Event

English as a World Language and its role in Business and Intercultural Communication

Friday, May 26th, 2006, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Speaker: Francis Britto

English is one of the fastest growing languages, but in different linguistic incarnations. While even the native speakers of English use different dialects and accents, the non-native speakers of English use many more varieties of English or Englishes. Most experts would grant that today non-native users of English far outnumber native users of English, raising various questions concerning English education, testing, and its use in business and cross-cultural communication. Who dictates the norms of English? What English must be taught for International use? What rights and obligations do non-native English educators have? Do non-native English educators or business-persons face discrimination? How will the emerging Englishes affect International businesses and the hiring and firing practices? These are some of the issues that we will consider in this presentation.

Francis Britto (Sociolinguistics Ph.D. Georgetown University; Professor, Sophia University) has been teaching sociolinguistics and related courses since 1986 and has presented at TESOL, JALT, JALTCALL, and other National and International Conferences. He is the author of Diglossia (Georgetown University Press, 1986) and several books and articles related to sociolinguistics, Indian English, computer literacy, gender issues, and Indology, including a biweekly column 'Webpages for English Learners' in the Daily Yomiuri. His most recent articles appear in Gender and the Language of Religion (Palgrave, 2005) and the Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2005).

Organization: International Business Communicators

Cost: 1000 yen

Venue: Oxford University Press Showroom, Edomizaka Mori Bldg. 1F, 4-1-40 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan

Contact International Business Communicators

Richard Poriss