Trial lecture - time and place
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent Senior Lecturer Dr.Miya Komori-Glatz, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
- 2nd opponent Professor Dorte Lønsmann, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Committee chair Professor Emeritus Andreas Lund, University of Oslo, Norway
Chair of defence
Professor Lisbeth M. Brevik, Department of Teacher Education and School research, University of Oslo, Norway.
Supervisors
- Professor Glenn Ole Hellekjær, Department of Teacher Education and School research, University of Oslo, Norway
- Professor Anne Kari Bjørge, Norwegian School of Economics, Norway
Summary
English is now the most widely spoken business language. It is also the corporate language in a large number of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) across the world, Norway included. Consequently, it is important to prepare international business practitioners for the use of English in these contexts, which are both multilingual and multicultural. This affects the English that is used, making it into a lingua franca, a ‘shared language,' which can be referred to as English as a Business Lingua Franca, BELF. This is the starting point for the present PhD dissertation which aims to investigate how business professionals interact using BELF in MNCs in Norway, and use the findings to inform English language teaching. This is important even though Norwegians are considered highly proficient speakers of English, because many still struggle when they have to use it in professional contexts, especially in demanding situations such as meetings and negotiations (Hellekjær, 2012). The PhD project comprises two qualitative studies that have been conducted in MNCs in Norway, one multi-site interview study in six MNCs and one combined observation and interview study in a single MNC.
The first study, presented in article 1, explored how Norwegian economists use English at work. Findings show how they used English frequently in both oral and written genres and that they often used a professional vocabulary. In addition, they also used local versions of English, known as ‘company speak’, and made extensive use of strategies to adjust to, or accommodate, other speakers. Accommodating both non-native and native speakers of English was found to require different strategies. First, communicating across other languages and cultures highlighted the need to ensure intelligibility, for instance by using several languages to negotiate meaning. Second, being able to match the high linguistic proficiency of native speakers was found to be an advantage, this because advanced mastery of the corporate language can confer power in some situations as well as aid career advancement.
In the second study, presented in article 2, an international team was observed while conducting a routine meeting in English. Afterwards, some of the meeting participants were interviewed and asked about English use in the company and the team. The findings show that, as in the first study, it was important to be able to accommodate many different speakers, which required an understanding of the impact of culture and multiple languages on communication in English. As far as English use in the team was concerned, they had developed and negotiated specific ways of interacting in English in meetings over time, for instance regarding how to be polite, to ensure that everyone understood what was said, and participated. In addition, their language use was found to include locally created terms, also known as ‘company speak’, at both the team and company levels. In both studies, it was stressed that being able to learn and use English well you needed to feel comfortable about doing so, and building good relationships was considered essential. Finally, an II important overall finding was how the English used in these interactions is very complex and contingent on contextual factors and local negotiations.
In article 3, the data from both studies mentioned above were re-analysed as a ‘Needs Analysis’ of English language learning needs, and were used for a discussion of what to teach and how to teach business English courses. In the extended abstract, the data from these articles are set in a broader context, and relevant research fields and theory are reviewed, followed by an overview of methodology and a discussion of overall findings and research contributions. In sum, the findings in the present PhD project have implications for both higher education and businesses. They show that students in higher education need business English courses that are specifically tailored to their academic and professional needs as part of their degrees. Such courses need to be based on research on actual use of the domain-specific language in question, and use teaching methods that allow students to develop and practise these skills. This would involve learning professional vocabulary, oral and written skills for specific professional genres such as meetings and business reports, and the flexibility needed to accommodate other speakers. The latter includes understanding the fluid and negotiated nature of BELF, the ability to draw on their own repertoires of languages other than English, and their cultural knowledge. Regarding businesses, a better understanding of English use and cultural differences in the workplace may yield strategic advantages if managed well. In addition, stressing these ‘soft skills’ when hiring as well as offer inservice training of the above-mentioned skills, is highly recommended.