Cross- cultural Communication This page intentionally left blank

Imported English
Official French
le welfare state
l’état-providence
le news-desk
la rédaction sedentaire
un disc-jockey
un animateur
l’élévateur
l’ascenseur
le job
l’emploi
Figure 4.3 Examples of Franglais
An additional problem in French for English speakers is the number of ‘faux 
amis’ (false friends), as shown in Figure 4.4.
French term
English translation
l’agenda
diary
intéressant
can mean ‘profitable’
éventuellement
possibly
prétendre
to maintain, allege
assister à
to attend
avoir envie de
to desire
dramatique
disastrous
l’occasion
a hiring
les frites
chips
les chips
crisps
Figure 4.4 Examples of ‘faux amis’

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68 Cross-Cultural Communication
In 2003, a state commission which reported to the Académie Française, 
which was seen as the supreme arbiter of the linguistic purity of French, was 
set up to ensure that French words rather than English would be used when 
there is a perfectly good French word, particularly in the case of Internet and 
computer terminology, as well as on TV, radio and in the print media. This 
is part of an attempt to offset the encroachment of franglais.
Another problem which foreigners experience is the use of the English 
understatement. A classic example is the use by the English of ‘rather good’, 
which a foreigner may not realize is, in fact, a compliment. The use of the 
double negative is also confusing, as in the example ‘I wouldn’t disagree 
with that idea’.
Artificial languages
In endeavouring to simplify the problems posed by complex languages 
with wide vocabularies and the minefield of possible misunderstandings, 
there have been various attempts in the case of English to produce a rela-
tively simple, standardized English devoid of colloquialisms, idioms and 
metaphors.
In the 1930s, Basic English (BASIC, the acronym standing for British 
American Scientific International Commercial) was promoted. It was a 
simple form of English which trimmed the excessive richness of English 
vocabulary and simplified some of the more complex areas of grammar. It 
had a basic vocabulary of 850 words selected to cover everyday needs.
Another later move in the 1970s was the Plain English Campaign in both 
the UK and the USA. This aimed to attack the use of unnecessarily com-
plicated language, often used in particular by governments, business and 
the law, and replace the ‘gobbledygook’ with clearer forms of spoken and 
written English. This has had considerable success, notably in making the 
language used in government- issued forms and in legal documents more 
understandable. However, critics maintain that the simplification of vocabu-
lary is often at the expense of more complex grammar and greater reliance 
on idiomatic constructions.
In the early part of the last century, attempts to develop a world lan-
guage centred on the artificial language Esperanto, based on Romance 
language vocabulary and first invented in 1887. Although it had initial 
success, its adherents have dwindled in the face of competition by English,