Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Lisa » Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:24 pm

Is it vocabulary that gets people, or grammar? I have much more trouble with complicated sentences with lots of pronouns and references to previous context, than with out of range vocabulary or expressions. And when I write (in english, technical work for readers including non-natives), I don't worry about vocabulary, but I'm careful to avoid any potentially confusing references. So instead of the next sentence saying "it" or "that", I'll repeat any term for which the reference might be potentially confusing.

I confess that when speaking to people with lower levels of English, it's hard for me not to simplify sentences and skip grammatical words and somewhat reflect their speaking... condescending, since they probably understand at a higher level than they speak, but it's hard not to.
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:16 am

mokibao wrote:I'm going to quote myself here:

mokibao wrote:
Native speaker content will always be the norm that L2 learners grow towards. The internet makes that content easily accessible almost everywhere.


Except that 1) there are more non-native speakers of English than native speakers (almost 3x as many), so as the language spreads any piece of English writing or speech is statistically more likely to come from a non-native speaker, and 2) the trend has already begun, with the rise of so-called 'airport English', globish, international English, call that however you like. There are many reports of native English speakers having to adjust their speech patterns and lexicon when they have to deal with international speakers in any prolonged capacity (e.g. research, business and so on). It is still English, but it noticeably deviates from what native speakers are used to: fewer idiotisms, more regularity, more articulation. Then there are local examples in multicultural countries like India or Singapore, where many people use English as a national and second language but their variety is strongly influenced by their respective mother tongue.

But for all that, there is still no universal "centralising tendency" in English other than the language of native countries and semi-native places (i.e. former colonies with a majority population not descended from native-speaking colonies -- NB. I have just made this term up, it's not a common term in linguistics).

While there are many surprisingly common "learner errors" in English that are seen in speakers with vastly different L1s, there is nothing so universal that it can be considered a "new norm". If we abandon native speech (with reduced idiom) as our target, there is currently no candidate model to replace it with. Until and unless we can produce a statistical model of genuine common features of "English as a Lingua Franca" as a language in and of itself, I really can't see how we can stop using the native model.

I'm not saying people in south-east Asia shouldn't learn to speak like Singaporeans -- Singlish is a legitimate English variety that has been studied, after all -- but if we start saying that "Europeans shouldn't speak like British people, but like Europeans", what would that mean? Is our model of "European English" going to teach articles in the way that Western Europeans transfer their L1 rules to English, or are is it going to teach articles in the seemingly-arbitrary-but-consistent-and-non-random way that speakers of Slavic languages tend to use them?

Or do we apply both patterns in their respective geographies and end up with "Eastern European English" and "Western European English", and will speakers of the two be able to communicate with each other? And will speakers of either be able to communicate with speakers of "East Asian English", "South-east Asian English", etc etc?
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:24 am

verdastelo wrote:The is a symptom a contemporary ill. We find a non-issue or a trivial issue, blow it out of proportion, and then virtue-signal.

Funnily enough, I tend to find accusations of others virtue-signalling as a kind of virtue-signalling in and of itself.... ;)
"Good English" (and the educational resources, like tutoring, needed to acquire it) is tied to class status; it functions as a barrier to success which not everyone can pass.

Isn't it true of Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, or almost any language? :shock:

Not so much as English -- English now has a unique position globally.

Speak in ways that are accessible to everyone, using simple words and phrases.

The Nigerians have already done that for you.

No, they've done that for themselves -- Pidgin is their language and not necessarily more comprehensible to people from outwith the speaker community.

"Hansen, who's spent years as a communication specialist studying this question, says the onus shouldn't be on non-native speakers but rather on native English speakers to improve their comprehension of accents different from their own."

It seems that the world has gone crazy. By that logic, I can voluntarily come to the US, the UK, Canada, or Australia, speak bad English, and blame the natives. :evil:

Why is someone having a different opinion from you evidence that "the world has gone crazy"?
If I'm working in an office in Italy, alongside people from Senegal, Argentina, Switzerland, Burkina Faso, Burma, Brazil, Poland, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, and they can understand each other and I can't understand them, is it legitimate for me to turn round and say "well it's my language, so you need to start speaking like me so that I can understand you"?

Pragmatically, that's simply not how the world works.
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:27 am

Le Baron wrote:
3) Don't be a jerk


Not really a phrase I would use. There's a tendency for non-native English speakers to adopt a North American vernacular as standard (and assume everyone speaks that way).

