Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen. Band II, Lieferungen 16-19 By Manfred Mayrhofer (review)

LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) keeping up with the changes. As technology impacts business communications, we find ourselves for the first time in history in a circumstance in which it takes longer to compose a letter than it does to deliver it. This immediacy of communication is clearly changing the way business people handle their communications . It is reasonable to expect that the messages themselves are being affected, both in form and formality, since the drafting of a message is now becoming the most time-consuming part of the communication process. Since, like speech itself, today's writtencommunication often uses a single instrument for both composing and delivering messages, one may naturally ask whether written communication is becoming more speech-like; that is, is it becoming less formal, less carefully composed? Is it the case that since business professionals are more directly involved in writing their own correspondence, using fewer secretaries or other intermedianes than they did only a few years ago, the resultant correspondence has been affected appreciably? Ifsuch changes are happening in business workplace communication , are educators aware of the changes, and if so, how are they responding in their training courses? Such questions appear to be the motivation for L's study. Given these concerns, L's basic research question (10) is 'What should the studies of written business communication at an advanced level. . . contain, to best equip students for their future jobs in business?' L identifies five areas that need to be studied to answerthe question, but herthesis deals with only three. Final conclusions, she says, will have to wait until all areas have been studied. Still, there are enough data in the study to provoke constructive thought. What the reader can expect is an extended expedition through the data L has gathered using a series of questionnaires and interviews (400 respondents and 10 interviews). These data concentrate on describing 'the present work place environment where English business messages are exchanged in the Finnish business community (the focus is on recent media developments ), finding out what the messages are (letters, faxes, telexes, e-mail), and surveying business people 's opinions on business communication and the language used' (10). This study does not deal directly with linguistic data but with data gathered through questionnaires and personal interviews about the kinds of media that business professionals use, the types ofmessages they send and the opinions they have about such messages . These data confirm that proficiency in English is fast becoming a necessity for the Finnish business professional. The mode of communication is becoming such that professionals seldom turn to language specialists to write final or even initial drafts for them. One result appears to be the perception that language used in these written contexts approximates speech more than ever before and that it is not dominated by either British or American English, but is becoming a kind of Euro-English (97-9). The notion of a Euro-English that is supposedly free from British and American cultural bias is an intriguing one, but L does not elaborate on the salient features of this alleged variety of English. It would be good for the second phase of the study to expand on this notion, which would surely be ofspecial interest to sociolinguistics and could possibly respond to Britt-Louise Gunnarsson's contention that 'the separation of the study of written texts from the study of spoken discourse leads to a fragmentation of our knowledge ofprofessional communication' ('Studies of language for specific purposes—a biased view on a rich reality', keynote address at AILA World Congress, Amsterdam, August 9-13, 1993). Other initial perceptions include the claim that English has become the lingua franca for Finnish business communication even among various offices under the same roof and that frequent exchanges of e-mail and faxes have taken on a hectic pace. In addition, some persons reported that the level of language used in these communications has risen because young people entering business today are more linguistically qualified than their predecessors were at the same stage of their careers. However, some respondents said that the level had fallen because everybody acts as his/her own secretary, using less correct language...