In the past few decades, it has become widely accepted that the
lingua franca of international business is English; witness the way
companies increasingly choose English as their official corporate
language. Although this would seem to facilitate communication, this
article argues that the choice of language(s) used is a delicate issue,
highlighting the complexities of any split into native/nonnative
speakers, and thus requiring considerable people management skills. This
article discusses research from the Helsinki School of Economics on
language and communication in multinational corporations based in
non-English speaking countries. It suggests a reconceptualization of
English lingua franca as business English lingua franca (BELF), and
argues that BELF is a mostly oral language through which power is
wielded in multinationals, and perceptions of self and others created.
Moreover, it is not a "cultureless" language, but rather
creates new operational cultures. Language choice thus has implications
for management, HR, and employee satisfaction.
Keywords: lingua franca; business communication; globalization;
language; multinational corporations
**********
Friedman (2006, p. 10) aptly divides globalization into three
stages, which he characterizes as follows:
While the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries [italics
added] globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was
companies [italics added] globalizing, the dynamic force in
Globalization 3.0--the force that gives it its unique character--is
the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete
globally.
With globalization proceeding from Friedman's stage 1.0
through stage 2.0 to stage 3.0 (where we are now), the dynamics of
communication processes are undergoing inevitable change. Communication
potential is driving dramatic changes in organizations and their
environments. As Friedman (2006) points out, globalization is fuelled by
technology. Yet technology alone could not have achieved globalization.
What is needed is a sharing of language facility. Only language can
enable individuals and companies (and countries) to communicate. To
understand globalization, it is therefore crucial to examine
developments in the language and communication through which it occurs.
It is this linguistic perspective that inspires research in my
unit--the International Business Communication Unit in the Department of
Languages and Communication, at the Helsinki School of Economics (for
more information on my institution, see www.hse.fi). We see language and
communication dynamics as the driving force in global business. We
therefore examine language specifically as an enabler, but also
increasingly as a troublemaker in communication and globalization. In
all our work, we have an applied focus: We want to do research that can
be used for the teaching of future global managers in a business school
environment. We also want to help existing companies to globalize and to
operate successfully. Our focus is on Finnish and Scandinavian
companies, which--like companies in other non-English speaking
countries--face formidable challenges as they attempt to operate
globally in a language that is not their mother tongue.
Language and communication challenges, however, are not the sole
concern of non-English speaking countries. When multinationals from
English-speaking countries go local in different parts of the world,
they are faced with the problem of how best to communicate in their new
environments, both within and outside the company. In these situations,
the question arises: Is English always the answer, or is there a place
for local languages as well? Language issues concern everyone.
In this article, I argue that the choice of language(s) used,
particularly in intracorporate communication, is a delicate and complex
issue requiring more management attention than is frequently given.
Language and language skills tend frequently to be viewed as a challenge
for the individual. However, as employees' language skills
crucially affect interorganizational and intraorganizational
communication, language is also a managerial issue not to be ignored. To
increase awareness of language issues in companies, and encourage
research in the area, this article discusses the research my colleagues
and I have done in multinational companies based in Scandinavia. First,
I will explain the reconceptualization of English as a shared
language--a lingua franca--which we felt was a necessary starting point.
I will then briefly discuss our theoretical framework and methodology.
Finally, I will summarize our main findings and conclusions, in the form
of five sweeping statements.
FROM ENGLISH LINGUA FRANCA (ELF) TO BUSINESS ENGLISH LINGUA FRANCA
(BELF)
From the global perspective, the position of English as the
universal lingua franca--shared language--of today is beyond dispute
(see, e.g., Cenoz & Jessner, 2000; Crystal, 1997; Dovring, 1997).
The number of people who speak English as a foreign language (nonnative
speakers, or NNSs) far outnumbers those who speak it as their mother
tongue (native speakers, or NSs). Back in the '90s, Crystal (1997)
estimated that 80% of speakers of English were NNSs. An updated estimate
would be that the current figure is closer to 90%. The literature speaks
of ELF communication (e.g., Knapp & Meierkord, 2002; Seidlhofer,
2001, 2004), which involves nonnative speakers of English. Arguably,
more international business is actually done in English between NNSs
than between NSs.