Unfortunately at times you have a choice between a mild insult in a localised vernacular or a more universal obscenity. I think the most geographically-agnostic standard here would be a reference to either male or female genitalia...
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby verdastelo » Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:38 pm

Cainntear wrote:Funnily enough, I tend to find accusations of others virtue-signalling as a kind of virtue-signalling in and of itself.... ;)

This is not an accusation but an observation. The observation can be correct or incorrect. You can point out if it's incorrect. I'll learn something new. :P

Cainntear wrote:
verdastelo wrote:
"Good English" (and the educational resources, like tutoring, needed to acquire it) is tied to class status; it functions as a barrier to success which not everyone can pass.

Isn't it true of Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, or almost any language? :shock:

Not so much as English -- English now has a unique position globally.

Great! At least we agree that it's a question of quantity, not quality.

Cainntear wrote:No, they've done that for themselves -- Pidgin is their language and not necessarily more comprehensible to people from outwith the speaker community..


That was exactly my point. Using simple words and phrases doesn't always work. We should aim for precise terminology and unambiguous sentences. Going by the article's recommendation, you shouldn't have used "outwith." I had to look this one up. I'm not blaming you. In fact, thanks to you, I learned a new word today. But if you had gone by the article's suggestions, then this learning wouldn't have occurred. Now if I spot "outwith" in a text again, I can at least guess it was by a Scottish writer. Why should we obliterate this richness?

Here's a sample of simple Indian English: "Not us expected one. If you want good colour, quality of in hand felling, this mobile not for you. Good quality of mobile and moderate usage choose samsung at this price range. Always samsung is company mobile, After receiving this mobile i am realise that. Amazon can't return this product. What can I do I am use this worst mobile. . This is second time for me from Amazon. So I am not place any order from Amazon. This is my last order." (Source: Amazon India) Simple doesn't always mean comprehensible.

Cainntear wrote:Why is someone having a different opinion from you evidence that "the world has gone crazy"?

Aha! That's a figure of speech. According to the article, if a native speaker doesn't understand, then it's his mistake. Not mine. I'm a non-native speaker, after all. :P

Cainntear wrote:If I'm working in an office in Italy, alongside people from Senegal, Argentina, Switzerland, Burkina Faso, Burma, Brazil, Poland, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, and they can understand each other and I can't understand them, is it legitimate for me to turn round and say "well it's my language, so you need to start speaking like me so that I can understand you"?

Pragmatically, that's simply not how the world works.


That depends on who needs the job more. If you need the job, you can learn to speak like them. If they need the job and the job requires standard English, they will learn to speak like you. That's a pragmatic answer.

Another answer could be more ideological. Let's say one of them writes: "Placing white Anglo-Saxons at the pinnacle, he worked down the ladder of race and colour to the then unempowered multitude of Negroes at the base." Will you turn to the writer and tell them to speak like you and use the term "Black" or "African American" or another euphemism of the day? Or will you let the writer publish his report just as The Telegraph India did. I didn't pick a fringe paper. The Telegraph is the fifth most popular English newspaper in India. We still use "mankind" and "chairman" and "he" instead of "humanity", "chairperson", or "they." "Negroes" is pretty common as well. And many don't use those terms derogatorily. Will you correct them or learn to speak like them?
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Wed Apr 28, 2021 6:05 pm

verdastelo wrote:
Cainntear wrote:No, they've done that for themselves -- Pidgin is their language and not necessarily more comprehensible to people from outwith the speaker community..


That was exactly my point. Using simple words and phrases doesn't always work.

That doesn't follow logically -- it works for them. Pidgin evolved for local communication, not international communication, and it achieves its goal perfectly successfully.

The argument for "international English" is that it can be seen from evidence to be working -- every example of a meeting where everyone except the native speaker understands each other is additional proof.

As I said, my problem with it isn't that it exists, it's the suggestion that we should somehow present it as a target language model, when there isn't enough consistency in it to write new language courses around it; teach to a native model, accept that no-one's going to become native -- that's my philosophy.

Going by the article's recommendation, you shouldn't have used "outwith." I had to look this one up. I'm not blaming you. In fact, thanks to you, I learned a new word today. But if you had gone by the article's suggestions, then this learning wouldn't have occurred. Now if I spot "outwith" in a text again, I can at least guess it was by a Scottish writer. Why should we obliterate this richness?

I used it deliberately -- or rather, I thought of it instinctively, and actively chose not to filter it out. It's a word that I actively avoid all the time, because it's something that most native speakers don't understand, never mind learners.

My point in using it here was to show that calling native-speaker privilege and saying "it's right, therefore I will use it" doesn't aid communication, and that's the point of the whole English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) thing. If your goal is to speak with other non-natives (and not to speak to natives) then why should something that is understandable but not native-like be wrong?

