Understanding the English

Dear friends,

Today the subject I deal with is communication, language and cultural differences.

Students of English generally spend a lot of time and money learning the language. They sit exams to obtain certificates saying that their English if of a certain level. However, when they travel to the UK or any other English-speaking country to work, study or simply for tourism, they often realize that they are far less capable of communicating in English as their certificates would suggest.

What’s the main reason for this? There are perhaps two: pronunciation and cultural difference.

British English has always been, and continues to be, a language of dialects. Wherever one goes to England or elsewhere in Britain, there are very obvious differences between the ways in which people speak in different places. It is so with the words used, with the grammar or the way in which words are organized and very noticeably with pronunciation. You may find many differences among Southern Welsh and Scottish, as well as the accents from West Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Scottish Highlands, Glasgow, Northern Ireland etc. 

For instance, a very special accent from London is “Cockney” and, like any such local accent, is associated with working-class origins. A feature of Cockney speech is rhyming slang, in which, for example, “wife” is referred to as “trouble and strife”, and “stairs” as “apples and pears” (usually shortened to “apples”). Some rhyming slang has passed into general informal British usage; some examples are “use your loaf”, which means “think” (from loaf of bread= “head”) and “have a butcher’s”, which means “have a look” (from “butcher’s hook”= “look”).

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Nearly everybody has a spoken accent that identifies them as coming from a particular city or region. Please have a look at this video. It’s a good listening exercise on different accents in the UK and it’s really very funny:

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Therefore, for starters, accent is a key cultural difference that affects communication. When there is a strong accent involved, some words are incomprehensible to the other party and therefore important information is left unheard. This can be confusing if you have only been exposed to Standard English pronunciation. Anyway, Standard English is definitely a good starting point! Then, exposing oneself to as many accents as possible would be the second step.

Hence, you can improve your pronunciation and intonation thanks to the Internet where you can find lots of resources but when it comes to cultural values, then real life experiences are the only ways to learn. For example, English culture dominates the cultures of the other three nations of the British Isles (Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales). Everyday habits, attitudes and values among the peoples of the four nations are very similar. However, they are not identical, and what is often regarded as typically British may in fact be only typically English.

Sometimes advanced students spend a long period in the UK and still don’t understand British people. The British, like the people of every country, tend to be attributed with certain characteristics which are supposedly typical. It is said they are usually indirect and polite people. If for instance someone says: “the concert was quite good”, they probably mean it was excellent! This means that sometimes the language is used to hide real feelings, it becomes then ambiguous. Think of sentences such as “Tell me if I’m wrong, but...” would actually mean “I know I’m right” or “I am a bit disappointed” which means “I am really annoyed”. This may be a problem when students come from different cultures.

So, don’t forget that language is the key to a country’s self-identity. It enables their people to express emotions, share feelings, tell stories, and convey complex messages and knowledge.

In 16th century, Montaigne said, "The most universal quality is diversity." Given that diversity abounds, the project of understanding each other is both daunting and important. It is a journey never finished, because the process and the endpoints change constantly.

Leave your comments if you wish.

Teacher Barbara