TEXTO:
Globish: the new international language?
A French author and ex-vice president of IBM has
come up with a new reduced form of English to help
non-English speakers get by when they are abroad. In
his books Don’t Speak English, Parlez Globish and
5 Découvrez le Globish, Jean Paul Nerrière advocates the
use of Globish as the common language of international
communication.
Globish involves a vocabulary limited to 1,500
words. Other features include short sentences, an
10 absence of idiomatic expressions, and extensive hand
gestures to get the point across. It is not aimed at cultural
eloquence, Mr. Nerrière points out, but at “linguistic
efficiency, always, everywhere, with everyone.”
Mr. Nerrière originally started his investigations into
15 Globish in an effort to help other French men and women
sitting in business meetings held in English. He advised
them to content themselves with Globish instead of trying
to master the intricacies of formal English. Now his
globalized version of English is so common, he says,
20 that Americans, Britons, and other English speakers
should learn it, too.
Mr Nerrière says that native speakers of English
tend to stand out as strange in international business
meetings. This is due to their refusal to use the
25 elementary English adopted by colleagues from other
countries. He suggests they should make an effort to
speak like everybody else to appear less arrogant and
more open to doing business. He warns that commercial
ventures could depend upon the mastery of Globish: “If
30 you lose a contract to a rival because you’re speaking
an English that no one except another Anglophone
understands, then you’ve got a problem.”
Quick to dispel fears that Globish will mean the
end of other languages, Mr. Nerrière recommends that it
35 should only be used in international exchanges. It should
not, he insists, be used as a vehicle of culture. In other
words, he believes we should keep on learning languages
to read the great literary works of Molière, Shakespeare,
and Cervantes. He claims, however, that the best
40 language to talk about the price of steel in China is
Globish.
OXENDEN, C. & Latham-Koenig, C. American English File ,Workbook 4 p.71 Oxford University Press
The phrase “due to” (l. 24) should be understood as
