Consultant Limitatons

Consultant Limitations
Dammit Jim, I'm A Consultant! Not A Linguist!

As much as I find reward in being a Writing Center Consultant, I also encounter a number of frustrations. Usually these frustrations stem from explaining the complexities of the English language to ESL students.

I had a particular client two weeks in a row as I had taken over a shift for one of my colleagues. This client is a Masters student from Korea. She is perfectly intelligent and had a lot of interesting and complex ideas about her field. In fact, her conversational English is quite good.

Sometimes though, we have a wee bit of a tiff over word choice. She used the word “consequence” in a place where she should have used a word like “outcome”. She felt as though I was splitting hairs when I said that consequence implies a more direct cause and effect relationship and carries a connotation of that which is unexpected and usually negative. The reason for this is that various dictionaries made it appear as if both words mean the same thing. I talked with her about the difference of connotation and denotation of words, and how an understanding of the latter usually comes with language immersion. The consultant who typically helps her had told her that she should read a reputable newspaper for 30 minutes every day, which I thought was good advise. I also happen to think that watching television is helpful, that is after all what helped Arnold Schwarzenegger become the profoundly prolific communicator we know today.

What I have learned and what sage people have told me is that as consultants, we can’t know and we can’t do everything. I think ultimately it is these kinds of limitations that frustrate me the most, because it reminds me that some people are going to walk away with less than they wanted, and because of this I think I walk away with less than I had hopped too.