Master’s thesis – Gitte Isager - Abstract
Abstract
English has a very strong position in Denmark today. The spread of English as a global language means
that English has a great influence on society in a small country like Denmark with a small language.
English has an enormous influence on people’s daily lives through media and television, on education
and research, on communication in official and semi-official agencies, and on communication in
international companies. The very strong position of English in Denmark has lead to a political and public
debate on the spread of English. There is a double position on the issue in the sense that from a national
and linguistic perspective Danish should be maintained as the official language, but from a global and
competitive perspective it is important to ensure a global orientation, which implies the use of a global
language such as English.
As a consequence of globalisation big international companies increasingly use English as a corporate
language, and today English seems to be perceived as a natural part of employees’ competencies rather
than a competence in its own right. However, while it is a fact that English is the principal global
language used to ease communication in a multinational and multilingual environment, research
findings suggest that it may not be a lingua franca in the sense that it is a neutral instrument of
communication. Different levels of English proficiency and reduced quality of employee exchanges may
lead to less efficient communication and may affect social interaction and knowledge-sharing in the
company. However, research findings also suggest that the use of a corporate language such as English
may have a positive effect on the cohesion within the company, if the corporate language is used
consistently in management communication.
The purpose of the thesis is to explore the strengths and weaknesses of using English as a corporate
language. Motivated by the challenges English usage seems to pose to corporate communication and
cohesion the author attempts to answer two research questions: 1) can the use of English as a corporate
language overcome the language barrier of a multinational and multilingual corporation?, and 2) can the
use of English as a corporate language have a positive effect on the cohesion within the company?
The theoretical framework approaches English as a corporate language from a management, a
sociolinguistic and a linguistic perspective, in an attempt to offer a holistic view of the issue. The
empirical part of the thesis is based on qualitative interviews with a small sample of individual language
users within one department of the Danish multinational corporation Vestas Wind Systems A/S.
The findings suggest that English can overcome the language barrier in a multinational and multilingual
corporation, since it is the principal global language and as such a common denominator for employees
with different mother tongues. However, English seems to involve at least some of the same challenges
to corporate communication as language diversity does. Different levels of proficiency among nonnative English speakers result in miscommunication and less effective communication. Code-switching
from English to Danish among Danish employees and thin communication in the form of reduced quality
of employee exchanges lead to more formal interaction, which again may cause a lack of knowledgesharing within the company. Non-native English speakers’ loss of rhetorical skills and power distortion in
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Master’s thesis – Gitte Isager - Abstract
relation to native English speakers caused by the native English speakers’ advantage of speaking their
mother tongue may cause a lack of knowledge-sharing as well.
However, the findings also suggest that code-switching to Danish, at least among this specific sample of
language users, cannot be ascribed only to inadequacy in English but also to a great extent to
homophily, the tendency to interact with similar others. This may be the reason why code-switching to
Danish does not seem to lead to actual language clustering in the form of containment of knowledge in
a Danish cluster and a cluster of foreign employees. Although the Danish employees have a tendency to
homophily they have, at the same time, a high level of English language consistency, which has a
positive effect on the cohesion within the department and thus on the foreign employees’ tolerance
towards code-switching. Hence, as far as cohesion is concerned, it seems that a high level of English
language consistency is more important than the quality of employee exchanges.
Consequently, the strength of using English as a corporate language is that English is a global language
and as such a common denominator for employees with different mother tongues, which makes it
possible to overcome the language barrier in a multinational and multilingual environment. If English is
used consistently throughout the organisation whenever language diversity poses a challenge to the
communication and the mutual understanding among colleagues, it seems that English can have a
positive effect on the cohesion within the company.
However, the weakness of using English as a corporate language is that English does not seem to be a
neutral and shared communication code. If English is perceived as a business lingua franca in the sense
that the language users are communicators in their own right, due to its status as a global language,
management and the language users in general may not be aware of the challenges and limitations the
use of English may pose to corporate communication.
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