From Signs and Signals to Artifacts and Assumptions: Wayne Smith, Ph.D. Department of Management Woodbury University A Student of Management Observes Communication Culture in Los Angeles

Communication

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: writer as a writer –Hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed Error Category II: writer as a business person –Faulty thinker, not a detail person, poor oral communicator, poorly educated person, or sarcastic/pretentious/aggressive Error Category III: writer as a representative –Can’t represent the company to customers, or can’t represent the company in court

Some Errors Beyond the Reach of Current Technology Hacker, D. (2007), “A Writer’s Reference 6 th 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.”

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 RankError 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

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 RankError 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

“The Bottom Line” --. (2004), “Writing: A Ticket to Work or a Ticket Out, A Survey of Business Leaders,” National Commission on Writing, Sep. – -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.”

Welcome to English Same Spelling, but Different Pronunciation –through, rough, dough, plough, hiccough and trough Different Words, but Same Meaning –1950s (“hot”) –1960s (“groovy”) –1970s (“cool”) –1980s (“bad”) –1990s (“the bomb”) –Early 2000s (“phat”) –Late 2000s (“sweet”) Apparent Synonyms, but Real Antonyms –Cancelled Check (US) Cleared (and paid) just fine –Cancelled Check (Great Britain) Voided (and not paid) for some reason

“The crises over the shortage of potable water is occurring; this waterless urinal technology is addressing the problem.” The First Sentence on the Label

The “English of Business” Sentence Economics –Do I know what counts as value and impact for the reader? Sentence Accounting –Has message waste and message noise been minimized? Sentence Law –What are the rules and patterns governing sentence structure? Sentence Statistics –Has systematic uncertainty (and therefore ambiguity) been controlled for in the sentence?

Punctuation – mult. Errors 1

Punctuation – mult. Errors 2 Language Use Errors 1.Possessive pronoun form exception 2.Parallel inflection 3.Comma splice 4.Missing definite article 5.Wrong Word 6.Pluralized Adjective

Punctuation - corrected

Punctuation – side-by-side SFV storeLA store

Motivation at the Organization-level Ramstad, E. (2008), “CEO Broadens Vistas at LG”, Wall Street Journal, May. 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.