Scholars have tried valiantly to pinpoint the characteristics of
ELF discourse. The focus in that work has been to identify core
linguistic elements that have to conform with native speaker
expectations to not cause intelligibility problems, and distinguish them
from noncore elements, which are recognized (by native speakers) as
anomalies, but which do not affect intelligibility. Based on speech
collected from a wide range of NNSs, Jenkins (1998, 2000, 2002, 2004),
for example, has defined a particular lingua franca core, to which she
assigns such elements as maintenance of the contrast between long and
short vowels, such as the /i/ and /i:/ sounds in the words live and
leave. She also lists features that do not seem to cause
misunderstanding in lingua franca communication (noncore). These include
the mastery of the phonetic qualities of sounds or pitch direction to
signal attitude or grammatical meaning. Along the same lines, Seidlhofer
(2004) presents some preliminary findings in the lexicogrammatical area
which, in authentic lingua franca communication, were found to be
unproblematic, forming no obstacles to communicative success. Examples
of these are dropping the third person present tense -s, and confusing
the relative pronouns who and which. (See also Bartlett & Johnson,
1998.)
Although this research has proved useful in many ways, the manner
in which ELF researchers' thinking revolves around native speakers
would seem too partial a view for globalized business. The concept of a
common core is instinctively useful; yet questions like the following
arise: Why should NNS ELF communicators shape their mutual communication
around a fictitious NS (particularly in the absence of one)? Why could
they not shape it around their own, shared, communicational needs?
Seidlhofer (2004) points out that that reshaping might be
difficult. She suggests that there is a conceptual gap in our minds,
resulting from the way language seems to be so closely tied with its
native speakers and their cultural backgrounds that it is difficult to
open up conceptual space for a "language" which is
"nobody's," yet "everybody's," as ELF is
claimed to be. She argues that NS norms tend to operate as a point of
reference not only in scholarly thinking but also in ELF speakers'
minds. Bamgbose (1998) also points out that the "success" of
NNS discourse tends to be judged not according to how well that
discourse functions and "gets the job done," but rather
according to how well the speakers are able to emulate the language use
of native speakers. Because they are mostly doomed to (relative) failure
in this respect, NNSs are frequently seen to be a source of trouble.
Their less than adequate language skills are usually deemed to cause
misunderstandings (Bamgbose, 1998), and, at the very least, result in
discourse that is "hard work" for the NS. What does not often
come into the equation, however, is that communicating in a foreign
language is more often than not extremely "hard work" for the
NNS as well; understanding the NS is hard work--to say nothing of the
hard work involved in the sheer production of English discourse.
Besides, there is the communicational angle: Like the NNS, the NS may
also have somewhat less than adequate communication skills, and thus may
not be able to take situational factors fully into account in
interactions. Neither party alone can therefore take the blame for
possible shortcomings. There is serious space for communication teaching
to address the problem.
Although the NS >< NNS dichotomy seems, in many respects, to
be common sense, it is inherently dangerous if used as a basis for
communication studies: It divides the world of communication into
"us" and "them," resulting in "linguistic
ethnocentricity" comparable to Bennett's (1986) well-known
cultural ethnocentricity, where one particular way of "doing
things"--in this case, the native speaker's way of
communicating--is taken to be preferable to others. Clearly, in view of
global diversity--and the amount of business done by
NNSs--ethnocentricity is not a feasible starting point for examining
global language issues. A reconceptualization of ELF is thus necessary.
Building on Seidlhofer (2001, 2004), some business discourse
researchers have, indeed, departed from the ELF school of thought and
started to discuss language in terms of "International English for
Business Purposes," or "International Business English
(IBE)" (e.g., Bartlett & Johnson, 1998). The inclusion of the
words international and business implies a shift in the way language is
conceptualized. International takes English away from the sole realm of
native speakers, and business gives it its domain of use, as well as
indicating the discourse community whose terms of reference should be
used in any judgment of "efficiency" or "success."
Building on the idea of IBE, and carrying on from where the ELF school
of thought leaves us, our research team has christened this
"language" BELE (For a detailed discussion, see, e.g.,
Louhiala-Salminen & Charles, 2006; Louhiala-Salminen, Charles, &
Kankaanranta, 2005; Bargiela-Chiappini, Nickerson, & Planken, 2007).
BELF differs from ELF in that its domain is solely business, and
its frame of reference is provided by the globalized business community.
