IBM Business English 1 C2 Class Autumn Semester 2022/23

Script Week 5

1 Aims of the lesson

The aims of this lesson are to conduct another summary and discussion of self-study texts, to
review the use of the future forms, and to look at the basic types of arguments.

2 Self-study texts
i) Work in a group of 3 or 4.
ii) Take it in turns to present the summary of your text.
iii) After each text, discuss the issues that the text brings up in your group.
iv) When you have finished the task, choose one of the texts that you heard about to read for
homework. Get the bibliographical details of the text (e.g. URL) from the person who presented
the text.

3 The future
Various forms are used in English to express the future. The use of these forms depends on a
number of different factors that are summarized below.
2.1 To talk about things that have already been fixed, arranged or planned in the past:
i) For fixed actions and events that are part of a timetable or an itinerary, the present simple is
most often used.
e.g. Our train for Paris leaves at 6:30 a.m. (timetable)
e.g. We fly to Bahrain on the 16th and then on to Shanghai on the 19th. (itinerary)
ii) For states and conditions that have already been arranged for a specific place and time in
the future, the present simple is most often used. This situation is often connected with
appointments that people have in their diaries.
e.g. I am in London on Wednesday next week and in Glasgow on Thursday. (state)
iii) For activities that have already been arranged for a specific place and time in the future, the
present continuous is most often used. This situation is often connected with appointments that
people have in their diaries.
e.g. I’m seeing our Middle East sales representative tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

iv) For future actions and activities that have been planned or are intended but whose details
(e.g. time and place) are not (yet) fixed, the ‘going to’ form (simple or continuous) is most often
used. The continuous form is used when a planned activity or process is referred to and the
focus is on the activity or process itself, rather than its outcome or its quantification in some
way.
e.g. We’re going to build a new research centre. (focus on the outcome)
e.g. We’re going to be building a new research centre for the next 6 months. (focus on
activity)
e.g. I’m going to buy my girlfriend a diamond ring for Christmas. (shorter action, focus on the
result of the action)
e.g. We’re going to be looking for a new sales representative soon. Would you be interested
in applying for the job? (focus on activity of looking for somebody)
In this situation the future continuous can also be used when the focus is on a future activity or
process.
e.g. We’ll be building a new research centre for the next 6 months
e.g. We’ll be looking for a new sales representative soon. Would you be interested in
applying for the job?
Note

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These four situations can overlap to a certain extent, which means that often more than one
form is possible.

present simple
present continuous
‘going to’ form

future continuous

2.2 To express a future plan made at the moment of speaking, ‘will’ is used. This often takes
the form of a promise.
e.g. Don’t worry, I’ll help you with your homework.

2.3 To make predictions about the future

i) To make a prediction about the (mostly near) future that is based on very clear present
evidence and is thus seen as more or less certain to occur, the ‘going to’ form is most often
used.
e.g. My sister is going to have a baby in January.
e.g. The company is going to make a small loss this year.

ii) To make a prediction about the future that is not based on clear, present evidence, ‘will’ is
most often used. The ‘going to’ form is also possible for predictions.
e.g. Who do you think will win next year’s European Football Championships?
Or Who do you think is going to win next year’s European Football Championships?

2.4 To describe future facts, ‘will’ and ‘the going to’ form are used
e.g. Our sun will one day turn into a red dwarf.
e.g The government deficit is going to reach 100% of GDP next year.

2.5 To look back from a certain time in the future on an action, state, condition, process or
activity whose time frame continues up to that future time, the future perfect (simple or
continuous) is used.
e.g. By 2013 we will have opened 300 branches in 25 countries. (quantification of a process)
e.g. Next month I will have been working for this company for 3 years. (activity that
continues up to a point of time in the future)

The future perfect is thus nothing more than the present perfect shifted forward in time. The
same rules for deciding between the simple and continuous aspects apply.

2.6 To talk about two actions, events, activities etc. in the future, one of which depends on the
other, there are two possibilities:
i) If the action of the dependent clause precedes the action of the independent clause, the
present simple (or sometimes present perfect simple) is used for the dependent clause and the
appropriate future form is used in the independent clause according to the type of future action,
state, activity etc. it describes.
e.g. If you send the letter now, it will arrive tomorrow morning.
e.g. As soon as we finish/have finished the roof, we are going to start on the interior.
e.g. Call me when you arrive at the station. (imperative form for the future)

ii) If the action, event etc. of the dependent clause specifically refers to a future plan, the future
forms for both clauses follow the rules given above.
e.g. I’ll let you know when we are having our next meeting. (‘… when we have our next
meeting’ would mean that the person would find out about the meeting after it takes place)

2.7 Formal and informal register

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In formal writing, ‘will’ or future continuous is usually used instead of ‘going to’.
e.g. The company will build/will be building a new research department next year.
informal ‘We’re going to build a new research department next year.’

