Genre patterns in language-based communication zones.

This article modifies and elaborates the language-based communication zones model. The authors distinguish between potential zones and activated zones, add MegaZone Two and MegaZone Three to the model, define language competency more completely and precisely, and identify three types of genre patterns (i.e., professional genre, commercial genre, and relational genre). Concentrating on the language patterns in the direct channels of language-based communication zones, they focus on determining the language competencies required to communicate directly in different communication situations and about different communication tasks. Professional, commercial, and relational genre patterns in Zone One, MegaZone Two, and MegaZone Three are identified and described. Research-based examples are included to illustrate the genre patterns.

Keywords: international business communication; genre communication; language-based communication zones

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Individuals who speak different national languages and possess varying levels of second-language competency exchange messages directly and indirectly in an increasingly fast-paced and expanding globalized communication environment. In this globalized environment, the messages cover a wide range of subject complexity (from the most simple to the most complex) and require varying language competency levels (from full to little or no second-language competency) to compose and comprehend the exchanged information. For some communication tasks, and in some communication situations, only individuals who share an advanced competency in a national language can directly exchange information, whereas for other tasks and situations, individuals with lesser competencies can still directly interact and successfully fulfill the information exchange requirements. For instance, company representatives must share advanced and specialized language competence to negotiate a complex international merger, whereas customers and order takers need only basic language competency to complete a fast-food order.

To distinguish and organize the different communication patterns in this diverse multilingual communication environment, our 2001 language-based communication zones model (Babcock & Du-Babcock, 2001) described how individuals with varying language competencies and using different communication strategies and methods based on these competencies could take part in international business communication processes. This model showed that interactants, depending on their language competency fits, exchange messages through direct channels (not requiring translation over national languages) and indirect communication channels (requiring translation through intermediaries or language link-pins) in language-based communication zones.

This article expands the language-based zones model to identify and describe situations and tasks where interactants can directly exchange messages (labeled situation-related and task-related genre patterns) in given situations and tasks. This refinement to our 2001 language-based communication zones model, therefore, concentrates on genre language patterns emerging in the direct channels within language-based communication zones. We focus on determining what language competencies are required to communicate directly in different communication situations and about different communication tasks. We match language competency to situations and tasks and show that different situations and tasks require different levels of language competency to directly exchange messages. Professional, commercial, and relational genre patterns that emerge in Zone One, MegaZone Two, and MegaZone Three are identified and developed.

We again suggest, as we did previously (2001), that a comprehensive framework is needed to aid international business communication practices and guide future research endeavors so as to provide a more comprehensive explanation of international business communication. We offer this refinement of our model (Babcock & Du-Babcock, 2001) as a complement to other models and theories that explain different aspects of international and intercultural business communication. Taken together, these models and theories can describe the dynamic, bidirectional, multiply influenced, and transformational translation processes (Sherblom, 1998) that occur in an increasingly fast-paced, differentiated, interrelated, and expanding international business communication environment.

DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE-BASED COMMUNICATION ZONES MODEL

In this section, we summarize the development of the language-based communication zones model. Our initial study (Du-Babcock & Babcock, 1996) focused on the different communication challenges faced by three types of expatriate managers doing business within branches of multinational corporations in Taiwan. Those managers who could speak only simple Mandarin used language link-pins--assistants fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese--to send substantive messages and often felt linguistically and psychologically isolated and excluded from the local Chinese staff. They reduced this isolation and developed a connection to their organizations through ritualized or symbolic communication in simple Chinese or English. Bilingual expatriates who had partial or intermediate Chinese language proficiency communicated through both languages but typically confined their use of Chinese to social occasions in which its use was viewed positively. They carried on all of their business transactions in English. Fully bilingual expatriates who were fluent in both English and Chinese carried on business activities in both languages. Yet, their fluency in the language native to the culture in which they were operating brought with it challenges not faced by the other two types of expatriates and for which excellent linguistic and translation skills were not always adequate to meet the cultural expectations that accompanied the job. As the language abilities of the expatriates increased, the expectations of cultural knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and conformance also expanded. So, expatriates who appeared linguistically fluent were expected to be culturally fluent and sophisticated in a way that less linguistically fluent executives were not. Any slippage or violation of a cultural norm was interpreted more harshly--as an affront--unlike for the less linguistically adept expatriates.

