English in the Information Society

1
English in the Information Society

• Grammar
• Saskia Nolte

2
Der Binnenmarkt ist das Herz der Europäischen
Union. Aber viele Europäer können mit dem Begriff
wenig anfangen.

• The domestic market is the heart of the European
  Union. But a great many Europeans cannot do much
  with this concept / arent familiar with this
  concept.
• lex
• inland, home, internal, inner (? domestic)
  market
• center (? heart)
• trade (? market)
• expression, word (? concept)
• how to handle this expression dont know,
  do not know what it is about do not get an
  idea of (? cannot do much with, arent familiar
  with)

3
Die Studenten-Organisation setzt sich für die
Rechte der Arbeiter in Textilfabriken der Ditten
Welt ein.

• This student organization is fighting for the
  rights of workers in textile factories in the
  Third World.
• sp
• third world (? Third World)
• prep
• of (? in) the Third World
• coh
• the (? this) organization
• lex
• stand up for (? work for, fight for)
• aspect
• works/ fights for (? is working/fighting for)

4
Es war der ehrgeizige Versuch eines visionären
Franzosen, Europa aus der Phase der politischen
und wirtschaftlichen Lähmung zu befreien.

• It was the ambitious attempt of a visionary
  Frenchman to free Europe from a phase of
  political and economic paralysis /
  immobilization.
• lex
• try (? attempt)
• futuristic (? visionary)
• financial, economical (? economic)
• palsy, paralyzing, stagnation, handicap,
  standstill (? paralysis)
• rescue, relieve, release (? liberate, free)
• state, stage (? phase, era, period)
• prep
• free of (? from) a phase
• det
• a (? zero) paralysis
• an (? the) ambitious attempt
• tense
• had been (? was attempt)

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Grammatically wrong or merely a matter of style?
How important are these changes for
comprehension?

• The heuristic advantage of the differentiation is
  particularly salient in cases in which publics
  become involved as third parties bringing about
  the peculiar dynamics of modern competition as a
  fight of all for all (Simmel).
• The heuristic advantage of the differentiation is
  particularly salient in cases in which the public
  becomes involved as a third party, which brings
  about the special dynamics of modern competition
  as a fight of all for all (Simmel).

6

• The sociology of knowledge should analyze the
  communicative conflicts about conjectured borders
  of knowledge because they allow studying the
  repression and marginalization of erring
  statements which are involved in any kind of
  knowledge production.
• The sociology of knowledge would profit from an
  analysis of the communicative conflicts about the
  conjectural limits of knowledge because these
  conflicts allow the study of the repression and
  marginalization of erroneous statements, which
  are involved in the production of knowledge of
  all sorts.

7
How wide should/could International English be?

• Basic English (Ogden)
• The question of intelligibility is one which
  has generally been neglected by an undue
  insistence on correctness (Ogden, 1968).
• Reduced grammatical system

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• Sentence structure
• The General Word Order Subject- Verb- Object
• Questions formed by inversion and do
• Nouns
• Plurals are formed with a trailing -s. The normal
  exceptions of standard English also apply,
  notably -es and -ies
• Compound words may be combined from two nouns
  (milkman) or a noun and a directive (sundown).
• Adjectives (Qualifiers)
• Comparison is expressed with more and most -er
  and -est are alternative suffixes
• Negative adjectives are formed with prefix un-
• Adverbs use suffix -ly

9

• Operation Words (Verbs)
• 10 operators make, put, take, keep, let, give,
  get, go, come, do
• 3 operator auxiliaries (have, be, seem)
• directive (preposition)
• equivalents of roughly 200 simple English
  verbs
• Auxiliaries
• may possibility/permission
• will and have to form compound tenses
• be passive voice
• will only auxiliary for futurity
• Pronouns
• operators and pronouns have to be congruent in
  case, number and gender
• Tense
• a matter of common sense

10
How wide should/could International English be?

• Basic Global English (Grzega)
• a (fast) start for learners of English, open for
  developing larger skills of all kinds of
  Englishes
• reduced but still natural, not artificial English
• English for international contexts (with a
  guarantee of international intelligibility)
• BGE should only offer the most basic and most
  frequent grammatical patterns of English
  (Grzega, 2005).
• ? only 20 grammar rules

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• Prerequisite Differentiation of seven word
  classes (Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives,
  Adverbs, Conjunctions and Prepositions)
• Sentence Structure Agent- Verb- Patient/object
  of the Action
• Singular vs. Plural
• Definite and indefinite article
• Personal pronouns
• Other pronouns
• Simple present (Irregularities be, have, do)
• Progressive
• Simple past and present perfect
• Progressive used for background and frame actions
• Future

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1. Passive
2. Auxiliaries (most important be, have, do)
3. Relative clauses and relative pronouns
4. Adverbs
5. Comparison
6. Negation
7. Interrogative and imperative sentences
8. Prepositional constructions with verbs
9. Subordinate clause
10. Conjunctions

13

• Obviously, violations against grammatical rules
  of standard English do not seem to lead to any
  serious communicative breakdowns.
• Native and advanced non-native speakers of
  English are asked to accept the variants
  presented as rightful variants in international
  contexts (Grzega, 2005)

14
How much Variation can there be in English in the
Information Society?
15
Works Cited

• Ogden, C.K. Basic English International Second
  Language. New York Harcourt, Brace World,
  1968.
• Grzega, J. Towards Global English Via Basic
  Global English (BGE) The Journal for
  EuroLinguistiX, Vol. 2, 2005. p. 65-164.
• lthttp//www1.kueichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/ELiX/
  grzega-054.pdfgt