For Americans, it’s quite convenient to have English as the world’s global trade language. But is it really fair?

All over the world, people study English for many reasons: business, academics, and travel, to name a few.

English-speakers, of course, benefit a great deal from this situation. However, there is some debate about whether English should remain the business lingua franca indefinitely.

A Bloomberg Businessweek article lays out both sides of the issue. In “English Means Business,” two business school professors debate the pros and cons of English’s international predominance.

Maury Peiperl, from the Swiss business school IMD, argues that while international business English (a simplified form of English used by many non-native speakers) may not be perfect, it is here to stay -- and a practical solution for global communication.

He shrugs off the idea that we’ll all be speaking Chinese in a few decades. “China shows far more interest in teaching hundreds of millions of people to speak English than in advancing Mandarin or Cantonese as a global language.

His colleague Karsten Jonsen argues against a “one-company-one-people-one-language-fits-all cultural mentality.” He points out that when non-fluent speakers use the same language, they may think they are communicating -- but important nuances are lost.

“The same words can mean different things in different local settings, and different pronunciations or strong accents can make communication more difficult than it seems,” explains Jonsen. “Depending on who’s speaking to whom, it isn’t necessarily a common language.”

At Language Translation Inc. , we recognize the importance of keeping linguistic diversity alive. We also know through experience that for greater accuracy and efficiency, many forms of communication need to be rendered into different languages through translation and interpretation.

Betty Carlson

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