Here's a sample of simple Indian English: "Not us expected one. If you want good colour, quality of in hand felling, this mobile not for you. Good quality of mobile and moderate usage choose samsung at this price range. Always samsung is company mobile, After receiving this mobile i am realise that. Amazon can't return this product. What can I do I am use this worst mobile. . This is second time for me from Amazon. So I am not place any order from Amazon. This is my last order." (Source: Amazon India) Simple doesn't always mean comprehensible.

No, but it also doesn't always mean incomprehensible. The point of ELF isn't "all English that deviates from a native model is good", it's "not all English that deviates from a native model is bad."

I mean, yes, that's difficult to read, but I wouldn't have a problem with someone saying "You have an outstanding bill for 5 crore. Please revert back to me when you have done the needful." It's Indian English, and no-one from a traditional heritage-speaker background would say it, and most of us wouldn't understand it. But that doesn't make it objectively wrong.

Cainntear wrote:Why is someone having a different opinion from you evidence that "the world has gone crazy"?

Aha! That's a figure of speech. According to the article, if a native speaker doesn't understand, then it's his mistake. Not mine. I'm a non-native speaker, after all. :P

That's a total misrepresentation of the argument. "The world has gone crazy" is loaded with emotional significance, and is pretty near explicit in insulting people with differening opinions. A great many insults are "figures of speech" -- I wouldn't literally call someone a form of human genitalia or human faeces... all just figures of speech. Doesn't make it OK.

That depends on who needs the job more. If you need the job, you can learn to speak like them. If they need the job and the job requires standard English, they will learn to speak like you. That's a pragmatic answer.

Yes, and the pragmatics are that there are increasingly many workplaces where the first is the reality. Which is exactly what the article was talking about.

Another answer could be more ideological. Let's say one of them writes: "Placing white Anglo-Saxons at the pinnacle, he worked down the ladder of race and colour to the then unempowered multitude of Negroes at the base." Will you turn to the writer and tell them to speak like you and use the term "Black" or "African American" or another euphemism of the day? Or will you let the writer publish his report just as The Telegraph India did. I didn't pick a fringe paper. The Telegraph is the fifth most popular English newspaper in India. We still use "mankind" and "chairman" and "he" instead of "humanity", "chairperson", or "they." "Negroes" is pretty common as well. And many don't use those terms derogatorily. Will you correct them or learn to speak like them?

If it's not derogatory locally, it's not derogatory. There are parts of English where the term "cock" is a term of endearment, even though in most places it's an insult.

In the US, the term "person of color" is considered OK and preferred over "black" -- in the UK, "person of colour" is considered offensive and "black" is the neutral term. In the US, "African American" is widely considered a positive term; in the UK, any explicit reference to Africa (eg "African Brit") would be considered derogatory in that it presents them as foreign, and therefore less British.

Would I feel uncomfortable hearing the term "Negro" in common usage? Yes, because my language is different. Doesn't make someone else's language wrong. Although in an international setting, I would probably expect them to moderate their language to be more geographically neutral, just like I do.
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby verdastelo » Sat May 08, 2021 10:46 am

I delayed responding because of the lockdown here. We were rushing to purchase food. Hehe. Now back to discussing the article:

Cainntear wrote:That doesn't follow logically -- it works for them. Pidgin evolved for local communication, not international communication, and it achieves its goal perfectly successfully.

Now, I'll be evil and nitpick. :P Pidgin is used for international communication in West Africa. It functions well in that region. Nonetheless, I agree that it's not used globally.

Cainntear wrote:The argument for "international English" is that it can be seen from evidence to be working -- every example of a meeting where everyone except the native speaker understands each other is additional proof.


I think that such a situation can occur only when the Nigerians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Iranians, and other non-natives have been living or working together for a while and have developed a sort of pidgin. In that case, any outsider, let alone a native speaker, will feel left out. However, when you place a native with a bunch of non-natives from different cultures together for the first time, I don't think the native speaker will feel out of place.

Cainntear wrote:As I said, my problem with it isn't that it exists, it's the suggestion that we should somehow present it as a target language model, when there isn't enough consistency in it to write new language courses around it; teach to a native model, accept that no-one's going to become native -- that's my philosophy.


I agree with you. You have a nuanced approach, unlike the person who wrote the article. That person is convinced that non-natives speak the best English.

Image

Cainntear wrote:My point in using it ["outiwith"] here was to show that calling native-speaker privilege and saying "it's right, therefore I will use it" doesn't aid communication, and that's the point of the whole English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) thing. If your goal is to speak with other non-natives (and not to speak to natives) then why should something that is understandable but not native-like be wrong?