Fully bilingual expatriates also found it more difficult to maintain contact with their corporate headquarters and indigenous cultures. They also had problems implementing corporate philosophy and culture appropriately in their branch operations. So, in addition to the greater risk of violating the cultural norms of the host country in which they operated, they also ran the risk of becoming isolated from their local corporate cultures. In sum, our 1996 study operationalized language competency and its association with cultural competency as a construct to be included in the study of international business communication.

Our 2001 model recognized the interactive nature of the communication process and reconstituted the 1996 zone model by identifying three additional different-language zones, as well as two same-language zones where interactants speak the same first languages. This refinement responded to previous theories and models in the field, which implicitly made the assumption that all communicators possessed full language competency or that messages would be passed through specialist translators or link-pin communicators (Babcock & Du-Babcock, 2001).

Communicators are confronted with different problems and challenges in the eight language-based zones and consequently must adjust their communication strategies and tactics to fit the zone in which they are interacting. In parallel zones, different-language and same-language zone interactants have equivalent language proficiencies, and thus, they begin the interaction and process of adjusting to their communication partners from equivalent (parallel) language proficiencies. In nonparallel zones, the interactants begin from an unequal (nonparallel) language proficiency level. In this situation, the communicators have to adjust to sets of contrasting patterns of language adjustments so that higher proficiency language communicators have to accommodate their lower proficiency communication partners.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR MODEL DEVELOPMENT

To guide the refinement and further development of the language-based communication zones model, we use genre theory to sharpen our definition of language competency and to describe language patterns. Communication accommodation theory (CAT) is also used to elaborate on the communication behavior of interactants. Genre theory enables us to define more precisely language proficiency and describe the language patterns that arise in relation to differing situations and tasks, whereas CAT (as in our 2001 model) enables us to better describe communicator adjustments when interlocutors interact in various situations and tasks.

Genre theory has been successfully used for more than two decades to investigate the discourses used in various professional settings (see Bakhtin, 1986; Bhatia, 1993, 2004; Miller, 1984; Swales, 1990). These studies have established that any given genre is one that typifies a preferred mode of communication. This is applicable when oral or written communication is used, as well as a preferred use of vocabulary and format, whether for communicating within the group (discourse community) or the public generally. Users of the genre will therefore recognize the inherent features and rules and be able to identify and share the intended communicative purposes. In terms of our model, then, it is possible to view categories of language used in particular genres as also forming part of a national language (generally or professionally) in that they take on distinctive meanings in different contexts of use. For example, Yates and Orlikowski (1994, 2002) have described how genre communities develop distinctive communication patterns that can be organized into genre systems distinguished by their purpose, content, participants, form, time, and place. We have used this framework to help describe the characteristics of situation- and task-related genres where interactants form genre communities according to their linguistic competencies.

Overall, genre theory and studies have been useful in helping us relate language patterns to communication tasks and situations, and in determining the boundaries of the genre, the analysis of genre patterns, and the relationship of genres to general language. Of particular relevance to our framework are Bhatia's (1993, 2004) concept of professional genres and Nickerson's (2000) analytical framework for investigating the formal and substantive characteristics of organizational genres in multinational settings. We draw on Bhatia's (2004) professional genre classification and Nickerson's four types of genres (informational, promotional, relational, and transformational genres) to help categorize our own three genre types, namely, professional genre (per Bhatia), commercial genre (including Nickerson's informational and promotional categories), and relational genre (per Nickerson). We also recognize Nickerson's transformational category as a genre that develops in MegaZone Two and MegaZone Three and within our designated categories/genre types.

The rationale for creating our particular genre types is that the language limitations and competencies of interactants create distinctive sub-languages in national languages as the interlocutors adjust to the competency levels of their counterparts. Language-generated genre patterns are activated by the communication requirements of tasks and in situations where communicators have the necessary genre language competency to interact directly without intermediaries. Our genre categories relate genre language patterns to professional tasks (where interactants draw on their professional expertise), commercial tasks (