My aim in this chapter is to investigate the language ideologies participants construct and employ

344 Pages·2011·1.29 MB·English

English as a corporate language
Language choice and language ideologies in an international company in
Denmark

Dorte Lønsmann
PhD thesis, May 2011
Department of Culture and Identity
Roskilde University

Supervisor: Professor Bent Preisler

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Table of contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... vi
1 Introduction: Global demands and local concerns ............................... 1
1.1. Research questions ............................................................................... 3
1.2 Theoretical and methodological preliminaries ................................. 5
1.2.1 Integrating macro-micro and structure-agency ......................... 5
1.2.2 Ethnography in the study of language ....................................... 8
1.2.3 Three studies, three perspectives ............................................... 11
1.2.4 Clarifying key concepts ............................................................... 12
Language ................................................................................................ 12
Norms ..................................................................................................... 13
Competence ........................................................................................... 13
1.3 Outline .................................................................................................. 13
2 Background: English today ..................................................................... 15
2.1 From global English to English as a lingua franca ......................... 15
2.1.1 Global English .............................................................................. 16
2.1.2 English as a lingua franca ........................................................... 17
Deficit vs. difference ............................................................................. 20
Language choice and identity ............................................................. 22
2.1.3 Criticisms of the ELF paradigm ................................................. 24
2.1.4 Conclusion .................................................................................... 25
2.2 English in Denmark ............................................................................ 26
2.2.1 The domain concept .................................................................... 27
2.2.2 The status of English in Denmark ............................................. 28
2.2.3 Language policy debates ............................................................. 31
2.2.4 Conclusion .................................................................................... 34
2.3 English as a corporate language ....................................................... 34
2.3.1 Danish studies .............................................................................. 35
2.3.2 International studies .................................................................... 39
2.3.3 Conclusion .................................................................................... 44
3 Methodology: an ethnographic case study .......................................... 47
3.1 A multi-method ethnographic approach ......................................... 48
3.2 Data collection ..................................................................................... 50
3.2.1 Gaining access .............................................................................. 50
3.2.2 Lundbeck ....................................................................................... 51
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3.2.3 The three phases ........................................................................... 52
3.2.4 Doing fieldwork in a business environment ............................ 54
3.3 Data material ....................................................................................... 57
3.3.1 Participant observation ............................................................... 57
3.3.2 The field journal ........................................................................... 60
3.3.3 Ethnographic interviews ............................................................. 60
3.3.4 Self-recordings .............................................................................. 63
3.3.5 Emails ............................................................................................ 66
3.3.6 Focus group interviews ............................................................... 67
3.3.7 Other sources: the intranet and other written material .......... 72
3.3.8 The questionnaires ....................................................................... 72
3.3.9 Overview of data material .......................................................... 73
4 Ethnography of communication: theory and methods ...................... 74
4.1 The ethnography of communication ................................................ 74
4.2 The community of practice ................................................................ 75
4.3 Norms ................................................................................................... 77
4.4 Methods of analysis ............................................................................ 78
5 Ethnographic analysis .............................................................................. 81
5.1 Lundbeck: organisation and culture ................................................ 81
5.1.1 The site, the organisation and the employees .......................... 81
5.1.2 The corporate culture .................................................................. 84
The life blood of the company ............................................................ 84
Not run by manuals .............................................................................. 86
Lundbeck, a small Danish company? ................................................ 88
5.2 Language policy at Lundbeck ........................................................... 90
5.2.1 Interpretations and expectations ............................................... 95
5.2.2 Language resources ................................................................... 101
5.3 Language practices at Lundbeck .................................................... 104
5.3.1 Communicative events .............................................................. 105
Taxonomy of communicative events ............................................... 106
One communicative event = one language? ................................... 111
Noticeable or ‘under the radar’ ......................................................... 111
5.3.2 Languages at Lundbeck ............................................................ 113
5.3.3 Speakers: natives, non-natives, learners and English-have-
nots ............................................................................................................. 115
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5.3.4 Switching, mixing and borrowing ........................................... 117
5.3.5 Technical jargon, abbreviations and acronyms ..................... 118
5.3.6 Playing with words .................................................................... 119
5.4 Norms for language use ................................................................... 121
5.4.1 The monolingual norm ............................................................. 121
5.4.2 Native-speaker or lingua franca standard? ............................ 126
5.4.3 Norms for language choice ....................................................... 130
Formality and language choice ......................................................... 133
5.5 Case studies of three departments ................................................. 134
5.5.1 The service department: the English-have-nots .................... 135
5.5.2 The health and safety department: a very Danish
environment .............................................................................................. 137
5.5.3 The marketing department: learning Danish – or not .......... 138
5.6 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 140
6 Language choice: theory and methods ................................................ 143
6.1 Definition of terms ............................................................................ 143
6.1.1 Language choice and codeswitching ...................................... 143
6.1.2 Codeswitching vs. borrowing .................................................. 144
6.2 Codeswitching: a question of competence? .................................. 145
6.3 Codeswitching and the ethnography of communication ............ 147
6.4 Codeswitching and community norms ......................................... 149
