"International shipping English" refers to the English involved in the field of international shipping, which mainly includes shipping logistics, cargo transportation, maritime law, etc. This English is a major communication language in international shipping because of its complexity and outstanding features. Since the 1990s, the author of this book has studied the characteristics of this English, and there have been several basic changes in this English in the past 30 years.
1.
British English stage: due to the shipping status of Britain in
history, British English is the English advocated in the shipping
industry in the first half of the last century, and English
communication in the industry is basically British English, such as
letters or telegrams, such as "Should you have any questions, please
feel free to ask." With the formation of the pattern of shipping
diversification and internationalization, from the late 1980s to the
early 1990s, This English is transformed from British English to
non-standard English used by many countries. For example, in the 1980s,
the above expression no longer used should as the guide word of the
adverbial clause, but changed to "If you have questions, please feel
free to ask." or "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
ask." or other more casual expressions. However, at that time, the
English characteristics of the shipping industry were still pursuing the
characteristics of pure British English. People would emphasize the
accuracy of English, that is to say, English should pay attention to
grammar.
At that time, China's large-scale foreign
trade export was just beginning, and the main team in the field of
international logistics was the Chinese foreign agent. The international
shipping English understood by Chinese practitioners is mainly related
to the English language of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan
and other Southeast Asian countries, and they do not fully understand
the structural features of the international shipping English dominated
by Europe and the United States.
2. The stage of
forming the characteristics of professional English: in the 1990s, the
main communication media of shipping English were telex and fax. Since
Morse telegraph transmission between ships had been used for nearly 100
years, because Morse telegraph transmission was relatively slow, at that
time, the proposed messages were all in the form of abbreviations.
Sometimes, in order to save words, individual words were transcribed
according to the pronunciation, such as 4=four or for, T4=there,
B4=before 2=two or too. For another example, MSG 4 U=I have a message
for you. Because the people who planned to write the message at that
time were mainly the captain, they were very familiar with the freight
business. At that time, there was a lack of professionals trained in
logistics at home and abroad. Many captains went to land to engage in
the maritime logistics industry. They brought the spelling habit of
Morse telegraph message and the thought method of saving words into
their work, so that the maritime logistics industry had many
abbreviations, Sometimes we have to use a large number of abbreviations
in order to reduce the number of words. It is precisely because of these
abbreviations that shipping English is more professional, and even
professional to the extent that practitioners who have graduated from
foreign language majors do not receive training and study and cannot
understand English messages. The reason is that there are so many
abbreviations, and many abbreviations can not be obtained from
dictionaries or the Internet, nor can they be inferred from the context.
Don't understand the message and dare not ask the sender (Note: The
unspoken rule in the language is that when a layman asks for a word, he
will reveal the weakness of the industry that he does not understand.
When the weakness is found by the other party, it will often affect the
business and sometimes cause huge losses. Some unscrupulous businessmen
will dig a trap for the other party and let the uninformed suffer; some
unscrupulous businessmen who do not want to talk with the new hand will
find another hand to complete the business and give up doing business
with the new hand.). Because of the simplicity of abbreviations, an
abbreviation saves a lot of things. Sometimes two native speakers of
both sides also use English abbreviations, such as MOLOO (more or less
according to owner's option), WWD SHEX (weather working day Sunday and
Sunday excluded), LAYCAN (layday and canceling date), CQD (Custom Quick
Dispatch), "Except for sunny working days, Sundays and holidays",
"loading and unloading period", "port customary loading and unloading
speed", etc. First of all, if you speak English and Chinese for a long
time without context, sometimes fuzzy semantics will appear. For
example, for the four terms just mentioned, new entrants must ask, who
decides MOLOO? Is it the owner "shipowner" or "cargo owner"? Is the
definition of WWD SHEX weather working day very vague? We can't load or
unload goods in rainy days. What about foggy days? Where is the gale?
Does LAYCAN "perform the loading and unloading contract" or "cancel the
loading and unloading contract"? If it is cancelled, why should it sign
the contract if it does not perform the contract? How fast is the port
used to? A week? one month? A quarter? Or a year? These questions seem
to be vague. In fact, when asked, we knew that the questioner did not go
deep into the whole process of business or that the questioner was not
an insider, or understood the habitual operation of pedestrians. As long
as we study several cases of our company, from the perspective of
negotiation, contract signing, and goods operation, we would not have
any questions.
Therefore, in order to solve the
puzzle of shipping English in the shipping industry at that time, the
author of this book went deep into some shipping enterprises in China to
study and study the practical text, and compiled the Practical Shipping
Business English Correspondence (published by Dalian Maritime
University Press). The main solution is to solve many incomprehensible
abbreviations, summarize the rules of abbreviations, and use the rules
of abbreviations to analyze the correspondence, which solved many
puzzles, As the English of the shipping industry belongs to English for
Special Purposes (ESP), those who can speak ordinary English at a high
level and do not understand these rules can not enter the industry.
Through the analysis of shipping business English, more practitioners
can understand the industry as soon as possible. I remember that in my
spare time, the captain used the idea of the shipping industry to write a
riddle to test the apprentice. For example, he wrote down U R YYs to
let the apprentice guess. The apprentice's English skills were very
good, but he did not study the shipping industry abbreviation rules, let
alone guess that the answer to the riddle was a simple sentence, "You
are too wise." In fact, the method used pronunciation and transcription,
in order to simplify the sentence, Only five letters replace a sentence
composed of 13 letters. Is it very economical to use "telegraph
message" in this sentence? But the price is that the recipient needs to
take longer to interpret the information content.
