LANGUAGE IN INDIA

E-MAILING IN INDIAN CONTEXTS - Brief Guidelines for Inclusion in Our Curriculum
M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

RECOGNITION OF INDIAN ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD

Indian English has received greater recognition in recent decades for its vitality and original contributions to the English language. However, whether Indian English could be considered a bona fide dialect of English is somewhat unsettled. We all seek standards of English in tune with the standards prevalent in Britain or USA to a large extent.

IMPORTANCE GIVEN TO ENGLISH IN SOUTH ASIA - THE DELICATE BALANCE MAINTAINED IN OUR ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS

In South Asia, English occupies a very important role as a language of communication for formal purposes as well as for inter-personal transactions. And we all need to communicate using English not only among ourselves but also with others, especially the native speakers of English.

Scholastic, business, recreation and research pursuits require competence and confidence in using English in a manner that our English is understood not only by all South Asians but also by persons beyond our shores. Seeking to pursue the standards set in UK/USA is part of the mechanism that helps us to use English to meet all exigencies.

Our English textbooks, while using a good number of Indian stories and essays, still aim at helping students to maintain some sort of Standard English that is somewhat close to standards prevailing in UK. There is a diligent and delicate balance sought to be maintained by our textbook writers.

EXCESSIVE INDULGENCE IN COLLOQUALISMS, SLANG, E TC.

The excessive indulgence in colloquialisms, slang, acronyms, and other processes of abbreviations in e-mails written by Indian youth, especially, is rather shattering this delicate balance. As our English curriculum has not yet incorporated in any great detail the recent developments of SMS, e-mail, word processing, etc., there is a sense of freedom and a sense of creativity to have our mark on anything we do (especially on the part of young students). And this has resulted in certain widespread usage that does not match with practices in Standard English writing.

Codifications such as U for 'you,' R for 'are' are excessively used in e-mails. Once upon a time, telegrams had to be written in shortened forms, avoiding prepositions, articles, etc., to save money, since word count decided the charge (the money to be paid) for the telegram sent. Telegraph language became popular for quick communication. These days abbreviations, slang, acronyms and colloquialisms seem to be the choice mode for communication.

SEEKING STYLISH AND FASHIONABLE WAYS

Unfortunately there seems to be an impression that this manner is stylish, widespread among the native speakers of English abroad, and is the most up to date form of communication.

EXERCISE CAUTION

While this may look stylish for young people, serious transactions still need proper, grammatically constructed sentences. Value is attached to the form and content of communication, and also to the manner of choice of expressions in all communications in institutional set up. A proper and serious training of our students in the code of conduct for e-mailing will help them in their future career.

Internet is only a means to an end, and it does offer great freedom. However, conventions in the world at large will continue to influence decision making processes, not simply the freedom that is offered by the Internet.

THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF E-MAILS

We must first recognize that we resort to writing e-mail not only because it is freely transmitted, or it is delivered quickly. Instant communication is provided by the e-mail facility, but this does not mean that because of this it should be always colloquial and full of slang expressions, etc. E-mails can be saved forever, and could come to haunt the writers who did their writing without deliberating on the subject.

Speed should not result in hastily written documents - e-mail is still a medium that employs writing. Since it employs writing, and since we all commit errors in our writing or in choice of words or in the construction of sentences that could be misunderstood or twisted, we all need to do some self-editing of what we write.

TRAINING NEEDS IN THIS AREA

This need must be brought to the attention of our students constantly and they should be given practice and encouragement in mastering the correct use of this powerful means at their disposal.

Business corporations in India have good Internet connectivity. They expect their employees to communicate via e-mail. Such communications could be of several types, but all of these do demand decency, clarity and purpose in the communication transacted.

SOME GUIDELINES FOR E-MAILING

The following are some of the guidelines that I would offer to enterprising individuals and young students to develop early in their career when it comes to e-mailing.

1. Use polite terms of address as demanded in your place of work and in Indian society at large.
2. Begin with such greetings. It is possible that you may do away with the greetings if you are giving a reply response, and yet it is to your advantage if you always greet another with warmth.
3. Read your e-mail before you send it. Do the spell check and grammar check.
4. Excessive errors in spelling and grammar do not help comprehension or sustain the interest and sympathy of your readers.
5. End your e-mail with a thank you note or an appreciation with proper salutation.
6. Do not sound angry. Do not send messages with any angry tone. Discuss the matter face to face with the person to whom you are planning to send an angry message.
7. Do not refer to subject matter or information that you cannot substantiate. Likewise do not refer to person or persons who would consider such references as offensive or unwarranted.
8. E-mails have a tricky facility (blind carbon copy or BCC) of getting forwarded to people you did not want your message to go. So, have every possible audience before you when you compose your e-mail message. It is hard to do this, but when you deliberately consider all the issues, you will develop great sensitivity in this area.
9. I see a lot of e-mails written only in capital letters. Writers indulging in this seem to think that they emphasize the points for the benefit of their target audience. In fact, unfortunately, they make their messages hard to read and comprehend, and thus create irritation in the reader's mind!
10. If at all you want to emphasize a point, choose the most appropriate part of your sentence and present in bold.
11. Do not mark copies to every one in your office, unless such e-mails are demanded. It is a wise policy to send e-mails only to those with whom you are in contact, and only to those who need to receive this message. Some youngsters send e-mails with their requests to all and sundry. The recipients will delete most of these e-mails even without a simple glance at them.
12. Avoid colloquialisms.
13. Avoid unnecessary acronyms.
14. Look at writing e-mail as a serious writing activity. That means you need to follow language conventions, deliberate on the subject of your writing, etc.
15. Subject line is the most important part of your e-mail. Learn how to phrase your subject and be brief in the subject line. Recipients of your e-mail will be guided by what you say in your subject line. So, what you present in the subject line should be clear and should faithfully reflect the content in an attractive manner. E-mails without subject line material are usually deleted immediately.
16. Avoid sending visuals as part of the body of the text. It does take time to download a message with visuals. Your recipient may have no time for this, or his or her computer may not be adequately equipped for this purpose.
17. Send documents attached to your e-mail, only if it is absolutely necessary. You need to ensure that such attached documents are in the widely prevalent word processing format.
18. Make your e-mails as brief as possible. But your text should be in clear, not cryptic, language.

NEED FOR INCLUSION IN THE CURRICULUM - GRADED LESSONS

Graded lessons need to be developed in this area.

1. Business Communication courses in English and Indian languages need to identify the international standard conventions in this discipline, even as these courses cover Indian specific contexts.
2. A list of salutations appropriate to Indian contexts should be listed.
3. Politeness exchange techniques must be identified and included.
4. What it means to be offensive in Indian social and business contexts needs to be identified and the consequences or manifestations in Indian English and Indian languages need to be listed.
5. The culture developed in some of the leading Indian business corporations that deal with international business transactions should be studied and adopted in a graded manner in our lessons.
6. Communication strategies in these corporations should be explored.
7. We need to train our students and young officials of the corporations on how to write in plain English and plain Indian languages.
8. As a background for item 6, we need to understand the awful language use in government correspondence in India that simply makes things incomprehensible, impersonal, and circumlocutory.
9. Develop communication with less number of artificially coined or translated technical terms. Excessive use of technical terms makes communication hard to understand.

This is only a brief list. I propose to write on this subject again.

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