6.5 Accommodation and addressees .................................................... 152
6.6 Language choice in the new millennium: communicative goals,
style and identity .......................................................................................... 156
6.7 Microanalysis ..................................................................................... 158
7 Language choice analysis ...................................................................... 161
7.1 The research department ................................................................. 161
7.2 Situational factors influencing language choice ........................... 163
7.2.1 Competence relations ................................................................ 164
Audience roles ..................................................................................... 167
Codeswitching due to limited proficiency ...................................... 169
Codeswitching used for clarification ............................................... 171
Codeswitching due to a lack of vocabulary .................................... 173
Competence and the lingua franca setting ...................................... 176
7.2.2 Topic, genre and goal ................................................................ 180
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Lunchtime small talk vs. technicians’ business talk ...................... 181
Small talk, research discussion and recorder talk .......................... 183
The special case of greetings ............................................................. 191
From formality to genre and goal ..................................................... 194
7.2.3 Situational factors: competence, genre and goal ................... 195
7.3 Language choice influencing the situation: codeswitching as a
contextualisation cue ................................................................................... 199
7.3.1 Directing the attention of participants .................................... 201
7.3.2 Out-of-frame activity ................................................................. 203
7.3.3 Inclusion and exclusion ............................................................. 204
7.3.4 Codeswitching as a contextualisation cue: local meanings . 210
7.4 Codeswitching or language mixing?.............................................. 211
7.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 216
8 Language ideologies: theory and methods ........................................ 221
8.1 Language ideologies: traditions and definitions .......................... 221
8.2 The performative aspect of language ideologies .......................... 226
8.3 My definition of language ideologies ............................................ 228
8.4 Some prevalent language ideologies .............................................. 229
8.5 Methods for analysing language ideologies ................................. 230
8.5.1 Two levels: explicit talk and implicit assumptions ............... 231
8.5.2 Discourse analysis ...................................................................... 233
9 Language ideologies analysis ............................................................... 235
9.1 ‘Danish because we are in Denmark’ ............................................. 236
9.2 ‘The mother tongue is natural’ ........................................................ 243
9.3 The language hierarchy .................................................................... 249
9.4 ‘English is the international language’........................................... 257
9.5 Language as a resource for social mobility ................................... 261
9.5.1 ‘English is the future’................................................................. 261
9.5.2 ‘If you want to make career you need to be fluent in Danish’
.................................................................................................................... 264
9.6 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 266
9.7 Language ideologies and language use ......................................... 269
10 Inclusion and exclusion ....................................................................... 274
10.1 Language choices that include ...................................................... 274
10.2 Language choices that exclude ..................................................... 275
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10.3 Language ideologies, categorisation and exclusion ................... 280
10.4 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 281
11 Conclusions and implications ............................................................ 283
11.1 Ethnographic analysis .................................................................... 283
11.2 Language choice analysis .............................................................. 284
11.3 Language ideologies analysis ........................................................ 286
11.4 In what situations do Danes use English at work and why?
Applications and implications ................................................................... 288
11.4.1 Corporate language policy: raising awareness and
centralising language training ................................................................ 290
11.4.2 Language choice in a lingua franca setting .......................... 292
11.4.3 Language ideologies and social integration ......................... 294
11.5 The ‘domain loss’ concept: conclusions and implications ........ 295
11.5.1 Implications for research on English in Denmark:
methodology ............................................................................................. 296
11.5.2 Implications for research on English in Denmark: theory . 298
12 Summary ................................................................................................. 300
13 Resume .................................................................................................... 303
14 References .............................................................................................. 306
Appendix 1: Transcription conventions ................................................ 321
Appendix 2: Information til deltagere ................................................... 322
Appendix 3: Information for participants ............................................. 325
Appendix 4: Interviewguide for etnografiske interviews .................. 328
Appendix 5: Diskussionsguide for fokusgruppeinterviews ............. 330
Appendix 6: Paraphrase of ex13 .............................................................. 332
Appendix 7: Paraphrase of ex14 .............................................................. 334
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Acknowledgements
Writing this thesis has been at turns interesting, frustrating, fun and
rewarding. I could not have done it without the help and support of a
great many people, and I would like to take this opportunity to express
my sincere thanks.
First of all, thank you to all my informants at Lundbeck for letting me
into your working lives, it was so much fun working with you. I would
never have applied for a PhD fellowship if not for the encouragement of
my master’s thesis supervisor, Hans Jørgen Ladegaard. Thank you for
believing in me. Since I came to RUC five years ago, the support of my
supervisor Bent Preisler has been unwavering. Thank you for that and for
providing invaluable feedback on large things and small. During my stay
at the Language in the Workplace Project at Victoria University of
Wellington, I was very lucky to receive encouragement and insightful
comments on my early analyses from Professor Janet Holmes. In addition,
it has been a great advantage for me to participate in the social and
scientific environment provided by the GradEast graduate school in
linguistics.
My work has benefitted immensely from collaboration with fellow PhD
students locally and internationally (most of whom have long since
moved on to greater deeds). My particular thanks go to Janus Mortensen,
Spencer Hazel, Hedda Söderlundh and Julia DeBres who have read draft
versions of chapters and provided much needed critique. Thank you for
sharing your keen insights and for your continued friendship. It has made
the work so much more fun and enjoyable.
On a personal note, I would like to thank my family, especially my
mother, for always believing in me. Thank you, Kasper, for all your
support, and not least for your sense of priorities which has made it
possible for me to complete this thesis despite a very demanding home
life. Finally, thank you, Simon, Laurits and August, for reminding me that
although writing a PhD thesis seems like hard work, compared to the rest
of my day it actually is quite relaxing: I get to sit down with a book for
hours at a time while enjoying a cup of tea.

