2010). The research shows that a) non-native speakers of English tend to have a self-centred approach to workplace English writing and often fail to achieve the company voice and tone, and b) the company voice and tone require elimination of culturally specific concepts and use of relatively simple grammatical structures and lexicon.

Author(s):  
Nurfarahin Ahmad ◽  
Nalini Arumugam ◽  
Kaarthiyaini Supramaniam

The present study aims to examine the speech act of complaining performed by consumers of a particular organisation by investigating the pragmatics strategies employed by the consumers in complaining. The behaviours of Malaysian non-native English speakers when making online complaints directed to an organisation is expected to have different approaches and preferences compared to complaints produced by native speakers of English. A case study approach was used in this qualitative study to investigate the preference of Malaysian non-native speakers of English language when making online complaints with respect to the components of the speech act set of complaining by analysing 50 online complaints, posted by 50 customers via www.complaintsboard.com. The results indicated that the component of complaining is found to be the most frequent in online complaints. Besides, it was also found that the complaints made by non-native speakers did not appear in isolation but accompanied by other components of speech act like criticism, justification, request for explanation, warning and threat and sarcasm. In addition, Malaysian non-native English speakers employed complaint strategy that lies under the third level of severity of complaint which means they produced the complaint by expressing it explicitly.


Pragmatics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binmei Liu

Abstract Previous studies have found that but and so occur frequently in native and non-native English speakers’ speech and that they are easy to acquire by non-native English speakers. The current study compared ideational and pragmatic functions of but and so by native and non-native speakers of English. Data for the study were gathered using individual sociolinguistic interviews with five native English speakers and ten L1 Chinese speakers. The results suggest that even though the Chinese speakers of English acquired the ideational functions of but and so as well as the native English speakers, they underused the pragmatic functions of them. The findings indicate that there is still a gap between native and non-native English speakers in communicative competence in the use of but and so. The present study also suggests that speakers’ L1 (Mandarin Chinese) and overall oral proficiency in oral discourse affect their use of but and so.


Author(s):  
Nancy D Bell

AbstractHumor can often carry an implicit negative message and thus be potentially dangerous to use. In addition, it is culturally and linguistically complex and sophisticated. Because of these things, it poses a challenge for L2 (second language) speakers and we might expect to see attempts at humor failing and causing offense in intercultural interaction. This paper reports on a study that examined humor in interaction between native and non-native speakers of English and found that humor did not seem to be a cause of conflict because of adjustments speakers made to their speech and their situated interpretations of meaning. In general, taboo topics and potentially dangerous forms of humor were avoided and humor was carefully contextualized. Native speakers reported being careful about the vocabulary they used in creating humor and both sides appeared to approach humor in intercultural communication prepared to accommodate the other and with an attitude of leniency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Bethany Peters ◽  
Michael E. Anderson

This study reports on a survey designed to understand the experiences of faculty and staff who work with non-native speakers of English (NNESs) at a U.S. public research university. Over 1,500 faculty and staff responded to the survey, and the findings highlight their perspectives on the benefits of having non-native English speakers on campus, as well as the challenges that they experience in teaching and advising this population of students. We conclude with a discussion about possible resources and strategies that may provide enhanced support for NNES and the faculty and staff who work with them.


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Jeanne Haak ◽  
Rieko Marie Darling

Speakers with limited English proficiency (LEP) usually produce a combination of articulation errors and differences in the prosodic patterns of English. There are abundant measures of articulation, but few objective measures of prosodic performance. The Tennessee Test of Rhythm and Intonation Patterns (TRIP) was selected as a potential measure for distinguishing the prosodic patterns of native and non-native English. First, the TRIP was given to 12 native speakers of Asiatic languages and 12 native speakers of English. The performances of the two groups did not differ significantly, suggesting that the TRIP was not a definitive measure of prosodic differences in English. Second, a group of listeners was asked to identify native versus non-native English speakers based only on selected stimuli from the TRIP and a short sentence of comparable length. The listeners were significantly better able to identify native and non-native speakers when listening to the sentence than when listening to the TRIP items. Clinical application of this information in working with LEP clients is discussed.


