Linguistic changes of business English

VOCABULARY

Terms to be memorized:

1.connotation

2.pejorative

3.concept

4.business community

5.unilingual

6.bilingual

7.key business terminology

8.corpus-based linguistics

9.methodology and technology

10. imperceptible

11. adherent

12. globalization

13.conglomerate

Exercise 1. Read and translate the text:

TEXT 4A

PART I

Change affects business terminology and, as a result, new meanings and new terms enter the lexicon of the language. The nature of business communication is such that linguistic change can take a very subtle, and almost imperceptible, form: a term may gradually acquire an additional evaluate element of meaning known as connotation. This tendency contradicts standard opinion to the effect that terms as words of specialized languages are devoid of connotations. In business usage, adherent (i.e. acquired) connotations are not possible but inevitable. Here comes a rough outline of what happens: a term is suggested (coined, introduced) for a new concept, trend, procedure or approach; with time, the term in question becomes part of standard usage, whereas the trend (method or approach, as the case may be) spreads across the business community, gaining ground among business practitioners; it may very well happen that the trend will gradually reveal an unforeseen downside, expose a built-in side effect or result in some negative consequences. In other words, the reality of business, that had formerly called for a new term, backfires on the original concept and brings additional, usually negative (or pejorative),shades of meaning. These adherent connotations find no reflection in business dictionaries. Once again usage outpaces lexicographers and provides much more variety than unilingual or bilingual dictionaries.

Exercise 2. Give the definition of connotation.

Exercise 3. Give synonyms to the following words (from the text):

delicate, deny, view (mind), destitute, unavoidable, idea (notion).

Exercise 4. Find in the text the words which definitions are given.

1. Derogatory word_______________________________________

2. Connection between persons or places__________________

3. Little by little__________________________________________

4. Supplemental or added to_________________________________

5. Not quite exact or correct_________________________________

6. Ideas or actions intended to deal with a problem or situation_____________________________________________________

WORD STUDY:

Exercise 5. Make sentences of your own containing the following idioms:

Break up, break down, break into, break off, break out, break the back, break the ice, break the news.

Exercise 6. Practice derivatives(translate and make sentences):

to contract/contractor, contract, contractual

to distribute/distributor, distribution

to employ/employer, employee, employment, unemployment

to promote/promoter, promotion

to quote/quoted/quotation

Exercise 7. Read and translate the text:

PART II

As a rule, business people are aware of the negative (or pejorative) implications that some terms have accumulated over time. The more sensitive and sophisticated members of the business community unfailingly register the subtle changes in semantic make-up of a business term.

It should be pointed out that most of the time changes of the kind discussed above affect key business terminology. In what follows, terms will be reviewed from the point of view of their meaning connotation. We can take for example two relatively common terms – conglomerate and globalization. First comes the term conglomerate - group of companies resulting from a combination of a number of commercial or industrial organizations. were very popular in the 60s and 70s of the previous century. But after some time it became clear that conglomerates are not as effective as expected. In other words they don’t work. The result is that business community begins to denounce the term itself and resorts to a number of euphemistic phrases like “multi-industrial company” or “a multi-business company with common cultures’.

The term globalization has also come very close to acquiring pejorative implications. It means integration and internationalization of financial markets and institutions. A deeper understanding of the world of business, however, requires additional information on the subject that can hardly be found in dictionaries and is offered in articles and books of business. It comes out that there is a great drama or civilizational conflict between globalization and forces of national culture, geography, tradition and community in many countries. Therefore the term globalization is going through the same process of acquiring negative meaning.

Exercise 9. Find some more English words which have acquired negative connotation recently.

Exercise 10. Analyze two related terms team and teamwork. Divide following features into positive and negative:

1. to work as a team,

2. to perform a specific task or function

3. a real team effort

4. the fugitive quality of friendship

5. effective teamwork

6. oriented towards short-term goals

7. team spirit

8. low-loyalty atmosphere

9. the atmosphere of ceaseless change

10. emphasis on teamwork in the company

11. the fleeting forms of associations

Exercise 11. Explain the meaning of the terms conglomerate, globalization and team-work. Translate them into Russian, make collocations (using these terms).

Exercise 12. Agree or disagree (justify your opinion):

1. Each term(concept) of the language has both positive and negative meaning

Exercise 13. Read and translate the text.