The B of BELF is thus the sociopragmatic backdrop against which
language--and any lexical or syntactic anomalies in it--is to be
interpreted. Looked at from this angle, we can refer to the global
business community as the "culture" that has created BELF, and
within which BELF evolves. As with all cultures, the global business
culture is diverse and dynamic; it also has groups who see themselves as
its "owners." In the case of BELF, its owners are the
"International Business Discourse Community," who have certain
shared values (e.g. that of doing profitable business), and use it for a
shared purpose. The "rules" of BELF, and its operational
guidelines, however, have yet to be defined. Though globalization may
well have reached Stage 3.0, BELF is only at the beginning of its
development.
A start in the definition of rules for BELF has already been made
by scholars who have studied the way business discourse works and how
NNSs use that discourse "to get jobs done." This research has
established the cooperative way in which BELF (like any other) discourse
is built and meanings created (which is not to say that the interactants
always agree--quite the contrary--but rather that even disagreements are
jointly constructed). In this vein, Vuorela (2005) and Charles (1996;
also Charles & Charles, 1999; Lampi, 1989) studied sales
negotiations, viewing their English speaking negotiators simply as
interactants/communicators, and language users in their own right, with
no NS/NNS distinction, and came up with particular linguistic strategies
used by international business negotiators. Firth (1996), in his study
of telephone conversations between sellers and buyers, found what he
labeled as the "let-it-pass" principle, which he claims
contributes to cooperative and mutually supportive use of language.
Poncini (2004) examined discourse in an Italian company's meetings
of its international distributors, and describes, for example, the
collaborative construction of a corporate "we." Nikko (2007)
investigates construction of meaning in company internal business
meetings with Finnish and Swedish participants, where the BELF speakers
help each other through tricky bits in the discourse, occasionally
resorting to code switching. Interestingly, the mostly European research
on BELF quoted above has not discovered significant misunderstandings in
spite of frequent syntactic and lexical anomalies. This ability of BELF
speakers to understand each other must surely be partly attributable to
their shared business background (in spite of great diversity), and
shared purpose, with the help of which discoursal interpretations are
made.
In contrast to the above researchers who emphasize sharedness,
Meierkord (2002) emphasizes diversity. Speaking of ELF communication,
but with applicability to BELF, she suggests that lingua franca
conversation is a hybrid--a linguistic masala--where, in addition to the
speaker's competence in the language, other factors like the
interactants' cultural backgrounds are involved. Meierkord (2002)
argues that what is frequently ignored is that the speakers creating the
lingua franca do have a cultural background, and, in fact, a diversity
of backgrounds--and this diversity is reflected in the language. She
refers to Geertz (1973), whose work she sees underlying all later
discussion of the relationship between language and culture.
The main differences between the ELF approach to communication and
the BELF approach are summarized in Table 1.
As we can see from Table l, the differences between the two schools
of thought culminate in the view adopted toward language and
communication. ELF researchers tend to be more language than
communication orinted--seeing linguistic skills as the crucial factor in
communication--whereas BELF researchers see communication skills as
crucial. Both, however, seem to agree on the fact that, at the
lexicogrammatical level, signs are interpreted on the basis of English
words and English grammar, whereas interpretation conventions prevailing
at the sociopragmatic level are more complex. It is this complexity and
the diversity inherent in the addition of the B into ELF which make the
reconceptualization we have undertaken particularly challenging, yet
necessary for understanding the nature of global communication.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
The reconceptualization of English as a shared language, discussed
above, illustrates the overall theoretical framework for our research:
social constructivism (Geertz, 1973; Suchan & Dulek, 1998). In
qualitative analysis of empirical data, we build on the principles of
interactional sociolinguistics (see Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1993; for an
application
to professional discourse, see Yamada, 1992).
In social constructivist theory, there are three points that, in
particular, guide our research. Firstly, meaning is seen to arise from
social processes to which individuals contribute. These processes are
constructed through language. Analysis of language activities will
contribute to an understanding of how organizational actors make and
modify meanings, social identities, and roles (Allen, 2005).
Secondly, knowledge is created and shared through language use. As
Allen (2005, p. 37) puts it, "We use language to produce and
reproduce knowledge as we enact various roles within various
contexts" Knowledge sharing is the formal and informal exchanges of
ongoing social interaction that mobilizes knowledge that is dispersed
around the organization or its stakeholders (Doz, Santos, &
Williamson, 2001; Kalla, 2006). Knowledge sharing will create social
capital necessary for thriving concerns (see Kalla, 2005, 2006).
