IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 53, NO.
3, SEPTEMBER 2010 325
John R. Kohl
The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear,
Translatable Documentation for a Global Market
Book Review
—Reviewed by
AMY LANTZ-JONES
Index Terms—Business communication, global English, globalization, style guide, technical communication,
translation.
IEnglish
n the current global business environment,
is the most common spoken language
and is often the language of choice in professional
communication and business operations. Most
global companies use English in conducting
business, and the many variations in English
grammatical style and usage often result in
mistranslation and miscommunication. Misuse
of traditional grammar rules can cause human
and language technologies to mistranslate texts,
and mistranslation can result in confusion,
legal liabilities, and loss of time and profit. To
help professional and technical communicators
eliminate ambiguities and uncommon nontechnical
terms and, thus, prevent mistranslations, Kohl’s
The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear,
Translatable Documentation for a Global Market
provides many guidelines for meeting the immense
need for clear and concise communication in
technical and global environments. Kohl’s book
is an excellent resource for technical, scientific,
proposal, and medical writers and editors as well
as scholars writing for global audiences. In the
preface, Kohl states that the book is a style guide
“intended to supplement conventional style guides,
which don’t take translation issues or the needs of
nonnative speakers into account” [p. xiv]. I believe
that Kohl’s text achieves this purpose well.
Like all style guides, The Global English Style Guide
is not meant to be read straight through. It serves
as a reference to sentence-level stylistic issues,
defining terminologies and analyzing grammatical
constructions that one may encounter when using
English to communicate technical information in
Manuscript received November 30, 2009; accepted June 03,
2010. Date of current version August 25, 2010.
The reviewer is with Northern Kentucky University, Highland
Heights, KY 41099 USA (email: lantza1@nku.edu).
IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2010.2053071
Book publisher: Cary, NC: SAS Institute, Inc., 2008, 293 pp.
with index.
0361-1434/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
global business transactions. The text’s design
is similar to Edward H. Weiss’s The Elements of
International English Style [1]. Both texts argue
that to effectively communicate globally, one must
write short and simple sentences and eliminate
unnecessary nontechnical words. However, Kohl
takes it a step further, looking to technology’s
present and future and to the relationship between
professional communication and technology. He
considers not only writing styles but also how
writing styles are interpreted and used by software
technologies.
Kohl uses a combination of written text, flowcharts,
idea and warning boxes, examples, and anagrams
to aid readers in understanding complex issues in
Global English writing. Although the book includes
a table of contents, each chapter begins with its
own contents list for quick referral. The appendices
also list additional examples of content reduction,
include additional information on revising sentence
structure, and provide more data on how to improve
translatability and readability with syntactic cues.
My only criticism is that the glossary could be
expanded because The Global English Style Guide
covers enormous amounts of information with
numerous grammatical and technical terminologies
that readers may not recognize. However, regardless
of one’s familiarity with global communication, the
text supplements grammatical skills in a way that
will benefit novice and professional writers. In the
following discussion, I highlight four chapters that
pertain to all writing levels.
In Chapter 1, “Introduction to Global English,”
Kohl argues for the need to employ Global English
in communicating technical information. Kohl
points out that not only nonnative speakers
but also native speakers of English can benefit
from learning Global English. Benefits include
eliminating ambiguities that impede translation,
eliminating uncommon nontechnical terms and
unusual constructions that nonnative speakers
are not familiar with, and making the English
326 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 53, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2010
structure more explicit. Because of the importance
of technology in translation, Kohl identifies and
explains three relevant language technologies
(machine-translation software, translation memory,
and controlled-authoring software) that he
references throughout the book and uses case
studies to illustrate the problems that can occur
from human grammatical and stylistic errors.
Chapter 1 also explicates three abbreviations used
throughout the book: HT for human translation,
NN for nonnative speakers, and MT for machine
translation. The abbreviations, along with
guidelines and their priority levels, assist readers in
determining which guidelines are most significant
for their situation. For example, a guideline labeled
MT1 means it should be given high priority for
documents that are to be machine translated.
I found Chapter 3, “Simplifying Your Writing
Style,” to be one of the most useful chapters of
the book. Kohl argues that clear vocabulary and
a noncomplex style are important in ensuring
understandability for nonnative readers. Kohl
warns readers:
Languages differ from each other more
than you might realize, making reading and
translation processes much more than simple
word-substitution exercises. [p. 32]
He provides many examples of translated sentences
to demonstrate that merely providing word
substitutions does not constitute a well-written
translation, showing how limiting sentence
length, using a verb-centered writing style, and
avoiding unnecessary future tenses will often avert
misinterpretations. The chapter also has flowcharts
for noun phrases consisting of questions and
solutions that aid writers in determining whether
revision is needed. The chapter also offers examples
of improper placement of noun phrases along with
corrections and explanations, gives guidelines for
effective verb usage, and identifies what to include
in a translation glossary.
Chapter 5, “Making Pronouns Clear and Easy
to Translate,” examines pronouns, specifically
personal pronouns, which can pose problems for
global audiences. Kohl explains that personal
pronouns are troublesome to global audiences
because in some foreign languages, nouns have
gender and, therefore, “translations of it, they,
and them differ depending on the number and
gender of the pronoun’s referent” [p. 98]. Table 5.1
REFERENCES
[1] E. H. Weiss, The Elements of International English Style: A Guide to Writing Correspondence, Reports, Technical Documents,
and Internet Pages for a Global Audience. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005.
[2] The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. Chicago, IL: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 2003.
lists first, second, and third singular and plural
personal pronouns and the subjects, objects,
and possessives of the pronouns [p. 98]. Kohl
highlights the six kinds of pronouns that are the
most problematic for technical documentation and
continues, in detail, to explain these problems and
to offer simple solutions by providing examples of
sentences and revision strategies.
Chapter 8, “Punctuation and Capitalization,”
is the longest chapter and concentrates on
the accurate use of punctuation marks by
examining common sentence errors. This chapter
supplements guidelines offered in conventional
style guides, such as The Chicago Manual of
Style [2], occasionally suggesting that some of
the guidelines be broken to cater to international
readers. Kohl offers Global English guidelines
for ampersands, colons, commas, hyphens, em
dashes, equal signs, parentheses, quotation marks,
slashes, and capitalization. He illustrates how slight
variations in punctuation can prevent translation
memory software from recognizing nearly identical
sentences.
The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear,
Translatable Documentation for a Global Market
would benefit students studying professional and
technical communication, although some students
may find some of the terminology confusing because
the text is aimed at professional communicators
who are already familiar with translating
technologies and complex grammatical structures.
Nonetheless, this book would supplement students’
studies of traditional grammar and editing,
especially in today’s global environment.
In conclusion, I believe Kohl’s Global English style
guide successfully displays potential problems of
translators and translating software and generates
solutions. The Global English Style Guide: Writing
Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global
Market is well adapted to the specialized needs
and concerns of editors, technical writers, and
international readers and translators. I also believe
this text is an essential tool for professional
communicators and translators and serves as a
valuable supplement to traditional style guides,
and I highly recommend it to any writer whose
documents may be used by global audiences. In
today’s growing global environment, that includes
almost all of us.