Language Taught for Meetings and Language Used in Meetings: Is there Anything in Common?

This article examines the language used by native speakers of English in business meetings. This is compared with the language taught by business English textbooks for use in meetings. The many exponents for functions that are taught by textbooks of business English are compared with those actually used in the meetings analysed. It is found that there is almost no correspondence at all between the two. This raises questions of whether textbooks are in fact teaching the correct, or the most useful or appropriate language for meetings.