Business English communication skills

Business English (registers)

Business English can be viewed as an interplay of different registers (socializing, negotiating, giving presentations, etc.). It’s quite natural to expect that different vocabulary would be employed in different registers. Indeed if we look at some sample texts from different registers we’ll see that they differ not only in style but also in words used in them. The latter demonstrate the intrinsic diversity of the vocabulary used in business communication for different purposes.

· Представление английского языка как объемного взаимообусловленного единства разных регистров:

1) техника ведения беседы (Socializing);

2) общение по телефону в деловых целях (Telephoning);

3) деловая переписка (Business Correspondence);

4) деловая документация и контракты (Business Documents and Contracts);

5) деловая встреча (Business Meetings);

6) презентация (Presentations);

7) техника ведения переговоров (Negotiating);

язык средств массовой информации (the English of the Media)

Business English communication skills

Reading – чтение – по сравнению с другими видами речевой деятельности часто оказывается смещенным на периферию обучающих программ и методик. Однако чтение – одно из основных умений (skills, language skills, macroskills), наряду с такими, как говорение (speaking), письмо (writing) и аудирование (listening comprehension).

Не отрицая приоритетной роли говорения, тем не менее следует подчеркнуть, что опорными умениями оказываются аудирование, письмо и чтение. Иначе говоря, развитие существенного для делового общения умения ведения беседы – Socializing – опирается на совокупность основных языковых умений (macroskills).

Аналогичным образом можно утверждать, что четыре ключевых умения взаимодействуют в обучении и другому регистру – деловой корреспонденции (Business Correspondence), когда умение-цель (the target Business English skill) – это деловое общение в письменной форме. То есть на первый план выходит письмо (writing), но оно едва ли будет освоено без участия чтения, аудирования и говорения.

Иными словами, в практическом овладении каждым из регистров приоритетная роль отводится одному из четырех умений (умение-цель – the target skill), которое в свою очередь требует опоры на совокупность речевых умений (умение-метод – language skills as methods in Business English acquisition).

3. Business English and telephoning

В телефонном общении в деловых целях – Telephoning– весьма важна краткость.

Телефоннгое сообщение предполагает соблюдение ряда условностей:

1. использование официально-делового стиля;

2. воспроизведение стандартных моделей речепроизводства (discourse patterns) – название компании + формула приветствия, имя + релевантная информация, релевантная информация + формула вежливости, краткая информация по существу, обмен заключительными формулами вежливости.

4. recurrent situations in socializing типичные ситуации в коммуникации

4.1. The Memo-system

The introduction of internal email in the late seventies

and early eighties led to a major shift in the company’s

organization of internal communication. In the late

seventies, the precursor to the email system Memo™,

was developed as a tool for the system administrator to

communicate with terminal users. From this basic and

practical function an email system was developed, that in

a few years became a success, both internally, and

externally as a commercial product. Note the difference

between the email application Memo™, the messages

sent within the system that of course were called memos,

and the genre memo as described by Yates [13].

The early version of the Memo™ system proved to be

a good tool for internal communication and information,

and it was decided that it should be developed for large-

scale use within and between the different subsidiaries of

the company. The strategy to increase the number of users

was to let key-persons in management be equipped with a

terminal and encouraged to use Memo for correspondence

with other people. The vice president of the IT-company

at the time being, was the leading user and his staff

became the first generation of Memo users in the company

group.

In a research report from 1983 [5] Memo™ was

described as a tool that could complement, or even

replace

several

kinds

of

established

internal

communication devices. The user did not have to worry

about a busy phone-line, no answer or the wrong person

answering. Internal post could be replaced by Memo™

since the time of delivery was shortened and printed

copies were available if needed. The content of the

messages was written directly at a terminal like a

memorandum and sent as a telex. Small paper notes

could be replaced by messages to Memo™ with feedback

to the writer. A form could filled in and returned without

delay. The sender could demand an answer to a message.

One message could be sent to many recipients at the same

time.

The rise of the Memo-system coincided with a

management philosophy aimed at information push.

There were two characteristics of the architecture of Memo

that especially promoted this philosophy, and that had a

large impact on the usage of the Memo-system as well as

the emerging information culture in the organization:

• The first characteristic is the basic device for

distribution lists:

− The Memo system had basic facilities by which a

systems administrator could structure the users.

The common way to do this was to let the

structure of users follow the organizational

structure. Thus, the distribution lists were directly

mapped on the organization chart. In this

hierarchical fashion it was possible for managers to

distribute information top down on a regular basis

with ranging over the whole organization, a

division, a department etc.

− The ordinary user could at most send a message to

the unit he/she was working on, but not to the

whole organization, or the whole department. In

such a case the user had to send the message to the

information department which decided if it was

interesting enough to be forwarded to a larger

audience.

− Since an employee belonged to one department,

and one organizational unit etc., he could only be

on one distribution list. There could not be any

alternative public distribution lists along with the

organizational ones.

− This, suited the organizational context well, since,

besides peer-to-peer email, Memo was heavily

used for top down information from management.

Today this information is sent from the specific

information department. The type of information

sent this way was, and is, mainly different kinds of

organizational information, e.g. economic updates,

presentation of new managerial staff, new policies,

information on reorganizations etc., along with

more local information. In an investigation 1983

(Carnbäck et al., 1983) the most common use of

Memo was short question or answer (42 %)

followed by summons or reservations for meetings

(11 %), circular letters and general information (13

%). Managers were the most frequent senders of

messages.

• The other important facility in Memo was that you

could see if a message was read or not (but not if it

was understood or what the reactions was, as one

manager did comment). Thus, the information was

distributed downwards, and it was possible to control

if the employees had read it. Another incentive to read

your email was the upper limit of 420 messages in the

mailbox. This restriction was originally due to the

fact that disk space was expensive in the early

eighties, but the restriction is still valid. This causes

people to clean their mailboxes before they go on

holiday or a business trip.

Most of these characteristics are still valid for Memo.

.2). External messages

Of the 66 mail messages 31 was external. Many of

these was what we will refer to as conversation, i.e. rather

informal dialog that is not codified as genres. Newsletters,

sales promotion letters and calls (mainly conference calls)

were the most common external mail message genres. 13

messages were informal conversation with an external

source.