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English at Work DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES ____________________________________________________________________ English at Work The communicative situation of engineers Licentiate thesis Vivianne Apelman 2010 Abstract In the formation of globally operating European or international business corporations, an increasing number of Swedish companies have been sold to owners abroad in recent years. This often implies that their head office is located abroad and their corporate language has been changed from Swedish to English. The sociolinguistic effects of the language shift and the communicative situation at work when English is used as a lingua- franca in the workplace have, however, been relatively little explored. The overall aim of this study is to investigate how engineers having Swedish as their mother tongue use English at work. Focusing on written English, specific research questions concern what engineers typically write in English at work, what proficiency level is required for writing tasks in English, what strategies are used to perform writing tasks in English, and whether there are differences between male and female engineers as regards writing tasks in English. A further question dealt with in this study is to what extent courses in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in engineering programs may prepare engineers better for writing in English at work. The investigation, carried out in ten large companies and one smaller, representing various business sectors, comprises a survey with 89 respondents, ten interviews performed in five of the companies, and an analysis of different types of documents typically produced in the workplaces and written in English. Two categories of documents, reports and minutes of meetings, have been more thoroughly examined and described by means of a proposed model of document analysis. The results show that more than half of the respondents write English on a daily basis at work. The most frequently written types of text are e-letters and reports. E-letters were indicated to be the text type that requires the lowest level of English proficiency, whereas instructions and reports were considered to require a very high level of proficiency. The most frequently used strategies mentioned to perform writing tasks in English were to rely on one’s own ability, collaborate with a colleague, and consult existing similar documents. Concerning writing tasks in English in relation to gender, the unanimous opinion was that writing tasks were linked to a person’s work position rather than gender. Although containing a relatively large number of grammatical errors, especially involving verbs, the documents analysed in the present study seem to be communicatively effective, most likely due to authors’ domain knowledge and ability to apply discourse conventions such as expected thematic structures. Considering the diversity and variation observed in the nature of writing tasks and documents, it could be argued that authentic texts and data from target workplaces instead of classroom models should be used in teaching to prepare students for the diversity awaiting them in their future professional writing in English. Key words: ESP; English as corporate language; engineers writing in English; proficiency level; writing strategies; gendered writing; document analysis; discourse conventions; real-life writing practices. Preface My interest in English for Specific Purposes and workplace language use started in 1996 when I became a lecturer at the Centre for Language and Communication at Chalmers University of Technology. Over the years, teaching English to students of engineering, I often asked myself to what extent the content and direction of the English courses offered in their engineering programmes were relevant for the real-life practices awaiting the students in their future workplaces. With the present study I hope to be able to answer some of my questions, thus illuminating the use of English and the communicative situations of engineers at work. In the process, there are several people who have paved the way for the completion of the study, without whom this thesis would never have been written. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Professor Sölve Ohlander and Dr Mats Mobärg at the Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg, for their invaluable expert advice, for reading and re-reading my manuscript, giving many insightful comments and setting me right on linguistic matters, and for always being there to support and encourage me. I also owe special thanks to Dr Magnus Gustafsson, Head of the Centre for Language and Communication, Chalmers University of Technology, who in the initial stage convinced me that my idea was something that could be turned into a licentiate thesis and helped me get on track with the work. Thanks are also due to all my colleagues at the Centre for their interest and kind words of encouragement. Special thanks go to Linda Bradley and Gerd Hellström for taking on extra teaching hours to give me time when I most needed it to complete my thesis. I would also like to thank the staff at Chalmers Lindholmen library for their generous, quick and professional help in providing me with books and articles. This project would not have been possible without the friendly people in the companies at the heart of this study, who helped me find informants and collect material, also setting off time for participating in the investigation. Thank you all! Last but certainly not least I would like to thank my wonderful family for their sacrifices, encouragement and constant support: Bengt, Daniel and Louise, Anna and Emil, my mother Maiken and my two little darlings, Ingrid and Isak – thank you all for being there. Göteborg, June 2010 Vivianne Apelman This electronic version of my licentiate thesis has been slightly revised in relation to the printed version used in the public defence seminar 3 September 2010. I would like to thank the members of the examining committee and, in particular, Dr Håkan Hollqvist, who served as my opponent, for their valuable suggestions for improvement. Göteborg, October 2010 V.A. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background and rationale of study................................................................................... 1 1.2 Aims ............................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Plan of study................................................................................................................... 5 2 Previous work.......................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Studies relating to Swedish companies .......................................................................... 7 2.2 International studies ....................................................................................................... 10 3 Method and material............................................................................................................ 13 3.1 Data collection................................................................................................................ 13 3.1.1 The companies......................................................................................................... 14 3.1.2 Company visits........................................................................................................ 14 3.2 The questionnaire ......................................................................................................... 15 3.2.1 Purpose and design of the questionnaire ................................................................. 16 3.2.1.1 Purpose............................................................................................................. 16 3.2.1.2 Design............................................................................................................... 16 3.2.1.3 Discussion of purpose and design .................................................................... 17 3.3 The interviews ................................................................................................................ 19 3.3.1 Participants and procedure ...................................................................................... 19 3.3.2 Instrumentation........................................................................................................ 20 3.4 Documents...................................................................................................................... 22 3.4.1 Text material and subcorpus ................................................................................... 22 3.4.2 Analytical approach............................................................................................... 24 4 Results of survey and interviews....................................................................................... 28 4.1 Results of the survey ...................................................................................................... 28 4.1.1 Respondents: background information.................................................................... 28 4.1.2 Extent of use of English .......................................................................................... 29 4.1.3 Self-assessed language
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