PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA

Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Algeria

University of Batna-2- Mustapha Benboulaid

Faculty of Letters and Foreign Languages
Department of English Language and Literature

English For Economic Science

and
Business

 Module: Ils
 Level: 3rd year
 Teacher: Loucif
 Student: Rabeh Widad
1-English for Economics English for economics is the language related to
international trade. The use of this specific language has grown and extended
ever since the globalization of English language. this language has been
strongly influenced by foreign trade which is why we may find a lot of
borrowed words from another languages.

2-English for Business: It refers to the language used in the working

environment. As such, it may require very versatile and complex linguistic and
extra-linguistic skills, because it is used in many situations, in both oral and
written interaction. The most common contexts in which business English
appears are the following: attending business meetings and shareholders’
meetings, communication between colleagues and participation in negotiations
and business phone calls.

3-Charesteristics of Economics and Business English:

a- Lexis: the key lexis of Business English was found to be overtly positive in
nature, dynamic, action-orientated and clearly non-emotive. Most of the
adjectives were obviously referring to things, e.g., products and companies,
rather than to people.

b- It involves a high degree of specialization and specific Nomenclature for

instance 360 Degree Thinking, 360 Degree Feedback.

c- Abbreviations and acronyms are very common.

d- Peculiar rules in word-formation: as in most scientific languages new

words are often derived from Latin and Greek for example: Alpha test,
amalgamate.
e- Some words are derived from other languages: agio, archive, money,
commerce, tax, finance.

f- The register is formal.

4-Economic text:

Asset Prices and Fundamental Values:

The efficient markets hypothesis states that assets ought to sell for their
fundamental values. In most cases, fundamental value is difficult to measure,
and so this prediction cannot be directly tested. But the fundamental value of a
closed-end fund is easily assessed: the fund pays dividends equal to the sum of
the dividends paid by the stocks in its portfolio and so should sell for the market
price of its portfolio. Yet closed-end funds sell and have sold at large and
substantially fluctuating discounts (Malkiel 1977; Herzfeld 1980), which have
been relatively small during the bull markets of the late 1960s and the 1980s
and large during the bear markets of the 1970s.

Available explanations of discounts on closed-end funds are not completely

satisfactory. Two of the most prominent explanations rely on the agency costs
of fund management and on the miscalculation of net asset value because of a
failure to deduct the fund's capital gains tax liability. The agency theory for
discounts, however, cannot explain how closed-end funds are ever rationally
formed since the original investors throw away the present value of future
agency costs without earning higher returns. The agency explanation is also
inconsistent with the evidence that funds with higher transaction costs and stock
turnover do not sell at higher discounts (Malkiel 1977) and with correlated
variability of discounts across funds (Herzfeld 1980). With respect to tax-based
theories, Brauer (1984) and Brickley and Schallheim (1985) find that prices of
closed-end funds rise on the announcement of open-ending or of liquidation.
This result is difficult to interpret if the closed-end fund's discount reflects its
unrealized capital gain tax liability since, if anything, discounts should widen
when the fund is open-ended and tax payments can no longer be deferred. Nor
can the capital gains story explain how funds trade at a premium when they get
started.

Andrei Shleifer inefficient market.

5-Illustration of some of the characteristics from the text:

1. Lexis and adjectives which refer to things: closed-end funds sell and
have sold at large and substantially fluctuating discounts.
2. Specific nomenclature: Transaction, discounts, fundrise .
3. Words from other languages: portfolio, tax.
4. The use of formal register:
 the whole test is written in third person point of view.
 The use of cannot instead of can’t: “The agency theory for discounts,
however, cannot explain...”
 The use of active voice instead of passive voice.

References:
Aurner R.R. 1940. Effective English in Business. Cincinnati, New York: South-
western Pub.

Boettke P. 2006. Progress in economic discourse.

businessballs.com/glossaries-and-terminology/business-and-management-
glossary/

Andrei Shleifer inefficient markets –noise trader risk.