Meet Say WHAT now?!, a non-profit that helps students and young professionals, who live in the Netherlands, develop more effective communicative skills so as to prevent communicative challenges from happening that cannot be overcome. Preventing such instances from happening is done by introducing them to how meaning is established through social conventions and by offering a 'wide range of discourse tactics'. By raising awareness regarding how language use affects communication, such issues of potential misunderstanding are tackled before they can occur. This is important because everyone usually gets only one chance to make a good impression on another person and being able to do so is vital in the onset of a career.

Although Dutchies might feel like they have reached a decent level in English, which they indeed might have formally speaking, they might not be able yet to understand how manner is expressed in English by native speakers. The subtleties of language use in standard English might still go over their heads. As every country and culture has its own ways of using language that, in turn, is associated with politeness, such differences of language use should be explained to young people so that they can communicatively navigate their social interactions in the workplace better.

Cultural differences exist and are expected to be encountered, even within countries while communicating in another dominant language. Instructing young people to use the English language in line with native speaker expectations may help them navigate their career more effectively. This is especially important if they decide to want to work for a company that has it headquarters in North-America or another English-speaking country. For example, culturally aware students might be able to obtain hat desired internship or graduation project sooner and young professionals may indeed land their dream jobs. As connections are made through people, not organizations, the ability of navigating social conventions is especially important. 

Domains of communication usually require specific language use and especially written communication can be tricky for different genres exist. In our services, Dutchies are made aware of the various types of register that exist for the purpose of helping them to communicate more appropriately, while using consistently appropriate language in that domain. Ultimately, this is all undertaken to help them navigate communicative situations more effectively to set them up for success.

Our name

What does say what now mean?

Say WHAT now?! is a confirmation question and it is not. The dictionary definition is that it is a type of question that is commonly used for asking someone to repeat what they have said, especially when the hearer is surprised by it - MacMillan Dictionary, 2019. Besides this dictionary definition indicating what its most basic meaning is, native speakers often use it to indicate manner, not genuine surprise due to a knowledge gap, or anything. This phrase is thus an indicator of manner and has a pragmatic function, for it expresses an attitude towards the speaker. When using the phrase this way, the listener/interlocutor may actually show being taken aback by a comment that was made and may just be in shock as a result of what was said. Words that are often used in such a context are: #seriously?#you're kidding #what! #come again #pardon. Such words can be found in urban dictionary, for example.

Please note that there is a substantial difference between semantic and pragmatic meaning and that both types of meaning relate to sub-fields in Linguistics. How intonation is used by speakers of English often determines how it should be interpreted by their interlocutor, which is also culturally determined. In the case of this phrase, it isn't commonly used to express surprise, whereas some of the synonyms presented earlier can also be used for this purpose; use a dictionary to figure out which ones. In Say WHAT now?!, WHAT is emphasized for effect in written discourse and has pragmatic meaning, as do the punctuation marks. To prevent encountering say-WHAT-now moments, we will help you improve your skills in English to communicate more effectively, anytime and anywhere.

Our services

Workshops are scheduled monthly in 2020 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. These sessions are going to be facilitated by Léonieke Ariaans, M.A.; follow us on social media and stay tuned for updates...