That's not more obscure than "Please, prepone buying a brinjal today itself.", which has come to mean in India "Please, buy an eggplant early, preferably today."

"Outwith", "prepone" and "brinjal" are obscure to outsiders, but the article only requires of natives to make an effort to simplify their English. I didn't find a single sentence on what a non-native should do. Going by the article, the non-natives have only rights and no responsibilities. Such articles create divisions. A politician will appear out of nowhere to support non-natives and another to support natives. People will suffer while politicians will grow rich.

Cainntear wrote:No, but it also doesn't always mean incomprehensible. The point of ELF isn't "all English that deviates from a native model is good", it's "not all English that deviates from a native model is bad."


Once again, I agree with you. But I disagree with the article which claims that non-natives are the best speakers of English.

Cainntear wrote:I mean, yes, that's difficult to read, but I wouldn't have a problem with someone saying "You have an outstanding bill for 5 crore. Please revert back to me when you have done the needful." It's Indian English, and no-one from a traditional heritage-speaker background would say it, and most of us wouldn't understand it. But that doesn't make it objectively wrong.


It's not objectively wrong but it's not standard as well. Send this email to someone in Russia or Sweden or China and notice them scratching their heads in confusion. I have heard quite a few Russians and Swedes say that they don't understand a thing when Indians speak. Not to mention that the Indians around me were clueless when my Chinese friend stayed with me a few years ago and tried to communicate with the locals. For a week, I was an Esperanto-Hindi or Chinese English-Indian English interpreter.

Cainntear wrote:That's a total misrepresentation of the argument. "The world has gone crazy" is loaded with emotional significance, and is pretty near explicit in insulting people with differening opinions. A great many insults are "figures of speech" -- I wouldn't literally call someone a form of human genitalia or human faeces... all just figures of speech. Doesn't make it OK.


Sorry for that. I should be more careful.

Cainntear wrote:Would I feel uncomfortable hearing the term "Negro" in common usage? Yes, because my language is different. Doesn't make someone else's language wrong. Although in an international setting, I would probably expect them to moderate their language to be more geographically neutral, just like I do.


Being a native gives you no right to complain. Don't blame me. Blame that article. My issue with the article that, instead of encouraging non-natives to learn about English cultures and natives to be considerate, it promotes an unhealthy discourse. Here is another example:

Carolyn McCuske & Rhaina Cohenr on NPR wrote:At one point, Rodríguez asked the group, "Does anybody else want to intervene?"

"Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word.
...
In the moment, he didn't react. ... "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed."


Granted that professor C was an idiot. But how is wanting someone to "sell his soul to remain employed" humane? Sounds very medieval to me.
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Sat May 08, 2021 1:10 pm

verdastelo wrote:I delayed responding because of the lockdown here. We were rushing to purchase food.

:(
Cainntear wrote:The argument for "international English" is that it can be seen from evidence to be working -- every example of a meeting where everyone except the native speaker understands each other is additional proof.


I think that such a situation can occur only when the Nigerians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Iranians, and other non-natives have been living or working together for a while and have developed a sort of pidgin. In that case, any outsider, let alone a native speaker, will feel left out. However, when you place a native with a bunch of non-natives from different cultures together for the first time, I don't think the native speaker will feel out of place.

Except that time and again it has been observed that in a mixed international group, it is very often the native speaker who experiences and causes the greatest number of misunderstandings. You can tell us you don't believe it, but there's a whole heap of literature regarding this.

I agree with you. You have a nuanced approach, unlike the person who wrote the article. That person is convinced that non-natives speak the best English.

What makes you say that? The article I read didn't say that at all.

"Outwith", "prepone" and "brinjal" are obscure to outsiders, but the article only requires of natives to make an effort to simplify their English. I didn't find a single sentence on what a non-native should do.

Wasn't it an English-language website writing for a native-speaking audience? You may as well complain that Men's Health magazine doesn't run articles on breast-feeding.

Going by the article, the non-natives have only rights and no responsibilities.

Nonsense. It didn't once say, for example, that the English speaker should learn Spanish. It strongly implied that the non-natives are expected to do the largest part of the work, which is learning adequate English in the first place.

The only right it asserted was the right not to be ridiculed for having done the lion's share of the work, but not being absolutely perfect.

Cainntear wrote:No, but it also doesn't always mean incomprehensible. The point of ELF isn't "all English that deviates from a native model is good", it's "not all English that deviates from a native model is bad."


Once again, I agree with you. But I disagree with the article which claims that non-natives are the best speakers of English.

Again, it does not.

Being a native gives you no right to complain. Don't blame me. Blame that article.

