English creates a linguistic apartheid

20 May 2015 - 02:13 By Malphia Honwane, Gottenburg eManyeleti

A few years ago when I was still a communications student, I was taught about "semantic noise". This phrase refers to any disturbance in the transmission of a message that thwarts the message's meaning. The fault usually lies with ambiguous words or sentence structure.Black graduates often struggle in job interviews, which are usually conducted in English.Blacks who come from rural areas rarely learn English from a teacher who is fluent in the language.Job candidates must not only get to grips with the stress of the interview, but the second obstacle of the English language.In most cases, candidates are judged by their ability to express themselves and not necessarily their qualifications and skills...

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