Native English speaker (NES) data

The majority of the NES participants attend international meetings very often or quite regularly and two thirds of them speak at least some French as a foreign language. Again, this reflects the findings of larger surveys of British business executives’ language competence which show that French is still the most commonly spoken foreign language (British Chamber of Commerce, 2004; Labrie & Quell, 1997). One-third of the NES participants had experienced using a foreign language (French or Italian) in business contexts, such as meetings and presentations. When asked if they had any difficulties understanding other speakers (NESs and NNESs) in international meetings, most responses suggest that participants had some difficulties occasionally. One or two felt that ‘strong’ or ‘heavy’ accents of NNES could pose particular difficulties but the point was also made that over time these difficulties reduce as participants ‘acclimatise to English as spoken by different nationalities’ (NES1).

When asked if they thought it was necessary to modify their English in international business contexts, all of the NES respondents expressed concern to try to speak slowly and clearly. Several suggested the need to avoid, if possible, the use of jargon, idioms, metaphors, unusual words or ‘‘colloquialisms which might not be familiar to non-native speakers’’ (NES1). The point was made that it can be helpful to ‘‘repeat ideas more than once in different ways’’ (NES2) and ‘‘to relate what you are saying to other people’s culture and situation’’ (NES3).

Читайте також:

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Findings	\|	Non-native English speaker (NNES) data

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.003 сек.