Thirdly, we subscribe to the critical assumption that
taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world (and ourselves) should
be challenged (see Burr, 1995). These taken-for-granted assumptions
include the fact that cultural differences exist; also, that NNSs create
a challenge for communication (discussed above).
As an application of social constructivism, interactional
sociolinguistics acknowledges the interaction between cultures and
language use. As Yamada (1992) points out, an overreaching premise of
interactional sociolinguistics is that meaning is based on shared
expectations and can only be understood in the context of interaction.
In multicultural situations like global business, the various cultures
of the interactants interact with, and influence, encounters which, in
turn, influence the nature of discourse. Out of this complex, a dynamic
interactive process is created.
Within the multidimensional theoretical framework created by social
constructivism, we hope to produce a rich description of communication
processes, with quantitative findings guiding qualitative research, and
observations made through qualitative analysis helping us to understand
findings from quantitative analysis.
DATA AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The bulk of our data comes from, or deals with, in-house
communication in multinationals created through cross-border mergers and
acquisitions. There are several reasons for our interest in mergers and
acquisitions as a route to globalization. Firstly, corporate growth
through mergers and acquisitions has a long tradition in the business
communities of the U.S. and the U.K., which makes them an important
target in globalization research (see, e.g., Cartwright, 1998).
Secondly, as Cartwright (1998) points out, the past few decades have
seen dramatic social, political, and economic changes in Europe which,
in turn, have led to a substantial increase in the number of
cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and other forms of strategic
alliances. This trend has been particularly strong in Scandinavia.
Thirdly, as Louhiala-Salminen (2002) points out, mergers and
acquisitions have been studied extensively from the financial,
strategic, economic, and organizational management point of view (see,
e.g., Larsson & Risberg, 1998; Vaara, 1999, 2000; Gertsen &
Soderberg, 1998), and there are even studies that give a fair amount of
prominence to some cultural and communicative issues (see
Marschan-Piekkari, Welch & Welch, 1999a, 1999b; Holden, 2002; Welch,
Welch, & Piekkari, 2005), yet few studies focus on the linguistic
and communicative perspective. Finally, multinational companies (MNCs),
by their very nature, involve employees and managers who speak different
languages coming together to form a new entity, and having to find a
shared language--shared communication practices--to create this entity.
Research from the communication perspective would thus seem crucial.
Most of our data are from four major multinationals. (For reasons
of confidentiality, the names of these companies will remain
undisclosed.) All have headquarters in Finland, that is, a normative
English-speaking country, and comprise companies coming mostly from
other nonnative English-speaking countries, yet having English as their
official corporate language. These companies are thus in the
increasingly common situation of having chosen to operate in English
though English is a foreign language to virtually all concerned. It is
this intriguing situation which sparked off our research back in 1999.
To ensure that our research methodology reflects the
multidisciplinary field of business communication, we have adopted two
different research strategies. Firstly, we have created a special
multidisciplinary advisory board for each one of our research projects.
To supplement the linguistic expertise in our core research team, our
advisory boards bring in expertise from the fields of management
communication, organizational communication, and international business
management, as well as experiential knowledge of the particular business
areas on which we focus. Moreover, we operate in close contact with
companies that not only provide us with data but also function as a
springboard for ideas, and provide us with a highly pragmatic,
down-to-earth perspective on the everyday reality of corporate life.
Our second strategy is to use multimethod analysis. This involves
using different data collection methods, and analyzing those data from
different perspectives, with different methodologies, both quantitative
and qualitative. Accordingly, we have carried out surveys that are
analyzed quantitatively; the surveys are followed up with interviews,
thus producing interview data which can be analyzed qualitatively; we
also gather authentic communications from the companies we study--e-mail
messages, videotaped meetings and presentations, corporate intranet Web
sites, and other corporate communications messages, which are analyzed
with the help of discourse analysis, genre analysis, and conversation
analysis. These multiple data analyses allow us to look at a variety of
communication issues from different perspectives, and thus gain insight
into the multifaceted communication processes in our case companies.
