On 26 November 2022, our continuously growing BELF community was happy to learn about a joint virtual project of two business schools. As teachers of business English, Dr. Miya Komori-Glatz (WU Vienna University of Economics and Business) and Dr. Kaisa Pietikäinen (NHH Norwegian School of Economics) shared their experiences when using digital tools for intercultural communication:
After a quick crash course in online teaching for all of us due to the Corona virus, both universities had been moving back to classroom teaching. Thus, both Kaisa and Miya were looking for a way to bring the best of both worlds together and to raise students‘ awareness of BELF or English as a Business Lingua Franca at the same time. They decided to start a joint project, where their respective student groups would be able to practice the BELF strategies they had learned in theory in actual BELF interaction in an intercultural setting.
Miya (2018) describes the continuum of English in use in international business based on the publications of Kankaanranta et al (2015/2018). On one end of the continuum, which shows where use of English takes place and which is not supposed to indicate any hierarchy, you can find the front-stage use (Goffman 1959) as an official or corporate language with a clear focus on Standard English for internal or external purposes.
Following Goffman’s metaphor, the other end of the continuum stands for the back-stage use. Although this adhoc or in situ use of English as a working language or BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) should be considered as equally important, there is a tendency to neglect it, especially in terms of assessment.
Miya (2018) describes the continuum of English in use in international business based on the publications of Kankaanranta et al (2015/2018). On one end of the continuum, which shows where use of English takes place and which is not supposed to indicate any hierarchy, you can find the front-stage use (Goffman 1959) as an official or corporate language with a clear focus on Standard English for internal or external purposes.
Following Goffman’s metaphor, the other end of the continuum stands for the back-stage use. Although this adhoc or in situ use of English as a working language or BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) should be considered as equally important, there is a tendency to neglect it, especially in terms of assessment.
As a consequence of globalization, the context, in which students need to use English, has changed into a super diverse and unpredictable setting, which has made it more challenging to teach pragmatic strategies. In Norway, there used to be a clear focus on either American or British language, culture, or business communication. The contexts and pragmatic strategies represented a rather monolithic understanding of culture.
All of a sudden, students need flexible communication skills. Although online communication made more intercultural communication possible, online space even increases the likelihood of variability and the need for modification and accommodation.
The two BELF researchers found the language teaching model of Global Englishes developed by Rose & Galloway (2019) very useful, which proposes including more World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca exposure in a language curriculum. This should go hand in hand with highlighting respect for multilingualism, diverse cultures, and identities, and at the same time, with moving away from hiring native speakers in the ELT industry.
As this model is not specifically aimed at teaching Business English, the question was how to include these principles. Kankaanranta et al (2015) stress the aim of successful business communication in the form of getting the job done and building rapport combined with brevity, directness, and clarity as well as strategic communication skills, which were directly derived from ELF research. This article, however, does not give any further information on materials and classroom activities. Kaur & Birlik (2021) suggest as already mentioned beforehand
Although this approach sounds excellent and would be highly appreciated by the students, it is neither easy to get access to this type of material, nor to get permission to use it as teaching material. As a consequence, mirroring real-life communication combined with virtual modes of communication would enable the students to negotiate meaning with pragmatic strategies in a realistic intercultural setting.
As one overlapping virtual event, a case was developed for the assignment that was based on an imaginary (yet realistic) situation between two real Austrian and Norwegian companies in the energy sector that entered into a joint venture. In the first phase of the project, the main focus was on viability in combination with discussing company culture only. In the second phase, the focus could shift more to the learning and the outcomes. The students were supposed to deal with intercultural competence and negotiate the final stages of this joint venture.
The Norwegian students had experienced a lot of case-based negotiations with an emphasis on intercultural accommodation skills and intercultural models of cultural differences. The Austrian students had less lecture time, but they were expected to develop a phrasebank with collaborative digital tools and resources outside the classroom. As second task, they got reading comprehension tasks referring to different ELF-related articles that had to be presented in a social-media-friendly way (e.g., Instagram carousel or TikToc video) and they had to comment on each other’s post in a discussion forum.
Weighing all the pros and cons, Kaisa and Miya concluded – especially after carrying the project out for a second time -that the effort was all worth it. Using digital tools for intercultural communication offered excellent opportunities to practise authentic BELF communication in an intercultural negotiation setting.
Nonetheless, it was not only important that the students learned and applied strategies for effective BELF communication, but that the character of the tasks in this virtual setting enabled them to succeed and to leave this only get-together with a positive feeling.
Depending on the different business English contexts that the participants of this session worked in, the talk was discussed with different emphasis in the breakout rooms or in the main room:
Cogo, A. 2009. Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In: A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds.), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar. 254–273.
Cogo, A. & Dewey, M. 2012. Analysing English as a lingua franca: A corpus-driven investigation. London: Continuum.
Goffman, E., 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, J. 2022. Accommodation in ELF: Where from? Where now? Where next? In: I. Walkinshaw (ed.) Pragmatics in English as a Lingua Franca: Findings and Developments. Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter. 17-34.
Kankaanranta, A; Louhiala-Salminen, L. & Karhunen, P. 2015. English in multinational companies: implications for teaching “English” at an international business school. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 4(1), 125–148.
Kankaanranta, A; Karhunen, P.; Louhiala-Salminen, L. 2018. “English as corporate language” in the multilingual reality of multinational companies. Multilingua, 37(4), 331–351.
Kaur, J. 2011. Raising explicitness through self-repair in English as a lingua franca. Journal of Pragmatics 43(11): 2704–2715.
Kaur, J. 2012. Saying it again: enhancing clarity in English as a lingua franca (ELF) talk through self-repetition. Text&Talk 32(5): 593–613.
Kaur, J. 2022. Pragmatic strategies in ELF communication: Key findings and a way forward. In: I. Walkinshaw (ed.) Pragmatics in English as a Lingua Franca: Findings and Developments. Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter. 35- 54
Kaur, J. & Birlik, S. 2021. Communicative effectiveness in BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) meetings: ‘Explaining’ as a pragmatic strategy. The Modern Language Journal 105(3), 623-638.
Komori-Glatz, M. 2018. Conceptualising English as a business lingua franca . European Journal of International Management, 12(1-2), 46-61.
Kramsch, C. 2021. Learning and teaching pragmatics in the globalized world: Commentary. The Modern language Journal 105(3), 760-761.
Mauranen, A. 2006. Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177: 123–150.
Neeley, T. 2012. Global business speaks English. Harvard Business Review 90(5).
Pitzl, M-L. 2005. Non-understanding in English as a lingua franca: Examples from a business context. Vienna English Working PaperS 14, 50-71.
Pietikäinen, K.S. 2018. Misunderstanding and ensuring understanding in private ELF talk. Applied Linguistics 39(2), 188-122.
Rose, H. & Galloway, N. 2019. Global Englishes for Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, H., McKinley, J. & Galloway, N. 2021. Global Englishes and language teaching: A review of pedagogical research. Language Teaching 54, 157-189.
Seidlhofer, B. 2009. Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a Lingua Franca. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2): 195–215.
*Please find further references in our “Resources”
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