Miscommunication across cultures: the case of marketing in Indian English

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Successful communication requires that messages achieve their intent. If the explicit purpose of the message is to generate sales, yet the originator's implicit intent (persuasion) is not achieved, marketing strategies can be said to have failed. This paper focuses on the contents of a direct‐response sales letter written in English, which offers a product marketed by an Indian firm to an American audience. It contends that in marketing situations where success is highly dependent on the way English is used by non‐native speakers, communicative failure may be related to differences in usage which have the effect of preserving semantic meaning at the expense of conveying pragmatic intent. Using two differing pragmatic approaches as a framework, portions of the letter are analyzed in detail, then compared to findings made from similar examination of two comparable texts, representing the efforts of American and British copywriters, presumed to be native‐English‐speaking. Based on the limited data, I tentatively conclude that native‐speaking recipients of such sales material will be unpersuaded by discourse which does not conform to expected shared norms of understanding. Further, the results suggest that a commonly shared language is insufficient ground to predict success in achieving cross‐cultural marketing objectives.