In line with the focus of Friedman's Globalization Stage 3.0,
our research focuses on individual employees. We want to find out what
individual employees perceive their everyday communication to be like,
and what their attitudes are toward language issues. We are interested
in the changes that employees see as having occurred in communication
patterns and language requirements as a result of, for example, a
cross-border merger; we are also interested in personal reactions to the
resulting need to increasingly use a foreign language in various aspects
of work; finally, we are interested in employees' views on cultural
issues that result from increasingly international operations.
With the follow-up interviews, the surveys give us the subjective
reality of employees caught in the midst of globalizing corporate
operations. Thus, we get a glimpse of corporate reality. What we do not
capture is the "official corporate view." Neither can our
database possibly be anywhere near large enough to allow any kind of
generalizations about globalization and communication. What we get is an
opportunity to understand some feelings and perceptions of changes
occurring in one small part of global business. (For a critical
discussion of the methodology in the surveys and interviews carried out,
see Louhiala-Salminen, 2002.)
The views expressed in surveys and interviews are used as a
stimulus for qualitative analysis of videotaped and audio-recorded
communication events. Over the years, we have accumulated a database of
close to 60 hours of spoken data--meetings, negotiations, and
presentations (for details on meetings data, see Louhiala-Salminen &
Charles, 2006; on negotiation data, see Charles, 1994, and Huttunen,
2005; for investor relations presentations, see Caspers, 2006)--in
addition to having access to e-mail messages (for details, see
Kankaanranta, 2005, 2006) and corporate intranet communications in
companies that are in different stages of globalization. We use these
data to give insight into what we, as researchers, see is actually
happening in the companies--as contrasted with what employees perceive
to be happening.
Modest as this database is, anyone who has been involved in trying
to get recordings from companies will appreciate the enormity of the
challenges presented by this kind of data collection. Research
cooperation in the form of surveys and interviews is one thing;
permission to record interactions is another. Questions of
confidentiality loom larger than anywhere else, as also does individual
trepidation, perhaps even fear of being personally exposed through
recordings. In the world of spoken BELF research, the amount of our
recorded data is actually substantial.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: THE SUBTLE POWER OF LANGUAGE
Detailed reports on our research findings have been published and
appear in the references section of this article. Here, I want to
discuss selected findings and conclusions that would seem to have
significance for research in our field, as well as areas that are in
dire need of further investigation. The essence of our findings--and the
conclusions we have reached--have here been brought together into five
(sweeping) statements. Each will now be briefly discussed.
1. Informal, oral communication deserves to be considered of
paramount importance in MNCs.
In spite of the technological advances of the past decade, the
significance of oral, informal communication, such as face-to-face
chats, in the everyday business of MNCs comes through clearly in our
research. In two of our case companies, we asked about the percentage of
time spent on various communication situations/media in in-house
communications. The share Of various oral communication situations (63%)
exceeded that of written situations (Louhiala-Salminen, 2002).
Face-to-face meetings topped the list (25%), with telephone interaction
a close runner-up (more than 20%). Informal chat at the coffee machine
(or similar) accounted for more than 10% of internal communication.
Interestingly, informal chat was perceived to account for a greater
percentage of employee communication than formal oral communication
situations, such as company presentations, and video and
teleconferencing. This finding would seem to have implications for BELF
teaching and training: Although obviously NSs will have no trouble
chatting, BELF speakers may well find it challenging.
Indeed, the challenges involved in oral interaction were
highlighted in interviews. Respondents in one globally operating MNC
emphasized the difficulties experienced in understanding each
others' Englishes in oral situations (Charles &
Marschan-Piekkari, 2002; Marschan, 1996). Interestingly, several of the
interviewees mentioned that problems were created by NS communication as
well as by NNS; it seems that NSs' sophisticated language could be
difficult for NNSs to comprehend. In informal interviews, problems were
also identified in the way decisions were understood in multicultural
meetings, with miscomprehension resulting in misconstrued nonverbal
performance (see Huttunen, 2005).
As cross-border mergers for many of our interviewees had meant
changing over to a foreign language in many of the tasks that earlier
had been carried out in the mother tongue, it was not unexpected that
"foreign language use" was regarded as the main source of
communication problems. In one company it was pointed out, for example,
that at the pre-BELF stage, when Swedish was used as the "language
of management," that is, a shared language, the Swedish employees
were able to use their mother tongue, whereas many Finnish employees
felt that Swedish was not their "best foreign language"
(Louhiala-Salminen, 2002; see also Charles, 2002). Interestingly, these
interviewees explained that learning banking terminology in another
language was not a problem, but finding the right expressions in
"ordinary small talk," or acting assertively in negotiations,
and being able to suddenly and effectively express opinions or convey
nuances in meetings, was difficult. It was thus the discursive
conventions of informal communication that seemed to be a challenge,
rather than the language of formal communication as such.
