DECORATIVE ENGLISH

views updated

DECORATIVE ENGLISH, also atmosphere English, ornamental English. Non—technical terms for English used as a visual token of modernity or a social accessory on items of clothing, writing paper, shopping bags, pencil boxes, etc., in advertising, and as notices in cafés, etc. The messages conveyed are ‘atmospheric’ rather than precise or grammatical, as in ‘Let's sport violent all day long’. Use of decorative English appears to centre on JAPAN, but has spread widely in East Asia and elsewhere.