When the chief executive lies
By Ricardo Saludo, The Manila Times

Octoiber 25, 2010—How can you tell if the boss is telling a fib? Ask Stanford professor David Larcker and his co-researcher, doctoral student Anastasia Zakolyukina. In “Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls,” published by the California university’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, the two scholars came up with a word list and even a computer program to detect probable lying.

With computer analysis, Larcker and Zakolyukina found patterns of word usage in electronic transcripts of conference calls of CEOs and their chief financial officers discussing quarterly earnings with investors, stock analysts and media. The researchers then checked which CEOs and CFOs had to revise downward their earnings reports, and discovered common turns of phrase that point to deception.

“Deceptive CEOs and CFOs use more references to general knowledge, fewer non-extreme positive emotions words, fewer references to shareholders value and value creation,” summed up the study.

Translation: the liars avoid specifics like actual financial numbers, and tend to speak in superlatives when delivering good news. References to common knowledge often come with “you know.”

Take former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan. In a conference call just months before the New York investment bank collapsed in late 2008, Callan said “incredibly” eight times, “great” 14 times, and “strong” 24 times. But “challenging” came up just six times in the transcript, and “tough” only once, the study noted.

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Let’s say “Vive la difference” in English and Maori
By Jon Tamihere, Sunday News

October 24, 2010—The Waitangi Tribunal delivered a report this week indicating the Maori language has a bleak outlook and little chance of survival.

This got me thinking about language as an integral part of being a New Zealander—and  how important language is in expressing who you are, where you are, what you are and what you might want to be.

The English language arguably has a platform built on on the Germanic dialects of the Anglo Saxons and Jutes and a form of French brought in by the Normans when they conquered England at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

From this moment, and from this platform, the English language as we know it developed.

It rolled around the globe, gaining strength as the British Empire dominated politics and economics.

English has become today’s global powerhouse language.

Undoubtably its dominance has been aided by the massive impact of the United States and Hollywood’s huge tentacles.

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Stop being “happy slaves” of English hegemony, says Japanese sociolinguist
By Masaaki Tonedachi, The Asahi Shimbun

October 16, 2010—People have different opinions on how English should be taught in Japanese schools, but few disagree on the importance of English as an international language that must be taught. Yukio Tsuda, a sociolinguist, is one of those few. He believes Japanese people should stop glorifying English and English speakers.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Tsuda asserted that English has become a pernicious “tool” of discrimination that does nothing but widen social disparities. Excerpts follow.
* * *
Question: English is an international language. When you think of the future of Japanese children, don’t you think English should be taught as a compulsory subject?

Answer: The way you just phrased your question is a perfect example of how positively the English language is perceived in Japan. Everybody seems to think it’s not only so cool to be an English speaker, but it also enables you to communicate freely with people around the world. Many Japanese have yearned to become proficient in English, virtually worshipping it ever since it established its superior status among foreign languages in Japan at the dawn of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). But let me tell you this: English has its dark side that represents ruthless power.

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Modern society and modern language
By Michael Shao, Imprint

Having been born in the early ’90s, I have often heard stories of how education and society was apparently much better back in the day. I tried to see how people from different places lived their lives, and how this affected the noticeable irregularities in our current understanding of the English language.

Here’s a good example: the impoverished living in our society used to be called “poor people” who lived in the “slums” or “ghettoes” of a bigger city.

Now, the terminology we would use to describe the exact same people are the “economically disadvantaged” persons who occupy “substandard housing” in the “inner cities.”

Was it not easier to say the first sentence than the second? How much less did it really reveal about that ‘class’ of people? Should we really think differently of them if we change the language by adding more syllables?

Somehow, I think that is exactly the goal: to soften language by playing with connotation. The mentality seems to be that if we change the words, we can somehow change the connotation, and we can change the way it is interpreted.

By meaninglessly adding syllables and hiding the real meaning in our words, we supposedly make the suspect phrase or intention less understandable and less meaningful than it should.

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Aussie English and proper English
By Patrick Cox, TheWorld.org

Not that Australian English isn’t proper…

English is so widely and variously spoken that it barely can be called a single language. That hasn’t stopped grammar stickler Simon Heffer from trying to re-establish order. The man is seriously old school, and he doesn’t like what any of Britain’s new schools are teaching –or failing to teach — about English usage. We take a trip with Heffer to a school in Suffolk, where he makes the case for his version of correct English: the difference, for example, between “I will” and “I shall.” Heffer doesn’t like it when English speakers get in a muddle over foreign terms. The Italian term panini, meaning sandwiches, has essentially become an English word. Most of us either don’t know or don’t worry that panini is plural. Heffer, though, does. If he’s buying just one sandwich, he will insist on asking for a panino.

No one’s going to arrest him for that.

Heffer, of course, is far from alone in trying to control our use of the language, before it descends into hellish and unseemly chaos, no doubt taking us with it. In the eighteenth century, English bishop Robert Lowth tried something far more proactive: he laid out a set of grammar rules for English that were, essentially, borrowed from Latin. To that end, he criticized the likes of Shakespeare, Donne and Milton for their “false syntax”.

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It need not be fluent but to know English helps
By Woo Thim Weng, The Star

October 18, 2010—I have to disagree with the writer of the letter “Make BM a world-class language” (The Star, Oct 17) on some of his views.

I have no qualms with Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and consider myself well-versed in it. I use the language to communicate with my colleagues daily even though Bahasa Malaysia is not my mother tongue.

English is not only used in England, America and Australia. It is the international language.

I work in a MNC and can tell you that it is not necessary to have an excellent command of the English language as the native speakers. There is no need to speak the Queen’s English to communicate effectively with my counterparts in any part of the world.

Even the Germans use English to reply my emails and I understand them perfectly well.

When it comes to education, we have to look at the big picture. Today, most of the students want to further their studies. When a student gets into tertiary education, the medium of instruction, especially in universities abroad, is English.

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African languages are cool, ok?
By Thandeka Mapi, Mail & Guardian online

October 15, 2010—There is a crisis in African languages, particularly at school level, that everyone concerned—language experts, academics and the government—will have to address.   

I say this after having spent time with learners at Grahamstown schools, who spoke to me about the role of African languages in learning, teaching and socialisation.

The learners are at two township government schools (Mrwetyana High and Nombulelo High), an English-medium private school (Kings-wood High) and a dual-medium (English and Afrikaans) public school (Mary Waters High). They said they did not speak English as fluently and confidently as they would like to. It was clear that all felt it was important to speak and understand English better, both to be accepted socially and to have better employment opportunities. In other words, they viewed English as the language.

“If you speak English well, people respect you. But if you speak isi-Xhosa, it does not matter how well you speak it, no one looks at you differently,” said Sanelisiwe Njongo.

She might have been expressing a personal view but this does seem to be how most young black South Africans think and feel about their mother tongues. One gets the impression that most of them just cannot wait to finish high school, where these “boring” (African) languages are stuffed down their throats.

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