Practice exercise
Your colleague has written this email for an agent in Djakarta. Before sending it, she has
asked you to put the verbs that she’s not sure about into the most natural form. Complete the
e-mail. Sometimes more than one answer is possible. The answers are on page 7.

4 The nature of arguments in critical thinking

The following section of this week’s script looks at some terminology from the field of logical
argument; differentiates between inductive, deductive, and abductive logic; and provides a
number of exercises in analyzing arguments.

4.1 Some terminology

In critical thinking, an argument is a set of premises (also called propositions, reasons or
contributing arguments) that leads to a conclusion or inference. The conclusion or inference
expresses at least a part of the author’s position on the topic of the argument. In complex
arguments, a conclusion (in this case also called an intermediate conclusion) can also be a
premise that is then used in a further chain of reasoning to arrive at a final conclusion.

4.2 Inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning

Inductive arguments
The premises of inductive arguments provide incomplete or partial reasons in support of a
general conclusion. Inductive arguments thus move from specific observations (premises) to a
theory or other general statement that the premises support or point towards. An example of an
inductive argument is:

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Company x reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 1)
Company y reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 2)
Therefore, outsourcing reduces companies’ costs (conclusion).

In an inductive argument, the conclusion is said to be more or less probable, depending on the
perceived value of the specific premises in relation to the general conclusion. The value of the
premises depends on their truthfulness, but also on their relevance to the conclusion. For
example, even if the two premises in the inductive argument above are true, they might be
perceived as providing insufficient evidence for the general conclusion. In this case, more
breadth of information, in the form of statistics from other companies, might be required to
make the conclusion appear probable.

Deductive arguments
Deductive arguments seek to deduce an uncontestable conclusion from a set of premises.
Deductive arguments tend to move from a general theory or rule to a specific consequence of
that theory. An example of a deductive argument is:
Outsourcing reduces companies’ costs. (premise 1)
Junk-U-Need is a company. (premise 2)
Therefore, outsourcing will reduce Junk-U-Need’s costs. (conclusion)
As can be seen in this example, deductive arguments are often used to make predictions.
In deductive arguments, the conclusion either follows necessarily from the premises or it does
not. If it follows necessarily; i.e., if the conclusion is implicit in the premises, it is said to be valid;
if not, it is deemed illogical and is said to be invalid. The terms ‘valid’ and ‘invalid’ refer only to
the logical structure of the argument, not to the truth of the conclusion: valid deductive
arguments might come to untrue conclusions, and invalid deductive arguments might come to
true conclusions. However, if a deductive argument is valid, and all of its premises are true,
the conclusion must also be true. Deductive arguments are therefore very powerful persuasive
devices, which is why they are so often both used and abused in public (e.g. politics, in
companies) and private (e.g. Stammtisch, parent/child conversations) discourse.

An example of an invalid deductive argument is as follows:

All Swiss banks practise outsourcing.
Crédit Mutuel practises outsourcing.
Therefore, Crédit Mutuel is a Swiss bank.

In this case, the argument is not valid, because Crédit Mutuel is assigned a non-exclusive
characteristic of the group ‘Swiss banks’ (practice of outsourcing). It can therefore not be
deduced that Crédit Mutuel is a member of the group. A valid argument would be the following:

Only Swiss banks practise outsourcing.

USB practises outsourcing.
Therefore, USB is a Swiss bank.

In this case, USB is assigned an exclusive characteristic of the group ‘Swiss banks’, so it
must be a member of the group. In the first example, Junk-U-Need is assigned membership
of the group ‘companies’, so it must also possess the characteristic that is common to all
members of the group.

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Abductive arguments
Abductive reasoning starts with a non-general observation or set of observations and then
draws a non-general conclusion from the observations. It thus moves from specific premises to
a specific, non-generalized conclusion. Here are two examples of abductive arguments:

Argument 1
Company x reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 1).
Company y reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 2).
Therefore, Company z will reduce its costs by outsourcing (non-general conclusion).

In this case, the abductive argument contains an implicit inductive argument followed by an
implicit deductive argument, as follows:
Company x reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 1).
Company y reduced its costs by outsourcing (premise 2).
Therefore, outsourcing reduces companies’ costs (inductive conclusion).
Outsourcing reduces companies’ costs (premise 1).
Company z is a company (premise 2)
Therefore, Company z will reduce its costs by outsourcing (non-general conclusion /deductive
conclusion).

Argument 2
All Swiss manufacturing companies who outsourced activities this year reduced their costs
through outsourcing. (premise 1)
Company z is a Swiss manufacturing company that does not outsource. (premise 2)
Therefore, Company z will reduce its costs if it starts outsourcing. (non-general conclusion)

In this case, a number of premises are missing from what is in effect a deductive argument.
All Swiss manufacturing companies who outsourced activities this year reduced their costs
through outsourcing (premise 1).
Premise 1 will also be true in the future (premise 2).
Company z is a Swiss manufacturing company that does not outsource. (premise 3)
Therefore, Company z will reduce its costs if it starts outsourcing. (non-general (deductive)
conclusion)
Premise 2 is a so-called hidden premise or a hidden assumption. In order to evaluate an
argument, such hidden assumptions must often be articulated. Sometimes speakers or writers
deliberately omit contestable premises / assumptions in order to make their argument seem
stronger than it really is.

