Plain English is an idea currently discussed more and more often. It appears important that Russian EL teachers, translators and interpreters should be familiar with this concept. Here are just the first things about it.

The Plain English movement in the USA is designed to attack the use of unnecessarily complicated language by governments, businesses and other authorities. The campaigners argue that such language, whether spoken or written, should be replaced by clearer forms of expression.

In the USA, President Carter's Executive Order of March 1978 required regulations to be written in plain English; although revoked by President Reagan in 1981, it had promoted a great deal of legislation throughout the country and an increase in plain English usage among corporations and consumers.

Today the Plain English campaigns continue to grow, focusing especially on such everyday consumer products as forms, official letters, licenses, leases, contracts, insurance policies, and guarantees.  In the USA there are Annual Doublespeak Awards, given by the National Council of Teachers of English to 'American Public figures who have perpetrated language that is grossly unfactual, deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, or self-contradictory'.  On the positive side, there are cases of businesses revising their literature to avoid legal jargon, and as a result benefiting from increased sales.

In these cost-conscious days, it is stressed that clear language not only prevents anxiety on the part of the recipient, it also saves time and money. One thing is true: scientists, doctors, bankers, and others need their jargon, in order to communicate with each other succinctly and unambiguously.  But when it comes to addressing the non-specialist consumer, the plain English campaigners argue, different criteria must apply.

What is Plain English?

It is not easy to devise precise, consistent, and acceptable guidelines for those who wish to write in plain English. But here are some of its most important characteristics:

Readability
Prefer the shorter word to a long one.  Use simple everyday words rather than fancy ones.  Prefer verbs over nouns and adjectives.  Prefer a specific word to the general.

Write short sentences with an average of no more than 20 words.  Use the active voice rather than the passive.  Be a miser with compound and complex sentences and a spendthrift with simple sentences.

Write short paragraphs with an average of about 75 words.  Avoid paragraphs that exceed five typed lines for business letters and ten lines for longer compositions.

Write with the ear.  A sentence may look correct on paper but its cadence may be jarring.  Listen to your sentences in your head as you write, and do not write anything that you could not comfortably say.

Design
Write for the eye as well as the mind.  Prepare an overall design, positioning understandable headings, subheadings, and captions for each segment, showing the organisation of the text. Make the whole document visually appealing.

Use appropriate underlining, ink colour that contrasts sharply with the paper, lists, boxes or panels, or other typefaces to emphasise points.

Use 'white space' in margins, between sections, paragraphs and lines to make the document look good.

These facts about plain English are quite important for Russians to bear in mind when working with Business English.  The thing is that the analysis of the answers of the native English speakers (6) shows that the letters of the Russian teachers of English are usually too long and too complicated as well as too direct and even aggressive.  Here a question of cross-cultural background differences obviously arises.  Besides the things which were mentioned above one should bear in mind a specific so-called YOU-ORIENTATION of the letters by native speakers, which makes the style of letters clearer and collaborative (4,5).

Compare the following 'non-native' and 'native' business letters.  The first letter written by a Russian teacher of English is longer, 'heavier' and wordier.  There is no YOU-ORIENTATION.  The native speaker's letter according to the answers of the native speakers is more polite, it is shorter (by 13%) and the rhetorical question at the end of the letter sounds 'elegant'.

Non-native speaker letter
First I have to apologise because we have not yet paid off the liabilities we owe you in accordance with your June balance sheet and have not answered your letter of 10 August.  We are, however, surprised that you have not received our letter which informs all our suppliers that we are moving from London to Hull. I checked on all our papers and find that we sent you one on 30 June.
As can be seen from the enclosed copy of the letter we warn our suppliers that during the period we move delays in payments and correspondence are possible due to the fact that more than half our staff had to be replaced because of the move to Hull and our new employees needed some time to adjust themselves to our accounts and filing systems.
I am pleased to inform you that we have settled down in our new premises and by the end of this month highly qualified employees only will remain working on our staff.  I enclose a 300.00 pounds cheque to pay off part of our liabilities and we will pay off in full in accordance with your June balance sheet in the next few days.
For further correspondence please contact us at our new address (top of page).
 

Native speaker letter (1, p.88)
First let me apologise for not having cleared your June statement or replying to your letter of 10 August.  However I am surprised that you did not receive our circular letter informing all our suppliers that we were moving from London to Hull.  I have checked our post book, and find that a letter was sent to you on June 30.
As you will see from the copy enclosed, we warned suppliers that during the move there might be some delay in clearing accounts and replying to correspondence as the move would involve replacing more than half our staff with new people who needed time to get used to our accounts and filing systems.
You will be pleased to hear that we have now settled into our new offices and will have a fully trained staff by the end of next month.  Meanwhile, I am enclosing a cheque for 300.00 pounds on account, and will send a full settlement of your June statement within the next few days.
Could you please note our new address, which is on the heading of this letter, for future reference?

Literature
1. Ashley A.A. Handbook of Commercial Correspondence. Oxford: OUP, 1984.
2. Crystal D.  The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language.  Cambridge: CUP, 1987.
3. Dayananda J.Y. Plain English in the United States.// English today 2(1), 13-16.
4. Leech G.N, Short M.N. Style in Fiction. London. 1981.
5. Nash W. Designs in Prose. London: Longman, 1981.
6. Ïîïîâà Í.Â. "Ñòèëèñòè÷åñêèå àñïåêòû àíãëèéñêîãî äåëîâîãî ïèñüìà" // Âîïðîñû ôèëîëîãèè. âûï. 3. ÑÏáÃÓ. ÑÏá., 1997. Ñ. 41-49