Our findings on the significance of oral interaction are in line
with, for example, Nickerson (2000) and Poncini (2004). There clearly
seems to be a need for management to adopt a broad view of in-house
communication. That view should not limit communication simply to the
more or less formal communications occurring in, say,
superior-subordinate contacts, or those carried out by the
communications function. Instead, communication should be understood as
"integrated communications" (Kalla, 2006), where
communications refers to all interaction that takes place in a
company--the informal communication around the coffee machine and the
small talk in meetings, as well as in other face-to-face contacts.
According to Kalla (2006), this kind of informal communication is
essential for networking and creating bridging and bonding relationships
between employees, which, in turn, contribute to knowledge sharing and
the accumulation of social capital within the company. Clearly, MNCs,
which have the challenging job of creating some sort of global unity and
loyalty among a hugely diverse entity of employees, are a prime example
of the need to focus on both formal and informal communication.
2. Language is a power-wielding instrument in organizations.
Ability to operate in the official corporate language, and/or the
language of management/headquarters, gives individuals access to
corporate-level information. Interviewees narrated how language skills
were seen to empower employees. The following two cases are
illustrative.
Our first story shows how those who, because of inadequate skill in
the corporate language, do not have access to information distributed in
the official language of the company, become dependent on those who do
have that access. Charles and Marschan-Piekkari (2002) quote the case of
a subsidiary whose representative told our interviewer that his unit did
not need any training in the corporate language. It turned out later
that this interviewee was the only one who could speak the language in
that unit. Thus, any language training would have meant a sharing of the
power that his language skills gave him, and eventually have threatened
his position as gatekeeper. At the time of the interview, all
information from headquarters was filtered through him, making everyone
else dependent on him. He was clearly wielding power through language.
Our second story is about subjective (dis)empowerment. It derives
from a company formed as a result of a merger between Finnish and
Swedish companies. Right after the merger, the official shared language
(the language of management) was Swedish, that is, the mother tongue of
some employees but not of all. Many Finnish-speaking staff felt their
Swedish was more or less rusty, in need of updating and practice, dating
as it did several decades back to the Swedish learned in high school.
Against this backdrop, these Finnish-speaking interviewees felt they
were suddenly stripped of power. They felt they were unable to even use
the power and influence that their professional status and role in the
company granted them. In meetings, they felt inferior to Swedish NSs; in
particular, they pointed out how difficult it was to behave in a
professional and influential style, operating--as they felt they
were--in halting (although in many cases actually very fluent) Swedish.
Interestingly, these same interviewees felt relieved when the official
company language was changed to English (BELF), which was a foreign
language to both Finnish and Swedish speakers. The use of BELF was
perceived to remove the NS >< NNS dichotomy, and thus to equalize
language-based power relations. This brings us to my third point.
3. Language affects perceptions of oneself and others.
The above interviewees, struggling to assert themselves in Swedish,
felt disempowered because of their lacking language skills. As one of
them said, "It is extraordinarily difficult to be professional in
'Me Tarzan--you Jane' language" (Louhiala-Salminen, 2002,
p. 77). The disempowerment was reflected in the way they perceived
themselves as professionals and managers. In this situation, they used a
variety of coping strategies. These included avoidance strategies, such
as attempts to move sideways in the corporate hierarchy to areas where
Swedish would have to be used less, but also attack strategies, such as
enrolling on Swedish training courses, and actually upgrading their
language skills. From the organizational point of view, therefore,
language issues greatly impacted organizational hierarchy and other HR
issues, and became an important consideration in promotion and
relocation decisions.
Language is a very personal thing. If people, on a daily basis,
face situations where they feel deprived of their ability to communicate
and express themselves adequately, there is, as our interview data
indicated, a sense of frustration, and a struggle to maintain dignity.
