'it's not written on parchment but it's the way to survive': Official and unofficial use of languages in MNCs release_r34pxj3uhngo3e5u53mq4nnroq

by Ifigeneia Machili

Published in Language in Focus by Walter de Gruyter GmbH.

2015   p54-84

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> The globalization of economic activity and the escalating economic crisis impact on the expansion and shrinking of businesses along with their management of human resources and language management strategies. Struggling to remain competitive and survive, businesses resort to a range of language policies when employees make their own everyday language choices, a divergence that is worth investigating. Against this backdrop, this paper takes a mixed method approach and reports on the official and unofficial uses of English as a lingua franca and Greek as the local language in multinational corporations in Greece. According to the analysis, language choice is negotiated locally and strategically to the fallout of the economic crisis according to the employees' post duties, the complexity of issues communicated, socialization with other employees, acting as unofficial default communication channels and safeguarding the privacy of email communication. Implications are discussed in relation to the teaching of foreign languages to meet the multivariate demands of workplace communication.
In application/xml+jats format

Archived Files and Locations

application/pdf  969.8 kB
file_g2e3fe7ccrfl3l67qvxwyrpe24
www.degruyter.com (web)
web.archive.org (webarchive)
application/pdf  925.1 kB
file_2asemvgczzdqrppqkagltfwaue
web.archive.org (webarchive)
content.sciendo.com (web)
Read Archived PDF
Preserved and Accessible
Type  article-journal
Stage   published
Date   2015-12-01
Work Entity
access all versions, variants, and formats of this works (eg, pre-prints)
Catalog Record
Revision: 19723794-4fbf-4d82-8d1f-533017bb3b38
API URL: JSON