I’m always looking for intelligent internationally minded business professionals to work with.

Paul

Paul F. Davis is the author of 18 books and a worldwide speaker who has touched over 57 countries & 6 continents building bridges cross-culturally by joyfully disarming and empowering people throughout the earth to live their dreams!

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On the subject of a global dialect of English, I’m unconvinced that it would be a good thing -it could so easily slip into being another instantiation of cultural imperialism. And as the failure of Esperanto shows, an artificial language will not necessarily be adopted as a lingua franca, even though the practical advantages seem obvious. Languages, defined and constituted as they are by their use (Saussure’s langue and parole idea), are too fluid and organic to be constructed from the outside in, as it were.

To make sure that English is clear for international audiences, you must conform to more than only plain English guidelines. The best guidelines that I have seen for writing clear English are in ‘The Global English style guide: writing clear, translatable documentation for a global market’ by John R Kohl, 2008 (ISBN 978-1-59994-657-3). Although the book’s title contains the word ‘documentation’, the guidelines apply to most business texts. For a review of the book, see http://www.techscribe.co.uk/ta/global-english-style-guide.htm.

@Lucy: Perhaps eventually we’ll get a whole new dialect of international English.

Some popular types of international English are as follows:
* Voice of America (http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_special_english.cfm)
* EasyEnglish (http://www.easyenglish.info/about-us/articles/communicator.htm)
* Globish (http://www.globish.com). For a review of Globish, see http://www.techscribe.co.uk/ta/globish-the-world-over.htm.