We were extremely pleased that Dr. Anne Kankaanranta agreed to launch our first session of “Conversations about BELF” on 4 June 2022. In her talk “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions”, she took us on an exciting journey:
Anne Kankaanranta introduced the concept of BELF together with two co-authors (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005*) and has been investigating it ever since. Interestingly, she highlighted that her students at a Finnish business school would not be able to identify this concept in spite of using it effectively in their business interactions.
When starting in the early 1990s to train future business professionals, the focus had clearly been on ‘business vocabulary, concepts, format-bound documents, and conversation skills’. During all these years, Anne Kankaanranta has noticed a change in the curriculum from ‘Business English’ to ‘Business Communication’. Raising awareness of topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion has become essential in the recent past. Both in teaching and research, Anne Kankaanranta has focused on finding similarities between linguistics and international management research by having a look at the use of English in multinational corporations concerning the conceptualization of ‘language’ and ‘business’ as well as ‘English as corporate language’.
Based on a more traditional view of ‘language’, it is characterized as a ‘tool for communication’ that is ‘external to the user’ and ‘(largely) context free’, whereas more recently, ‘language’ has been perceived as ‘social practice’ happening between users in interactions. Language and culture are closely connected and BELF emerges in multilingual and multicultural business situation to get the message across (Karhunen et al. 2018). BELF is used to get the job done and to develop rapport and business relationships.
Anne Kankaanranta highlighted how business practitioners defined ‘business’ (knowledge):
The quote from a Finnish business practitioner in a multinational company shows (Kankaanranta & Planken 2011) that the concept of ‘English as corporate language’ is part of daily work routines, but its use is not necessarily clearly defined:
We were extremely pleased that Dr. Anne Kankaanranta agreed to launch our first session of “Conversations about BELF” on 4 June 2022. In her talk “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions”, she took us on an exciting journey:
Anne Kankaanranta introduced the concept of BELF together with two co-authors (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005*) and has been investigating it ever since. Interestingly, she highlighted that her students at a Finnish business school would not be able to identify this concept in spite of using it effectively in their business interactions.
When starting in the early 1990s to train future business professionals, the focus had clearly been on ‘business vocabulary, concepts, format-bound documents, and conversation skills’. During all these years, Anne Kankaanranta has noticed a change in the curriculum from ‘Business English’ to ‘Business Communication’. Raising awareness of topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion has become essential in the recent past. Both in teaching and research, Anne Kankaanranta has focused on finding similarities between linguistics and international management research by having a look at the use of English in multinational corporations concerning the conceptualization of ‘language’ and ‘business’ as well as ‘English as corporate language’.
Based on a more traditional view of ‘language’, it is characterized as a ‘tool for communication’ that is ‘external to the user’ and ‘(largely) context free’, whereas more recently, ‘language’ has been perceived as ‘social practice’ happening between users in interactions. Language and culture are closely connected and BELF emerges in multilingual and multicultural business situation to get the message across (Karhunen et al. 2018). BELF is used to get the job done and to develop rapport and business relationships.
Anne Kankaanranta highlighted how business practitioners defined ‘business’ (knowledge):
The quote from a Finnish business practitioner in a multinational company shows (Kankaanranta & Planken 2011) that the concept of ‘English as corporate language’ is part of daily work routines, but its use is not necessarily clearly defined:
Anne Kankaanranta explained the “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions” by giving a detailed overview of one of the business communication courses “Mastering influence in business communication” at her Finnish Business School.
Anne Kankaanranta explained the “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions” by giving a detailed overview of one of the business communication courses “Mastering influence in business communication” at her Finnish Business School.
Anne Kankaanranta explained the “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions” by giving a detailed overview of one of the business communication courses “Mastering influence in business communication” at her Finnish Business School.
She emphasized the importance of the following aspects:
Future business communication courses will have to deal with the challenges mentioned in the final part of the talk.
She emphasized the importance of the following aspects:
Future business communication courses will have to deal with the challenges mentioned in the final part of the talk.
The following topics were covered in the chat and during the lively discussion after the talk.
