Questões de lingua-inglesa

Texto 02

Standard Englishes and World Englishes: Living with a Polymorph Business Language

By Jeanette Gilsdorf

Many who teach business communication observe gradual changes in Standard English. As do other languages, English changes through contact with other languages and through several other wellunderstood avenues of language evolution, such as compounding, adding affixes, functional shift, coinage, and so on. As the third millennium begins, new factors are converging to influence Standard English: U.S. work environments are becoming more richly intercultural, newcomers to the United States are increasing their fluency in English, and international business is using English increasingly as a global language of business. Throughout these remarks, my perspective is that of a native-born Anglo-American speaker of English. Speakers of other Englishes will have different but comparable perspectives.

Helping my English as Second Language (L2) students gradually master English, I’ve seen my practical understanding of L2 learning grow, along with my respect for the major language task these students have taken on. I’ve also sensed Americans’ unmerited good luck that English has become the language of international business. Yet the internationality of English is to us a mixed blessing because of our presumptions about what comes with it. As Dennett says, “English may be the language of the global village but the villagers are far from agreement on what is good use of the language” (1992, p. 13). Many communicators mistakenly assume a commonality of understanding when both speakers use the same English words. We know that even two speakers born to the same language experience only approximate commonality of meaning; yet we routinely forget to compensate for that fact and end up with cases of bypassing. Internationally, the commonality of understanding can be far more sketchy, and the contextual issues much more complex, than most of us realize.

A truism says that staying with good Standard English will hold problems to a minimum. But what is Standard English, and what is the place of Standard English in teaching business communication in contexts that are more and more international? How, as teachers, do we make our peace with the multiple, competing standards and values affecting what is “acceptable English”? These questions trouble us in part because business persons approve of others’ use of English—or disparage it— depending on their view of what English is and what it’s supposed to be used for. Most U.S. business persons say that they expect people who work for them to be highly competent in Standard English. It seems a simple issue to these business persons. To teachers it is far from simple.

[…]

(Disponível em http://web.csulb.edu/~gilsdorf/st%20eng%20world%20eng%20jbc.htm / Journal of Business Communication, volume 39, number 3, July 2002, pages 364-378).

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

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Pensioners face £1,000 fine if they don't get TV licence this week

1º§ The BBC confirmed it will start to charge everyone for the licence from August 1, so you only have until Saturday before the change comes in. Anybody who watches live telly has to pay for a licence. Brits over the age of 75 used to get free TV licences, but the benefit was axed last year - unless you claim pension credit.

2º§ The government stopped funding the free licences for over-75s in 2015, handing the responsibility over to the BBC. But the BBC last year announced it would also pull the plug on the initiative to save cash.

3º§ There was a transition period set up because of the coronavirus crisis, which meant anyone who couldn't afford a TV licence wouldn't be fined. But that all comes to an end this weekend, and anyone without a licence that needs one after the end date of July 31 will face the fine.

4º§ The BBC has said that more than nine in 10 over-75s households have already made arrangements for a paid licence, or updated changes in their circumstances to entitle them to a free one. In its latest update on the changes, the broadcasting house said it would otherwise write to the remaining 260,000 customers who hadn't yet made arrangements. Over 2,838,000 people now have a paid-for licence.

5º§ Since the over-75s have been forced to pay the annual fee, the BBC has reportedly raked in an extra £250million in licence fees, and this will only go up with the end of the grace period looming. You'll want to make sure to get a licence before the deadline or risk paying the hefty fine. 6º§ You need a TV licence to watch or record live programmes on any channel in the UK, or if you're watching something live on a streaming service too.

7º§ If you're using those services but you don't pay the fee then you could face prosecution plus a fine of up to £1,000. To get one, it's going to cost you £159 for a standard colour TV licence, otherwise it's £53.50 for a black and white one.

8º§ You don't have to pay for the licence if you're over 75 and on Pension Credit though, but you'll need to apply for a free licence on the TV licensing website or call 0300 790 6117.

9º§ You can apply for a TV licence online or by calling 0300 790 6165. The fee you pay will last you a whole year and starts from the day that you buy it.

10º§ You'll want to make a note of when this is so you know when to renew it next year too - after 12 months you'll have to pay the £159 (or £53.50) all over again.

11º§ You'll only need one per household and it doesn't matter how many people live with you. But if you or someone you live with is blind or severely sight-impaired, you can get 50% off the fee.

12º§ If you live in a residential care home or sheltered accommodation, you may be able to apply for a reduced licence which will normally cost you £7.50 instead. Plus if you're a student you don't have to pay yourself as you can be covered by your parents licence despite living away from home, but you can't watch something plugged into the mains in this case.

source(adapted):https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/15704333/pensioners-face-fine-for-no-tv-licence-this-week/

(Adapted):https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/15704333/pensioners-face-fine-for-no-tv-licence-this-week/ 

“There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us; and if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibility to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon, incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced, and materially influenced, by the mere silent presence of some external object: which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. ” 

— Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

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Mother's day at Amazon.com

Mother's day is a good time to familiarize yourself with Amazon.com where shopping is quick and easy. There you can order books, CDs, and video tapes, always ideal gifts, which will be sent wrapped in festive gift paper. But this year Amazon.com has some new and exciting alternatives for you.

Perhaps the most entertaining of these, and certainly the cheapest (It's free), are their e-cards, greeting cards, some are animated, with personalized messages. Simply visit Amazon.com, click on “ecards”, and select the design and front you like.

Using your phone, you can even add a voice greeting to any Amazon.com card.

More traditional, but no less useful, gifts are Amazon.com gift certificates. Delivered via e-mail and free of charge, these certificates are perfect for those who have everything. More importantly, they are a blessing for the last minute shopper! Such online gift certificates can be sent up to the very last minute and still arrive on time. And, if you prefer a paper version of the gift certificate, that, too, is possible. Also sent free of charge, it will arrive in three to seven business days. For more information, visit Amazon.com Gift Certificate.

And don't forget to make shopping easier for your loved ones by filling out an Amazon.com ”wish list”. To do this, shop in any area of Amazon.com.

When you come across an item that you'd like to receive, click the “Add to My Wish List” button. (It can be found under the “Add to my shopping”).

(Extraído da Revista Speak up, Maio/2000.)