From Signs and Signals to Artifacts and Assumptions: A Student of Management Observes Communication Culture in Los Angeles Wayne Smith, Ph.D. Department of Management CSU Northridge ws@csun.edu

Motivation at the Academic-level Middleton, D. (2011), “Students Struggle for Words”, Wall Street Journal, Mar 3. B8 Schools Stanford, Berkeley, Northeastern, Rutgers, Cornell, Univ. of Penn Students are having trouble with multiple writing issues (e.g., sometimes too casual, sometimes not concise, sometimes not valuing writing at all) Firms Booz –Allen Hamilton, Morgan Stanley, General Mills Need to train or re-train professionals on how to communicate GMAT The writing scores on this exam have dropped in the past three years (this could possibly be due to the number of international students) But the WSJ should come and see the high quality of the written work submitted by my students!

Motivation at the Organization-level Ramstad, E. (2008), “CEO Broadens Vistas at LG”, Wall Street Journal, May 21. B1 SUMMARY: LG is a [very large, Korean] company in transition thanks to the efforts of its CEO Yong Nam. The company is trying to reinvent itself as a 21st century multinational. This requires a major shift in the corporate culture to encourage employees to ask tough questions. Another shift is the use of English as the company's language. The goal of the company is to become a global powerhouse in appliances and electronics. WSJ: You're requiring English to be used more at headquarters and to talk to the rest of the organization. Why? Mr. Nam: English is essential. The speed of innovation required to compete in the world mandates that we must have seamless communication. We cannot depend on a small group of people who are holding the key to all communication throughout the world. That really impedes information sharing and decision-making. I want everybody's wisdom instead of just a few.

Motivation at the Professional-level Beason, L. (2001), “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors”, College Composition and Communication, 53 (1), Sep. 1. He provided sample writing errors to businesspeople. 2. He then classified the “responses and images of the writer” Error Category I: image of writer as a writer Hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed Error Category II: image of writer as a business person Faulty thinker, not a detail person, poor oral communicator, poorly educated person, or sarcastic/pretentious/aggressive Error Category III: image of writer as a representative Can’t represent the company to customers and/or can’t represent the company in court

Most Widely Spoken Languages (numbers in millions) Number of First Language Speakers Number of Second Language Speakers Total Number of Speakers English 340 1,000 1,340 Chinese 873 178 1,051 Hindi 370 120 490 Spanish 360 60 420 Russian 167 110 277 Arabic 206 24 230 Portuguese 203 10 213 Bengali 207 4 211 Indonesian 23 140 163 Japanese 126 1 127 German 95 28 123 French 65 50 115 Source: Meyer, C. (2009), Introducing English Linguistics, Cambridge University Press.

Some Errors Beyond the Reach of Current Technology Hacker, D., and Sommers, N. (2014), “A Writer’s Reference 8th ed.”, Bedford/St. Martin’s “[Current word processors have difficulty with]…writing context and culture, appropriate style of discourse, degree of ‘assertiveness,’ faulty parallelism, misplaced and dangling modifiers, homonyms, missing words and omitted verbs, shifts in verb tense or mood, coordination and subordination, sentence variety and fragments, run-on sentences, common redundancies, unnecessary wordiness, jargon and abbreviations, clichés, sexist language, irregular verbs, pronoun agreements and references, missing or misused commas, semi-colons, apostrophes, hyphens, quotation marks, capitalization, and problems with emphasis.”

Missing comma after intro. element Lunsford, A., and Lunsford, K. (2008), “Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study”, College Composition and Communication, 59 (4), Jun. p. 795 Rank Error or Error Pattern 1. Wrong word 2. Missing comma after intro. element 3. Incomplete or missing documentation 4. Vague pronoun reference 5. Spelling error (including homonyms) 6. Mechanical error with a quotation 7. Unnecessary comma 8. Unnecessary or missing capitalization 9. Missing word 10. Faulty sentence structure

Missing comma w/ nonrestrictive ele. Lunsford, A., and Lunsford, K. (2008), “Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study”, College Composition and Communication, 59 (4), Jun. p. 795 Rank Error or Error Pattern 11. Missing comma w/ nonrestrictive ele. 12. Unnecessary shift in verb tense 13. Missing comma in a compound sent. 14. Unnecessary or missing apostrophe 15. Fused (run-on) sentence 16. Comma splice 17. No pronoun-antecedent agreement 18. Poorly integrated quotation 19. Unnecessary or missing hyphen 20. Sentence fragment

Punctuation – mult. Errors 2 Language Use Errors Possessive pronoun form exception Parallel inflection Comma splice Missing definite article Wrong Word Pluralized Adjective

“The Bottom Line” --. (2004), “Writing: A Ticket to Work or a Ticket Out, A Survey of Business Leaders,” National Commission on Writing, Sep. http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/writing-ticket-to-work.pdf Summary Excerpts “Writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for both employment and promotion, particularly for salaried employees.” “People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion.” Costs “Based on the survey responses, it appears that remedying deficiencies in writing may cost American firms as much as $3.1 billion annually.”