Again, again, again... where the hell does it say that?

My issue with the article that, instead of encouraging non-natives to learn about English cultures and natives to be considerate, it promotes an unhealthy discourse. Here is another example:

Carolyn McCuske & Rhaina Cohenr on NPR wrote:At one point, Rodríguez asked the group, "Does anybody else want to intervene?"

"Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word.
...
In the moment, he didn't react. ... "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed."


Granted that professor C was an idiot. But how is wanting someone to "sell his soul to remain employed" humane? Sounds very medieval to me.

Bullying in the workplace is a serious issue, and people who bully coworkers should be disciplined. Do you have a problem with that?
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby verdastelo » Sat May 08, 2021 2:05 pm

Cainntear wrote:Except that time and again it has been observed that in a mixed international group, it is very often the native speaker who experiences and causes the greatest number of misunderstandings. You can tell us you don't believe it, but there's a whole heap of literature regarding this.


Can you please share the papers you read?

Cainntear wrote: What makes you say that? The article I read didn't say that at all.

I shared the image before. Here I'm sharing it again. Notice the meta title. To me, it's clear.

Image

Cainntear wrote: Wasn't it an English-language website writing for a native-speaking audience? You may as well complain that Men's Health magazine doesn't run articles on breast-feeding.


That I believe is incorrect. NPR is for Americans, not all of whom are native-English speakers.

Cainntear wrote: Going by the article, the non-natives have only rights and no responsibilities.


The article repeats multiple times the responsibilities of a native speaker. Can you cite the instances where it talks about the responsibilities of a non-native speaker?

Cainntear wrote: The only right it asserted was the right not to be ridiculed for having done the lion's share of the work, but not being absolutely perfect.


I don't understand the entire concept of rights. Rights don't exist in a vacuum. Rights and responsibilities are connected. I don't have any right to walk free if I have killed someone. As for being ridiculed, I can think of two scenarios.

1. A native speaker who doesn't speak Russian mocks someone's English in Russia. That's bad on the native speaker.
2. I'm not condoning it, but a migrant with poor English in Canada working in an English department will be a butt of jokes. It's like a German, who cannot even get their pronunciation, grammar, and orthography correct, moves to India to teach Hindi. People will be more forgiving of the person in Germany, but not in India.

Cainntear wrote: Bullying in the workplace is a serious issue, and people who bully coworkers should be disciplined. Do you have a problem with that?


If the punishment for mockingly [probably unintentionally] telling someone how to correctly pronounce a word is selling your "soul to keep employed", I do have a problem with that. The punishment can be proportionate; an apology, public service, or a short suspension. but selling your "soul to keep employed". I disagree. That's inhumane.
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Re: Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Postby Cainntear » Sat May 08, 2021 6:59 pm

verdastelo wrote:
Cainntear wrote:Except that time and again it has been observed that in a mixed international group, it is very often the native speaker who experiences and causes the greatest number of misunderstandings. You can tell us you don't believe it, but there's a whole heap of literature regarding this.


Can you please share the papers you read?

Can't remember any specific ones of the top of my head. The TESOL masters was a few years ago now.

Cainntear wrote: What makes you say that? The article I read didn't say that at all.

I shared the image before. Here I'm sharing it again. Notice the meta title. To me, it's clear.

Image

You can't blame the journalist for what a clickbaity headline writer stuck onto his article, and which even appears to have been taken off by one of the editorial staff.

That I believe is incorrect. NPR is for Americans, not all of whom are native-English speakers.

Fair point, but I still maintain the core target demographic was native English speakers.

I don't understand the entire concept of rights. Rights don't exist in a vacuum. Rights and responsibilities are connected. I don't have any right to walk free if I have killed someone.

OK, then let's forget about rights. Instead I'll say that native speakers are in a position to make the situation better for everyone with a tiny amount of effort and thought. Insisting on the non-natives being perfect requires a lot more people to do a lot more work, and it doesn't actually say anything about how.

Asking a few people to enunciate their Ts and stop making baseball metaphors is a lot more straightforward than demanding a few dozen take on full-time English classes for a year or two, surely?

If the punishment for mockingly [probably unintentionally] telling someone how to correctly pronounce a word is selling your "soul to keep employed", I do have a problem with that.

But Prof C in the story wasn't correcting Rodríguez's pronunciation at all, because he used (and I quote) "a dramatic mock British accent", which wasn't his accent. Doesn't sound in the slightest bit unintentional.

So what now... do I use my native-speaker privilege to chastise you as a non-native for failing to understand something a native speaker wrote, and tell you to go and study more English until you can understand the message properly? Because that's what you seem to be arguing for.
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