Re: Hyphenation for ESL audiences?

["Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>]

On 20 Aug 2003 at 15:00, Marshall, Anna wrote:

> When you're writing and editing material for audiences who speak
> English as a secondary language, do you tend more or less toward
> hyphenation? Specifically, I'm looking for info on compound adjectives
> or nouns that could go either way hyphenation-wise. Examples:
> 
> Freeze prevention strategies
> Cold chain storage

I have tutored ESL students through our library's literacy program, 
and, my answer would be the quintessential "It depends upon your 
audience". At what level are the students?

If it's a remedial group, then I might skip excessive punctuation. 
Otherwise, I would punctuate the document as if I were writing for 
an audience whose first language was English. The main reason 
hyphenation is used is to make the writer's meaning clearer, and 
who needs things explained more clearly than someone who's not a 
native English speaker?

I have taught students who picked up on English 
grammar/punctuation rules quickly, and who would have called me  
on it had I not used the correct form. I had one particularly bright 
student who would call me on all sorts of things. To this day, I 
cannot talk about Center Street without thinking about the time he 
asked "why are you calling it Sinner Street". I quickly learned to 
watch my pronunciation ;)

Dana W.
(why? because I'm originally from the South and grew up with sloppy 
speech, that's why!)