3.
Highlighting the characteristics of multinational English: From the
beginning of this century, shipping English has a new trend. First, the
number of abbreviations of non-terms in English sentences has decreased
significantly. The main reason is that telex and fax are not the main
means of communication between the two sides in international shipping,
while e-mail has become the main means of communication between the two
sides. Therefore, most of the abbreviations are no longer used in
communication, for example, the use of 4 instead of for has disappeared.
Some phenomena of omitting function words have decreased, for example,
wait is directly followed by the object without adding "for". In the era
of shipping English in which the principle of Morse telegraph message
drafting prevails, it is not because the message writer does not
understand English grammar, but specifically does so in order to save
words. At the beginning of this century, shipping English was once close
to ordinary English, mainly because the transmission mode of
correspondence was changed to e-mail transmission mode. Therefore, many
foreign language graduates have become practitioners after very short
training, and are playing a major role in the industry. At present,
there have been some changes in international shipping English. First,
those complicated shipping English should be transformed into simplified
shipping English. As the international shipping center moves eastward,
Britain and the United States are no longer the center of the
international shipping industry, and the developing international
shipping represented by China has risen. International shipping English
has changed from the original rigorous British English to the
multinational simplified shipping English. However, contract terms and
documents with legal effect still adopt the structural system of British
English, and mutual e-mail communication does not adhere to English
grammar rules and non-term abbreviations. W/I has been replaced by "all
in", BCS has been replaced by "all in", and WZ has been replaced by "all
in". There are many such examples. The main reason is that the
communication mode has changed. The purpose of saving is to make the
recipient stop and think less. After all, everyone's time is limited in
business. Saving the other party's time is also a kind of goodwill and
service. No one is willing to interpret the message as a riddle. If you
interpret the message incorrectly, you will suffer losses. From the
1980s to 1990s, the accusatory English sentence "Please peruse my last
text. By 2023, the new pattern of the international shipping industry
has taken shape. The use of shipping English is significantly different
from the form of shipping English in the last century. When we
communicate, we mainly speak efficient, fast and smooth communication.
Therefore, the international shipping English that strictly complies
with the language habits of British English is rapidly declining, while
the new model of multinational convergence has taken shape. G-day (Good
day) is usually used to greet people, rather than other expressions.
Because of the existence of the time difference in the international
time zone, it is not reasonable to use Good morning. Good afternoon.
Good evening. In addition, it is simpler than Nice to write this letter
to you. Even the conservative and obstinate Britons have to admit that
what they used to think of as "non-standard English" or "deteriorated"
(the verb "deteriorate" was once used in the Quark grammar) is actually a
dialect of English, and the discriminatory label of "standard and
non-standard" on English does not lead to more standard English, but
only to a reduction in the use of English. The concept of maritime
English was also established at the beginning of the 21st century, and
native speakers of English also recognized that maritime English is a
kind of English for special purposes (ESP). The paradigm of shipping
English is evolving, and the use of words is not extensive, but tends to
be relatively fixed. Even some verbs have participated in the formation
of shipping English paradigm. For example, I rarely see high-level
shipping practitioners use the words "suggest" and "advise" to express
suggestions. Most of them use "recommend". For example, the English verb
"read" to let "the other party read the message" mentioned above does
not usually use "read", but usually uses peruse to express "read" or
"read carefully without missing details". In our Chinese concept, it is
"semantic between lines". Because there are many ways of "reading",
including skip reading, scan reading, and reading. It is not suitable
for the shipping industry to use read, which is as precious as gold in
the message to be written. It can only jump out of the semantic circle
of read and find another verb to express that reading the message is not
the conventional "reading". In the final analysis, the shipping
industry and other industries are more closed than the social system.
The adoption of a shipping English with obvious professional
characteristics is to hope that every practitioner is a master in the
industry. There is no need to be wordy semantic self-explanatory in the
back and forth messages, so business is very smooth. However, there are
two aspects to everything. The first advantage is that shipping English
has its own complete system. Both sides understand its rules, which is
very efficient and saves time. The disadvantage is that too much
emphasis on the professionalism of the circle leads to stubbornness. The
shipping industry has formed a tradition that even mistakes can not be
corrected in a short time. For example, the author believes that the WWD
we mentioned earlier is said to be "sunny workday" in Chinese, but it
is very difficult to change it into "sunny workday". At the beginning,
casual translation has been popularized in the industry. It takes a very
long period to correct it, and some are almost unshakable. Another
example is that "pilot" in the technical corpus has been defined for
decades, although at present domestic textbooks and publications
stipulate that only the correct term "pilot" can be used. But at
present, the word "pilot" is still widely used in the actual
communication of the shipping industry, and the word "pilot" is almost
regarded as an inaccurate term on board. The phenomenon is that teachers
use "pilot" in class and students learn "pilot", but once they work on
the ship, less than half a year, they completely forget the word
"pilot".
Since shipping English has changed, it is
very necessary to rewrite "Practical Shipping Business English
Correspondence" (the third edition, published by Dalian Maritime
University Press in February 2022). This version has added new changes
in the content and form of shipping English, reflecting the more
international and professional shipping English language, and also
confirming that shipping is strong in China and the economy is strong in
China. Shipping English, which promotes the influence of Chinese
concept, appears in the international shipping dance stage, and China
has a stronger voice in the international shipping economic stage.
Source: Xinde Maritime Search and Navigation Network