When looking at her students’ level of English language proficiency, it definitely has to be considered that apart from the general globalization and the worldwide dominance of English as international language, both the Finnish society and educational system are characterized by an extremely high level of Englishization. However, just knowing and using English as a lingua franca is not enough to negotiate meaning and develop relationships in business settings.
As a consequence of conceptualizing language only as a ‘tool’, idealized so-called native speakers and their norms are used as benchmarks to assess students’ performance. When moving to the perspective of ‘social practice’, the competence as a business professional will become the benchmark. Is the student able to get the job done? All of a sudden, a huge variety of factors and a high level of fluidity have to be taken into account.
When defining business knowledge, the concept of communities of practice (Wenger 1998) comes in very handy for both business practitioners and faculty members of the business school. During their time at university, the students go through a socializing process to learn what part of the business knowledge is essential and to get a business mindset. In contrast to the freshmen, the Finnish master students have already acquired more practical business experience. In the real business world, learning on the job and life-long learning will be essential for fine-tuning the business knowledge and practices in their specific work contexts.
Looking at the use of ‘English as corporate language’, Kankaanranta et al. (2018) suggested two different perspectives. On the one hand the official, front-stage use, which is based on Standard English, and the back-stage use of BELF as a multilingual and situation-specific working language. Moreover, the idea of “BELF as a ‘neutral’ resource” (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005) does not mean that the use of BELF could be regarded as culturally neutral or conflict-free.
Thus, when looking at the “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions”, it is essential for users of BELF to think about and practice the three principles from 2005:
To sum up, several participants of this first session of “Conversations about BELF” highly appreciated the link between the BELF concept, which was originally presented in 2005, and the practical example from the Finnish business school. They stressed the importance of building relationships and described the design of the business communication course as “results-driven” or “really practical and comprehensive”. Nonetheless, many were also aware of the challenges: “Getting into the shoes of the other person – especially hard in a different corporate or national culture”. Moreover, this might be especially “hard in pre-experience teaching contexts”. However, “eliciting cultural awareness is fundamental”.
The following topics were covered in the chat and during the lively discussion after the talk.
When looking at her students’ level of English language proficiency, it definitely has to be considered that apart from the general globalization and the worldwide dominance of English as international language, both the Finnish society and educational system are characterized by an extremely high level of Englishization. However, just knowing and using English as a lingua franca is not enough to negotiate meaning and develop relationships in business settings.
As a consequence of conceptualizing language only as a ‘tool’, idealized so-called native speakers and their norms are used as benchmarks to assess students’ performance. When moving to the perspective of ‘social practice’, the competence as a business professional will become the benchmark. Is the student able to get the job done? All of a sudden, a huge variety of factors and a high level of fluidity have to be taken into account.
When defining business knowledge, the concept of communities of practice (Wenger 1998) comes in very handy for both business practitioners and faculty members of the business school. During their time at university, the students go through a socializing process to learn what part of the business knowledge is essential and to get a business mindset. In contrast to the freshmen, the Finnish master students have already acquired more practical business experience. In the real business world, learning on the job and life-long learning will be essential for fine-tuning the business knowledge and practices in their specific work contexts.
Looking at the use of ‘English as corporate language’, Kankaanranta et al. (2018) suggested two different perspectives. On the one hand the official, front-stage use, which is based on Standard English, and the back-stage use of BELF as a multilingual and situation-specific working language. Moreover, the idea of “BELF as a ‘neutral’ resource” (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005) does not mean that the use of BELF could be regarded as culturally neutral or conflict-free.
Thus, when looking at the “Dynamics of teaching ‘BELF’ for business interactions”, it is essential for users of BELF to think about and practice the three principles from 2005:
To sum up, several participants of this first session of “Conversations about BELF” highly appreciated the link between the BELF concept, which was originally presented in 2005, and the practical example from the Finnish business school. They stressed the importance of building relationships and described the design of the business communication course as “results-driven” or “really practical and comprehensive”. Nonetheless, many were also aware of the challenges: “Getting into the shoes of the other person – especially hard in a different corporate or national culture”. Moreover, this might be especially “hard in pre-experience teaching contexts”. However, “eliciting cultural awareness is fundamental”.
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We were extremely pleased that Dr. Anne Kankaanranta took us on an exciting journey in our first session of “Conversations about BELF” on 4 June 2022. …