Dorte Lønsmann
Roskilde, May 2011
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1 Introduction: Global demands and local
concerns
Globalisation is one of the defining characteristics of our late modern
society. The term encompasses a wide range of meanings, but first and
foremost it is linked with greater mobility across national borders and an
increase in global communication. With the advent of new and faster
forms of transportation and communication, the world has become
smaller - to use a popular phrase. But with increased mobility and
communication comes increased complexity. The possibilities offered by
new technology also put new demands on organisations and on
individuals. Today a large number of people in a large number of
countries need to communicate with people of other nationalities not only
virtually via email or the Internet, but also face-to-face because people
move across borders as part of their educational, recreational or working
life. And in order to communicate successfully across cultures, they need
to either learn enough about the other party’s culture and language to
communicate with them on their territory or to meet on common ground,
for instance by using a common language. Since the middle of the 20th
century, English has increasingly gained foothold as the lingua franca of
globalisation. It is used by a significant proportion of the world’s
population as a first, second or foreign language and for a multitude of
purposes. It is not the language with the largest number of mother tongue
speakers (that would be Mandarin Chinese), but it is probably the
language most widely used in communication between people from
different language backgrounds.
The use of English as a global lingua franca has obvious advantages
when it comes to intelligibility, but also gives rise to concern. Some worry
about the implications of English replacing local languages in a number of
situations, the consequences of which include possible language death
and loss of national and cultural identity. Others worry about the unequal
distribution of English language skills, the consequences of which include
native speakers of English possessing an advantage over non-native
speakers and the predicament of people without any English skills.
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For speakers of smaller languages the need for a lingua franca to
communicate globally is particularly pertinent. In Denmark, Danish is the
mother tongue of the majority, but it is rarely enough if Danes want to
communicate across borders. Since the middle of the twentieth century,
English has been the first foreign language taught in Denmark, and the
foreign language most often used to communicate with foreigners. The
status of English in Denmark today goes beyond that of a foreign
language, however. When you turn on the TV, see an advertisement on a
bus, take a university course or hear young people speak, English is often
used. In other words, the presence of English in Denmark today is
indisputable. The English language is present in the Danish media, in
advertising, as part of youth language, in higher education, in research
and as a corporate language in several large Danish companies.
Although Denmark has always been influenced by foreign languages,
it was not until after World War II that English became the most
influential foreign language. And it is only within the last few decades
that English has gained the position it holds today in Denmark. Since the
beginning of the 1990s the use of English in Denmark has been a much
debated topic, both in academic circles and in the media. While some
attention has been given to the increasing number of English loanwords,
focus has been on the perceived threat to the Danish language in the form
of so-called ‘domain loss’, a term used about areas of society where
Danish is no longer used. The areas of Danish society most often
mentioned in connection with ‘domain loss’ to English are research,
higher education and the corporate world. ‘Domain loss’ once again
became the topic of debate in January 2007, both in the Danish parliament,
Folketinget, and in the media. The Danish Language Council argued in a
memo that it was necessary to take action in order to ensure the status of
Danish as a “komplet og samfundsbærende sprog” (Danish Language
Council, 2007), an expression perhaps best paraphrased as “a complete
language capable of supporting all the functions of a modern society”. The
use of English instead of Danish in higher education was here cited as the
biggest threat to the Danish language, but the memo also mentioned
research, the media and the corporate world as other areas to watch.
Professor of English and at the time chairman of the Danish Language