This challenge becomes particularly acute if there is a general feeling
among employees that the frame of reference in communication is the
native speaker (as is the case in ELF). In organizational life, this
frustration is bound to result in employee dissatisfaction with the jobs
and the company; inevitably, low performance levels will follow. In a
multilingual MNC environment, it is therefore particularly important for
managers to be aware of the significance of language and communication
skills for staff motivation and job satisfaction.
4. Language unites people and organizations--but also divides them.
We have seen above how perceptions of one's ability to use
language in professional communication can be a disruptive force if one
thinks in terms of the NS >< NNS dichotomy. Kalla's (2006)
study, however, focuses on the uniting force of communication. She has
studied the role of communication in bridging and bonding relationships
created within a Finland-based multinational. Through quantitative
analysis, she demonstrated that the easier communication is made--and
here, for global companies, technology comes into play--the more
communication there is likely to be. She links communication frequency
with strong, bonding relationships; knowledge sharing; and creation of
social capital in corporations (Kalla 2005). Frequent and fluent
communication--which assumes a shared language facility--thus serves to
cement an organization together.
Makela, Kalla, and Piekkari (2006), on the other hand, look at
language as both a uniting and a dividing feature at organizational
level. They discovered a "clustering" phenomenon in MNCs.
According to them, units in countries with close linguistic and cultural
affinity tend to communicate, cooperate, and share knowledge with each
other, but fail to do so with units whose linguistic and cultural
characteristics would require greater linguistic and cultural effort.
Their findings thus confirm what Marschan (1996) referred to as
"shadow structure," with corporate employees communicating
with those with whom they can easily communicate (because of language
and culture) rather than with those with whom they should, according to
their professional and business interests, be communicating. By dividing
individuals into "us" and "them"--those who
"can" and those who "cannot"--language can be seen
as having the same divisive impact at group level. This is obviously a
challenge for multinationals, particularly in view of the fact that
language effects--both positive and negative--are not always overt and
obvious, and language as a potential factor in corporate success or
failure is frequently overlooked. Thus, more research is needed on the
role of language and communication in companies.
5. BELF is not a "cultureless" language.
Qualitative analysis of videotaped meetings in the data reveals
that, building on a common lexicosemantic core of English, speakers of
different mother tongues and cultures use the language according to
different sociopragmatic rules (Louhiala-Salminen & Charles, 2006;
Louhiala-Salminen et al., 2005). They thus bring into BELF situations
their own cultural characteristics, and together create a
"new" operational culture based on shared understanding of
situational factors.
From video-recorded and audio-recorded data, we examined Swedish
and Finnish BELF speakers conducting business meetings in English. We
then compared our findings (a) to what Finnish and Swedish interviewees
said about their own and their colleagues' communication style, and
(b) to what the literature says about the nature of Finnish/Swedish
mother tongue discourse (e.g., Fant, 1990; Lehtonen, 1991; Oberg, 1995).
We wanted to find out (a) whether interviewee perceptions of the nature
of Finnish/Swedish communication would tally with findings from a close
analysis of their discourse, and (b) whether characteristics that
previous research had suggested were specifically NS Finnish/Swedish
were transferred to, and could be detected in, the speakers' BELF
discourse.
One characteristic that we looked at was a characterization that
came up again and again with our interviewees, that is, the
"wordiness" or "talkativeness," of Swedish
participants in meetings, and the "few-wordiness," and
"relative silence" of the Finnish participants. Interestingly,
word counts did not show any significant differences between the amount
of speech produced by Swedish and Finnish speakers. Differences did,
however, emerge when Swedish-Finnish BELF interaction was subjected to
close discourse analysis. Swedish speakers tended to pay explicit
attention to their interactants, ask their opinions, address them
directly, and use metalanguage that referred to what previous speakers
had said; they also tended to "think out loud." This meant
that a lot of the time the Swedes were talking and enhancing
communication between the various partners, but were not actually saying
much at all about the issue at hand. It may well be that this kind of
discourse caused their behavior to be perceived as "wordy" and
"talkative." The contributions of the Finnish speakers, on the
other hand, tended to be highly information oriented, with few questions
asked; the Finnish speakers in the data tended to proceed in a linear
manner without using metalanguage to refer to what had previously been
said (for more details, see Louhiala-Salminen, 2002; Louhiala-Salminen
& Charles, 2006; Louhiala-Salminen et al., 2005), and they said what
they had to say in a well-argued but monologic style, without attending
to the interactive requirements of other participants. Moreover, there
was a difference in speech distribution between the Finns and the
Swedes. The Finnish speakers tended to have periods of silence, followed
by longish monologues, whereas the Swedes' contributions were
shorter and more evenly dispersed throughout the meeting, thus with
shorter periods of silence (Louhiala-Salminen & Charles, 2006).
