Minimal English for a Global World

Improved Communication Using Fewer Words

Cliff Goddard, Cliff Goddard

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783319625126
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Linguistique

This book introduces a new tool for improving communication and promoting clearer thinking in a world where the use of Global English can create numerous comprehension and communication issues. Based on research findings from cross-linguistic semantics, it contains essays and studies by leading experts exploring the value and application of 'Minimal English' in various fields, including ethics, health, human rights discourse, education and international relations. In doing so, it provides informed guidelines and practical advice on how to communicate in clear and cross-translatable ways in Minimal English. This innovative edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of applied linguistics, language education and translation studies.

© The Author(s) 2018

Cliff Goddard (ed.)Minimal English for a Global Worldhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Cliff Goddard¹  

(1)

Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

 

 

Cliff Goddard

End Abstract

There are a great many books, conferences, articles, and the like on the topic of “Global English ”. This book, however, is unique in linking the theme of Global English with that of Minimal English as a tool for achieving better intercultural understanding and clearer thinking. Although the idea of Minimal English, that is, an identifiable core of simple, cross-translatable English words, comes from linguists, many of the contributors to this book are not linguists. They are experts and specialists from the fields of diplomacy and international relations, ethics and law, science education, public communication, and medicine, all of whom are entering into an interdisciplinary dialogue with outward-looking linguists. The reader will find a variety of different voices and styles, reflecting different fields and vantage points of the contributors. The chapters, many of them beautifully written, tell us not only about the potential for Minimal English in their respective fields but are richly informative about those fields themselves. Not that these chapters deal in generalities. One of their most appealing aspects is that the authors use concrete case studies.

But what is Minimal English, and how does it relate to ordinary English and to Global English, that is, English as a global lingua franca? The concept of Minimal English was first proposed by Anna Wierzbicka (2014: Ch 14), as a radically reduced “mini English” which can provide “a common auxiliary inter-language for speakers of different languages, and as a global means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas” (p. 194). This idea is taken up in Chap. 2, by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka. Aside from arguing for the benefits of using cross-translatable words , they stress that Minimal English is intended not to replace or supplant ordinary English, but to add to its effectiveness as a global tool for communication and discourse. The linguistic research and knowledge base underlying it is dealt with in Chap. 3 by Cliff Goddard, “Minimal English: The Science Behind It”. Most of the subsequent chapters include texts written in Minimal English, some of them lengthy.

The next two chapters take us into the world of diplomacy and international relations , where communication is often a sensitive and tricky business. William Maley’s Chap. 4 illustrates the pitfalls and complexities of diplomatic communication, particularly in crisis situations, while in Chap. 5 Nicholas Farrelly and Michael Wesley discuss the roles of English in international relations, with a particular focus on ASEAN and on China–US relations. These authors see real value in having an auxiliary form of simple cross-translatable English at hand.

Chapters 6 and 7 are, broadly speaking, about ethics , values, and law. Anna Wierzbicka proposes a “Charter of Global Ethic” written entirely in Minimal English, and discusses the great advantages of freeing international discourse in this area from Anglocentric orientations that are hiding, often unnoticed, in untranslatable Anglo-English words. In her Chap. 7, Annabelle Mooney uses Minimal English to tease out the core elements of the concepts of “torture ” and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in international law.

Minimal English clearly has important potential applications in education. In their respective Chaps. 8 and 9, Anna Wierzbicka and David Christian explore how Minimal English can contribute to science education and to Big History . Anna Wierzbicka takes as her case study the story of changing ideas about the universe, from Ptolemy, through Copernicus, Galileo, and into modern times. How can this canonical science story, she asks, be captured and taught to children “through words that children can understand”. In Chap. 9, David Christian, the founder of the Big History movement (which, broadly speaking, seeks to tell the shared history of humanity in the context of the universe), discusses the need for origin stories and the challenge of casting such stories into language which is both precise and accessible.

The final pair of chapters are only loosely connected in terms of subject matter, but both are concerned with in-progress applications of Minimal languages —not Minimal English as such, but its parallels in other languages, such as Finnish, Italian, and French. Chapter 10, by Ulla Vanhatalo and Juhana Torkki, relates how the authors have popularized in Finland the idea of improving communication using the semantic primes of Finnish, the “65 words” method . The final chapter, Chap. 11, is about health communication , specifically, efforts being made in the “narrative medicine ” approach to improve communication between patients and doctors and to give patients a stronger voice. The authors are linguist Bert Peeters and narrative medicine expert Maria Giulia Marini.

Clearly each of the chapters can deal with only a small cross-section of the issues in their respective fields, but cumulatively they show the enormous potential for Minimal English to make a difference in the world.

It goes without saying that there is much which is not included, or even touched on, in this book, including the applications of Minimal English in language teaching and language learning, in higher education, in linguistic fieldwork, and in counselling, mediation, and therapy. All going well, there will be time and opportunity for these topics in future books, conferences and websites.

Acknowledgements

The ANU Centre for Humanities provided valuable support for 2015 Symposium “Global English, Minimal English”, held at Australian National University.

Reference

Wierzbicka, Anna. 2014. Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language. New York: Oxford University Press.

© The Author(s) 2018

Cliff Goddard (ed.)Minimal English for a Global Worldhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_2

Begin Abstract

2. Minimal English and How It Can Add to Global English

Cliff Goddard¹ and Anna Wierzbicka²

(1)

School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

(2)

Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Cliff Goddard

End Abstract

2.1 Why Minimal English?

The global spread of English is now something that concerns millions of people, in fact, mega-millions, and it creates challenges that, we believe, cross-linguistic semantics has something useful to say about. One of the goals of this book is to bring the experience of cross-linguistic semantics, that is, the study of meaning across languages, into the public arena and to discuss ways in which it can be helpful in fostering clarity in intercultural communication. Underlying it is the idea that Global English is not an unmixed blessing as far as intercultural understanding is concerned. Yes, Global English facilitates international and intercultural communication—but it can also create an impression that effective intercultural understanding is occurring when in fact it is not. In his Cultures in Conversation, Carbaugh (2005: xxii–xxiii) referred to difficulties like these as ‘invisible misunderstandings’ (cf. Peeters forthcoming/2018). This book explores ways in which the use of Minimal English can improve intercultural communication and cross-linguistic understanding in the era of Global English.

2.2 What Is Minimal English?

Minimal English is an application and extension of several decades of research by linguists in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to meaning and language. Among linguists, the NSM approach is well known for its claim to have discovered the fundamental meaning elements of all languages, known as semantic primes, and for producing a large body of studies into how meanings are expressed differently through the words and grammars of different languages (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014; more detail is given in Chap. 3, this volume). It is also—so far—the only comprehensive approach to linguistic description that takes an explicit stand against Anglocentrism (Wierzbicka 2014). But although based on extensive research by linguists working in the NSM approach, Minimal English is not NSM. It is very different in its purpose and, correspondingly, its composition.

Minimal English is intended for use by non-specialists, and for a wide and open-ended range of functions. It is the result of taking NSM research ‘out of the lab’, so to speak, and into the wider world—not as the sole language of communication, but as an auxiliary or supplementary language. Minimal English is a tool that can help people put their thoughts into words in a way that makes it easier to discuss them across a language barrier. (Actually, a better metaphor is that Minimal English offers a way of going ‘under’ a language barrier.) Minimal English also helps one to think more clearly. With fewer words to choose from, one is forced to focus on the essential things that one wants to say, without getting distracted by all the available lexical options or being tempted into vague and woolly phrasing. In a Minimal English text, every word matters, every word counts. This helps counter t...