English Today ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raja Ram Mehrotra

English has been established in India for well over two centuries, and is now both its major lingua franca and ‘window on the world’. Some Indianisms are however little known beyond South Asia and are liable to be regarded by native speakers of English as ‘deviant’ in various ways. Here, a project is described in which a set of distinctive and representative Indian English expressions was shown to a group of native English speakers who were asked to comment on them. The list includes both distinctive words (such as face-cut, freeship, and weightage) and distinctive senses of universally used words (such as chaste, see, and tempo). The responses are discussed and a summarizing conclusion presented.


1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Schneider ◽  
Ulla Connor

Topical structure analysis (TSA), a text-based approach to the study of topic in discourse, has been useful in identifying text-based features of coherence. It has also been used to distinguish between essays written by groups of native English speakers with varying degrees of writing proficiency (Witte, 1983a, 1983b). More recently, TSA has distinguished between higher and lower rated ESL essays, but with different results from those found with native speakers of English (Connor & Schneider, 1988). The present study replicated the previous ESL study of two groups of essays written for the TOEFL Test of Written English with three groups of essays. Findings indicate that two topical structure variables, proportions of sequential and parallel topics in the essays, differentiate the highest rated group from the two lower rated groups. We offer explanations for the results and propose that all occurrences of a particular type of topic progression do not contribute equally to the coherence of a text.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Hayes-Harb ◽  
Kelsey Brown ◽  
Bruce L. Smith

We present an artificial lexicon study designed to test the hypothesis that native English speakers experience interference from written input when acquiring surface voicing in German words. Native English speakers were exposed to German-like words (e.g., /ʃtɑit/ and /ʃtɑid/, both pronounced [ʃtɑit]) along with pictured meanings, and in some cases, their written forms (e.g., <Steit> and <Steid>). At test, participants whose input included the written forms were more likely to produce final voiced obstruents when naming the pictures, indicating that access to the written forms in the input interfered with their acquisition of target-like surface forms. In a separate experiment, we attempted to moderate this negative impact of the written input by explicitly telling participants about the misleading nature of the words’ written forms, with no beneficial effect on their pronunciation accuracy. Together these findings indicate a powerful influence of orthographic input on second language lexical–phonological development that is not readily overcome by a simple intervention.


ReCALL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hsueh-Jui Liu

AbstractThis study sought to determine the difference in text-based negotiated interaction between non-native speakers of English (NNS-NNS) and between non-native and natives (NNS-NS) in terms of the frequency of negotiated instances, successfully resolved instances, and interactional strategy use when the dyads collaborated on Facebook. It involved 10 native English speakers and 30 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). NNS-NNS dyads consisted of five H-H pairs and five L-L pairs (H and L representing high- and low-proficiency learners). Similarly, NNS-NS dyads comprised five H-N pairs and five L-N pairs (N being native speakers). All dyads were required to use text chats to complete the given reading tasks synchronously in chatrooms on Facebook. The results suggested that negotiated instances, successfully resolved instances, and interactional strategy use occurred more frequently in H-H pairs than in L-N, L-L, or H-N pairs. In terms of strategy use, H-H, H-N, and L-N dyads were likely to engage in negotiated interaction by employing strategies such as clarifying unclear expressions or checking their comprehension, while L-L used interactional mechanisms infrequently and tended to use strategies such as continuers and asking for assistance. The research concludes with the pedagogical implications of the results.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-29
Author(s):  
Mohammed Nour Abu Guba ◽  
Bassil Mashaqba ◽  
Anas Huneety ◽  
Omer AlHajEid

This paper explores attitudes toward Jordanian Arabic-accented English among native and non-native speakers of English. Three groups of listeners (native English speakers, Jordanian Arab specialists and non-specialists in English) were asked to rate three groups of speakers (a group of native English speakers and two groups of Jordanian Arabic bilinguals) reading a short story in English on the degree of foreign accentedness, friendliness, pleasantness and clarity. The results showed that the Jordanian Arabic speakers, especially those with a lower level of English, were perceived less favourably than the native speakers. Furthermore, the English native listeners generally had more favourable perceptions than the non-native listeners with regard to the non-native speakers. The degree of foreign-accentedness was highly correlated with attitudes toward non-native speakers, especially among the non-native speakers themselves. The results confirm that a native English accent is preferred over non-native accents.


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