Discoursal differences like issue orientation versus interpersonal
orientation, amount of metadiscourse used (see Halliday, 1973), and
timing of speech could well explain the perceptions of Finns as
"quiet" and Swedes as "talkative." Moreover, because
the Swedish colleagues tended to address the Finns directly, and ask
them questions (which the Finns rarely did to the Swedes), the discourse
gave the impression that Finnish speakers were often the underdogs--the
less dominant, the less powerful ones--in the event. This conclusion was
confirmed in interviews, where Finns said how difficult it was to be
assertive and hold their own in BELF discussions (see Louhiala-Salminen,
2002).
What these findings revealed was that BELF speakers--like, of
course, all speakers in any situation--bring into BELF interaction their
own sociopragmatic assumptions and conversational expectations. The
resulting discourse may well be "different" from what native
English-speaker discourse might be (for example, Finnish small talk
might well differ from NS English small talk expectations; see Charles,
1994), but, as our data showed, business got done and conversational
cooperation was achieved (though disagreement over a variety of issues
was not avoided). The point is, however, that, in an analysis of this
BELF discourse, a comparison of the performance of these NNSs to NSs
would be of little relevance to the business at hand, as no native
speakers were present. Finnish and Swedish participants seemed to bring
in their own discoursal and cultural expectations, and use them to
create BELF communication that served them more or less efficiently. Far
from being "cultureless," that discourse comprised features of
at least two cultures--Finnish and Swedish--out of which the speakers
forged their very own, situation-specific, discursive culture (in
accordance with Holden, 2002).
Clearly, we are here talking of highly complex issues, and we are
not in a position to generalize. At the moment, however, we are not so
much interested in making generalizations as in trying to understand
BELF processes. Findings like the above would seem to help us to
appreciate the challenges involved. Moreover, our empirical analyses
seemed to confirm the need for a reconceptualization of ELF into BELF.
FINAL WORDS
It is widely agreed that MNCs need a corporate language--a language
of the management--in which policies, bulletins, and information in
general are made available. On the basis of our research, we suggest
that multinationals need to shape their language policies with the
shrewdest possible appreciation of the significance that language has
for individual and organizational performance. Companies need to see
internal communication as an integrated issue, including both formal and
informal communication. They need strategies for implementing their
language policies--strategies that take into account the language
challenges that individual employees face in globalized operations. They
also need to be aware of the potential that judicious handling of
language issues offers them.
At the moment, companies address "the language issue" in
a variety of ways. Some (as Welch et al., 2005, point out) see it in
simplistic terms as merely a mechanical translation issue made easier
and less costly with the emergence of such IT tools as increasingly
sophisticated (but still flawed) translation software. Clearly, these
companies are ignoring the empowerment and unifying potential of
language and communication, as well as the impact that informal
communication has on staff motivation and perceptions of self-worth and
professionalism.
Many companies, on the other hand, see the adoption of a designated
company language (or languages in some cases) as a solution to the
language question and associated internal communication issues (Reeves
& Wright, 1996). Although this certainly alleviates some
communication challenges at some level, a shared language, as we have
seen, is no panacea. These companies, again, fail to see communication
as a process integral to the whole organization, with important
interpersonal communication occurring on an informal basis, often in
social situations (Kalla, 2006; see also Nohria & Eccles, 1992).
Companies that have a realistic and insightful view of the role of
language in their operations see it as being at the very core of
international business. As Welch et al. (2005, p. 11), point out:
"[Language] . . . is a sometimes awkward, sometimes impenetrable,
sometimes an irritating reminder of what may be involved in crossing
foreign cultures, and managing in a cross-cultural environment."
The key to handling this diversity, however, is not to attempt to model
everyone's language according to that of native speakers. As Reeves
and Wright (1996) suggest, the task of learning NS-like language is
daunting. Learners are bound to fall short of their target, and are thus
doomed to the role of a less proficient speaker/communicator, who is
seen to cause problems and communication failures in interaction.
Moreover, for companies operating in the fast-paced global business of
today, any NS-