English As a Corporate Language Language Choice and Language Ideologies in an International Company in Denmark

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 i 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 ii 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 iii 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 ....................................................................................

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