BUSINESS ENGLISH

Within the past decades the popularity of Business English has increased enormously. There is hardly a specialist who can function effectively if he doesn’t know English; there is hardly a company that doesn’t use English as the language of business communication. A large number of international companies have set up their representative offices in our country, offering new positions and challenging opportunities. But Business English is used not only by specialists on the job, ordinary people often find themselves in different situations when it’s almost impossible to do without Business English.

What is Business English? Traditionally Business English was referred to English for Specific Purposes together with English for Academic Purposes and English for Science and Technology. Within this classification Business English was naturally viewed as the language for trade and commerce. This traditional understanding of the word “business” was and still is reflected in modern dictionaries, which define it first of all as “the activity of buying and selling goods and services”.

However, life changes and attitudes do too. In the first place these changes have affected the meaning of the word “business”. Thus computer dictionary ABBY Lingvo defines “business” as any occupation, trade or activity, which is opposed to “doing nothing, being idle”. This last definition proves that Business English may have a very wide sphere of application and people may use it not only at work where they have to communicate with foreign colleagues, partners and customers but out of work as well. Being an active member of a society and living according to its laws we always get involved into various situations which require from us a good command of Business English. We meet with different people, apply for a job, book tickets, order and buy overseas goods through the Internet, get and transfer money, arrange trips, go abroad on business or just have a rest. It is almost impossible to cope with these situations if you don’t have at least elementary business communication skills.

Traditionally Business English is divided into General Business English and Professional Business English. General Business English may be used both by professionals and non-professionals in various contexts and circumstances. As a rule people speaking General Business English use common words and word combinations but in a new business context. There are a lot of examples when familiar words acquire new meanings when we start using them for business communication. Thus, “ to run a company” means to manage a company, “ to be short of time or money” means not to have enough time or money.

Phrasal verbs are also rather frequent in the language of business communication. It is very important to learn and understand their meaning not to get into embarrassing situations. For example phrasal verb “ to look forward to ” which is often used in business correspondence, means that you’ll be happy to receive a reply; the verb “ to get through ”, which appears in telephone talks, means to reach somebody by phone. Prepositions having both lexical and grammar functions play a rather important part in Business English. Failure to use a correct preposition may not only mislead your partner but ruin the act of communication. For example, we say “ to advise on ” when we ask our partner to give us advice on a subject he or she knows very well (He advises us on tax matters). If we say “ to advise of ” we will mean that we want to inform somebody about something. (We’ll advise you of any changes in delivery).

The sphere of application of Professional Business English is usually narrower than of General Business English as it is used only by professionals who work in a particular area. The main peculiarity that differentiates Professional Business English from General one is the use of terms. Thus people who work in finance will definitely come across such expressions as interest rates or cash flow which may not be clear enough to an ordinary person. Professional legal English known as “legalese” employs a lot of Latin borrowings (e.g. actus reus, mens rea) which are also considered to be terms. All these examples prove that it’s impossible to be fluent in Professional Business English without being an expert in the particular sphere.