Executives speak a language of their own

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/634db9a6-57eb-11e1-ae89-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NoAt8OtQ

February 29, 2012 7:39 pm

By Michael Skapinker

The secret to aiming higher than Globish

A French diplomat recently shrugged at news that Tunisians were rejecting his language and enrolling in English classes. “You can’t be in this globalised world without being able to speak English,” he said.

How will these eager new English speakers fare? If you believe Jean-Paul Nerrière, they will learn enough to communicate with Peruvians and Indonesians but not enough to talk to Britons, Americans or Australians.

As a long-time IBM executive, Mr Nerrière, a Frenchman, spent years observing English conversations. When a Japanese employee met a Belgian, a Chilean and an Italian, they managed. None spoke English brilliantly but each knew the others were making mistakes too. When an American or British manager walked in, everything changed. The native speakers talked too fast and used mysterious expressions, such as “from the horse’s mouth” (which horse?). The others clammed up.

Mr Nerrière saw no need for this sense of inferiority. His own English may, to a native-speaker, have sounded heavily accented. But he noticed that international clients understood him better than they did his Texan boss. This led him to develop Globish, a language of 1,500 English words that he judged perfectly sufficient for international business. Globish speakers avoid all figurative language and never tell jokes.

Globish, as presented by Mr Nerrière in his language courses and books, is more than a lingua franca. It is a liberation movement, freeing its speakers from any need to engage with Anglophone literature, culture or humour.

Mr Nerrière’s thesis has merit. Globish is spoken wherever prices are negotiated and deals signed.
But there is another group of non-native English speakers. Their vocabulary is bigger than 1,500 words. They engage with native English speakers with confidence. And they are taking over the world.

I have had two opportunities to observe them recently. Last year, I moderated a discussion of heads of European telecommunications groups, including César Alierta of Spain’s Telefónica, Franco Bernabè of Telecom Italia and Ben Verwaayen, the Dutch head of Alcatel-Lucent of France. And last week I chaired a discussion of shipping leaders from, among other places, Greece, Italy, South Korea, Finland and the Netherlands.

The discussions were fast, free-flowing – and entirely in English. There were frequent questions from the audience.

Speaking at a conference is hard enough in your own language. There is the nervousness of being on stage, the discomfort of the clipped-on microphone and, above all, the lights – sweaty-hot and so bright you can barely make out your script.

But this is the extraordinary feature of this international under-the-lights brigade. They can manage without scripts. When the subject changes, they improvise. You can appreciate how impressive this is only if you have attempted to master a foreign language yourself. These elite performers actually do better than many native English speakers. Multinational audiences find it easier to understand them because, in accordance with Mr Nerrière’s strictures, they avoid figurative language.

How do they manage to raise their English to this level? Do you need to start young? Intuitively you would think so, but Lessons from Good Language Learners, a 2008 collection of research studies, finds that, while early starters do have the edge, the advantage is not universal or overwhelming. There are people who sit in school language classes for years and can barely order a beer.

Joan Rubin, a pioneering researcher, argued that effective language learners are prepared to guess – from context and from verbal and non-verbal clues. They are good at talking their way round a problem if they don’t have the exact words. They can live with uncertainty; good language learners don’t mind making mistakes.

It is, of course, far easier to learn English if you live, study or work in an English-speaking country. Having to pay bills, listen to lectures and tell colleagues how you like your coffee are fast ways to fluency.

Above all, language learning requires motivation. And as it is no longer possible to get to the top of most international organisations without a thorough command of English, that should be motivation for many. Globish is all very well; the best of those new English learners should be aiming higher.