Task 1
Look at the three arguments below. Which is inductive, which is deductive, and which is
abductive?

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A) You are trying to convince your audience to try your fast-food company’s new meals.

• You claim that reducing fat in meals reduces caloric intake. (premise A)
• You claim that reducing caloric intake causes weight loss. (premise B)
• You claim that the new meals have less fat. (premise C)
• You conclude that replacing the old meals with the new meals will cause weight loss.

B) What could audience member A be thinking?

• I switched to a lower-calorie diet last year, but I didn’t lose weight. (premise D)
• My friend always eats the low-calorie option at our favourite fast-food restaurant, and he
hasn’t lost any weight. (premise E)
• Last year a well-known fast-food company was taken to court for false advertising.
(premise F)
• Therefore, fast-food companies should not be trusted when they claim to be offering
meals that will help their customers to lose weight.

C) What could audience member B be thinking?

• My friend switched to a lower-calorie diet last year, but she didn’t lose weight. (premise
G)
• I always eats the low-calorie option at our favourite fast-food restaurant, but I haven’t
lost any weight. (premise H)
• Last year a well-known fast-food company was taken to court for false advertising.
(premise I)
• Therefore, this person is not telling the truth, but is simply trying to make more money
for her company.

Task 2
The deductive arguments in the following task refer to Joe Biden, his wife Jill, and their dog
Champ, and they take the form of a so-called syllogism, which contains a general statement
(major premise), a specific statement (minor premise) related to the general statement, and a
conclusion or inference. In a basic syllogism, the major premise identifies a characteristic that
all members of a group possess. The minor premise then identifies a specific entity as a
member of the group. The logical inference is therefore that the entity possesses the
characteristic that is common to the group. An example would be:
All children like chocolate.
Jane is a child.
Therefore, Jane likes chocolate.
Give each argument below one of the following four labels:

i) Premises are all true, conclusion is valid (i.e. logical) - TV

ii) Premises are all true, conclusion is invalid (i.e. not logical) - TI
iii) Premises are not all true, conclusion is valid - NV
iv) Premises are not all true, conclusion is invalid - NI

All men are mortal. All men are mortal.

Jill Biden is a man. Joe Biden is a man.
Therefore, Jill Biden is mortal. Therefore, Joe Biden is mortal.

All men are mortal. All men are mortal.

Jill Biden is mortal. Joe Biden is mortal.
Therefore, Jill Biden is a man. Therefore, Joe Biden is a man.
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 All American politicians speak English. All American politicians speak English.
Joe Biden speaks English. Champ is an American politician.
Therefore, Joe Biden is an American Therefore, Champ speaks English.
politician.

All American politicians speak English.

Jill Biden speaks English.
Therefore, Jill Biden is an American
politician.

Task 3
Label the conclusions to the seven arguments as true or false.

5 Homework
1. Read the text you chose from your discussion.
2. Work through the grammar tasks in Units 26 to 29 of the grammar book. The relevant online
exercises are also accessible for additional practice.
3. Prepare your fourth self-study text (due date is 8 December).

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Answers to tasks

Answers to grammar practice exercise

1. will pick up / are going to pick up (prediction)
2. are going to (plan without detailed time and place, focus is on the fact that it is a plan, not on
the activity itself, therefore future continuous is not appropriate here)
3. will be / is going to be (future prediction or future fact – the person sees clear and present
evidence for the prediction, so the ‘going to’ form is also correct here)
4. is taking place / will be taking place (planned event with fixed time and place)
5. I’m flying / I’ll be flying / I fly (planned event with fixed time and place, could also be seen as
item in an itinerary, therefore present simple is also possible)
6. will call (promise)
7. have (present simple for dependent clause)
8. are visiting / are going to visit / are going to be visiting (conditional plan that can be
interpreted as more or less fixed – a focus on the activity is also possible, so the continuous
form is also correct)

Answers to exercises on argumentation

Task 1
Argument A is deductive, argument B is inductive.
Tasks 2 and 3
All men are mortal. All men are mortal.
Jill Biden is a man. Joe Biden is a man.
Therefore, Jill Biden is mortal. Therefore, Joe Biden is mortal.
NV - T TV - T
All men are mortal. All men are mortal.
Jill Biden is mortal. Joe Biden is mortal.
Therefore, Jill Biden is a man. Therefore, Joe Biden is a man.
TI - F TI - T
All American politicians speak English. All American politicians speak English.
Joe Biden speaks English. Champ is an American politician.
Therefore, Joe Biden is an American Therefore, Champ speaks English.
politician.
TI - T NV - F
All American politicians speak English.
Jill Biden speaks English.
Therefore, Jill Biden is an American
politician.
TI - F