The danger of teaching "what English speakers really mean"
During my career I’ve seen some training that I regard as not only lazy but also, to be honest, dangerous.
The reason I write this is to highlight the specific issues that this sort of training will cause.
Specifically, I’m talking about cultural training centred on what English speakers “say” versus what they “actually” mean. I’m sure many of you have seen this sort of thing….
Students are given a general bank of phrases e.g.
English Persona will say “I’m sorry but I don’t think that is correct”
student is then told that the real meaning is
“That is wrong”.
In some cases a more extreme version of the stereotype will be used like “I’m sorry but perhaps, I don’t think that, what you’ve just said, may possibly, be correct”.
Usually this sort of training material is targeting a specific culture or language. The target language is depicted as the sensible source of truth (however sometimes it’s even in English!).
So looking at the example sentence of “I’m sorry but I don’t think that is correct”.
The reason why this is structured using this approach is that:
- The speaker is accepting that they are not 100% confident that what they are saying is correct.
- It is introducing that even if they are 100% confident, they are opening the conversation up to have it explained as to why they may not have understood what has been said.
Now in English we do have the phrase “That is wrong”. However, it would be used where the speaker is 100% sure that they are correct, they are being assertive to prove that they have the answers or that they are just using it to discredit the person’s opinion. In any case saying “that is wrong” is definitive and closes down a conversation.
Our example sentence, uses the indicative mood and is polite disagreement.
Ironically, most languages have their own complex grammatical structures for diplomacy. There are often much better matching equivalents in the student's native tongue, yet they are ignored in favour of a lazy stereotype.
The reason why I believe this is dangerous.
Students are taught that the speaker is actually saying something that is aggressive and rude (which is blatantly not the case). This destroys the trust that the student will have with English speakers. It also suggests deception over the intent of diplomacy.
The lack of explanation of the reason why this more advanced form is used is actually simplified into a cultural stereotype.
It impacts the students understanding of the nuance of when an English speaker does use the more direct form.
There are reasons why this can be used to make people in large groups feel more confident when they are faced with this use of English phrasing. If complex phrases are just simplified, these structures can be dispensed with. However, it will always be a blocker for communication in a professional context and will mean that teams are not actually understanding each other.
#BusinessEnglish #InterculturalCommunication #ExecutiveCoaching
