Business English phraseology as specialized terms in specific domains

To begin with, a number of teachers of English as a second language believe that foreign students should not be taught English phraseology or idioms as it may ´spoil´ their ´received´ English. Those teachers, we maintain, have a very vague or a very narrow idea of phraseology. They generally think of slang and jargon set expressions as idioms. But that is, evidently, the lowest layer of the language, which is described in special, still not numerous, dictionaries.

As an analytic language, English is extremely rich in idioms, and although it is possible to converse correctly in non-idiomatic English, students with only a superficial knowledge of English phraseology and idioms will find themselves at a serious disadvantage in their reading, and even more so when one taking part in discussions and debate. There are so many colloquial phraseological units belonging to common literary style that it does not even occur to native speakers that they make use of idioms which need to be explained to a foreigner: to be in two minds – ´to be undecided´, to change one´s mind – ´to make a new and different decision or choice´, it stands to reason – ´there is only one conclusion to be drawn´, etc.

Many English idioms serve as specialised terms in specific domains:

a) advertising: prime time - ´the time of day when the greatest number of people listen to the radio or watch television and when advertising rates are highest´; reply coupon - ´a printed form that can be detached from a magazine page, a leaflet, etc and used to ask for advertised goods´;

b) accounting: sales ledger - ´a book or a computer file in which the money owed or paid to a company for the goods it sells is recorded´; prudence concept - an accounting principle in which expected losses are recorded at the highest possible rather than the lowest possible amount; above the line - ´relating to a figure included in a statement of a company´s profits and losses before tax has been paid, not after tax; to allow a claim - to decide that an amount of money claimed for insurance, damages etc is correct and should be paid;

c) banking: the rate of interest - ´the amount of money charged by the bank, or paid by the bank for the loan or use of money´; refer to drawer - ´words written on a check that the bank will not pay, usually because there is not enough money in the account´; Basle ratios - an international agreement on the amount of capital financial institutions must have in relation to the amount they lend out;

d) business: a sleeping partner - ´a person who provides a percentage of the capital of a business but who does not have a part in the management of a business´; to shake hands on a bargain/ deal -´to express agreement that it is binding´;

e) buying and selling: to run up an account (with a shop) - ´to buy a number of things on credit´; hard sell - a forceful way of getting people to buy things; good/ big seller - a product that sells well;

f) commerce: price ring - ´a group of sellers in the same industry who have agreed to fix a minimum price for a product´; market forces - ´factors such as the amount of raw materials and goods available and the amount wanted by customers that influence the price of goods and the way they are distributed and sold´; halo effect - ´when people think that a company is good because it is owned by or connected with another company that is famous and important´;

g) economics: free market - ´a market where prices are allowed to rise and fall according to supply and demand, without prices being fixed by governments´; bilateral monopoly -´a situation where there is only one buyer and one seller in a market´; essential industry - an industry that a country considers is very important to its economy and may support with government money, taxes or imports, etc.;

h) finance: revolving fund - ´a source of money from which loans are made and repaid with interest so the fund is maintained and the money can continue to be lent´; easy money -´money that is earned without difficulties´; above par - at a price that is above the original value when shares and bonds were first made available; bare squeeze - when share prices rise because it is known that people have sold these shares without actually owning them, hoping to be able to obtain them more cheaply later, before they have to deliver them to the buyer;

i) stock exchange: government bonds - ´securities issued by a government in the form of debenture stocks with a fixed interest that is paid at regular intervals´; hot money - ´money that is passed quickly from country to country to take advantage of differences in interest rates and exchange rates´, above board - AmE honest and legal; etc. All the idioms and other types of phraseological units that have been mentioned above are widely used in business, economics and management.

We maintain that the terminology of business, economics and finance should be taught in several stages. The learner is recommended to begin with mastering traditional lexical collocations and set expressions which show no signs of semantic transformation of their components. As a rule such terminological word combinations have full equivalents in the Russian language e.g.: comparison of indices - сравнение показателей, approximate estimate - приближенная оценка, banking establishment - банковское учреждение, superabundance of capital - избыток капитала, board of creditors - кредиторский совет, to ease customs formalities - упрощать таможенную процедуру, to sustain competition - выдерживать конкуренцию, column balance - столбец баланса, consumer budget - потребительский бюджет, etc.

These items evidently present no difficulty either in reading or listening comprehension, e.g.: statistically equivalent, transport company, unified code, a commercial bank, credit at the bank, information service, latent form of capital, etc.

Nevertheless, students reading business papers, economic periodicals and other publications often come across expressions which are extremely difficult to understand because they are semantically encoded. Among such terms there are, for example, the following idiomatic expressions: to be loaded up, the meaning of which may be interpreted as ´to have a big bag of fund valuables which are very difficult to realize ´; Treasury note, the meaning of which may be deciphered as ´ a middle term security paper´; constructive receipt, the meaning of which may be defined as ´supposed income, i.e. income not having been received in reality but which is considered to have been received for the aims of taxing ´; over spot - currency addition at long term agreements; loan strings - money given under certain political and economic conditions and restrictions, Monte Carlo technique (method of statistical tests,), Wilson formula (means to find out the most economical volume of order), Massachusettes rule (code of reasonable behaviour while investing money according to the letter of confidence), Delphi method (method of expert estimation), Ockham´s razor (law of minimal admittance in the economic model) and the like.

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