2008-11

1. Intercultural Business Communication Language Competence Planning in Multicultural Environments Wilfried Wieden University of Salzburg 2008-11 1

2. Outline • Bio data • Context • Goals • Tasks • Demands on language competences • Disclaimer Language Competence Planning

3. Bio data • Prof. for Linguistics at University of Salzburg (Dept English) • L2-acquisition  bilingual knowledge acquisition  knowledge representation  (intercultural) knowledge communication  knowledge management, document management • since 1995 • R & D in cooperation with consultants, software-developers (knowledge and document management) • projects in the domains of education  tourism  museums  industry Language Competence Planning

4. Context • An Austrian enterprise decided to set up a new plant in a low-cost country of Eastern Europe • Several thousand employees are planned to be recruited from the region (including neighbouring countries) • The author was consulted to help executives decide which language should be chosen as a corporate means of communication Language Competence Planning

5. Issues of Concern • As an Anglicist one might have been inclined to suggest the easy way out: Why not take English as a corporate lingua franca? However, it can be assumed that a large part of the employees to be recruited • speak different L1s • have different educational (and cultural) backgrounds • have limited or no L2-skills in English • will be hired for a variety of different tasks  Language Competence Planning

6. Goals  The project group then decided to proceed as follows: Specify 1. the range of tasks needed to run the plant 2. the range and level of language competences needed to fulfill these tasks 3. the range and level of language competences which the recruited persons would bring with them 4. the number of employees who need to be trained for which competence(s) in which language(s) for which task(s) Language Competence Planning

7. Tasks Examples: The recruited employees need to • acquire expert competences • e.g. in training camps to operate a machine, to monitor a production process, to organise enterprise resources, communicate with customers or local officials, … • cooperate with colleagues • e.g. in workgroups by exchanging personal experiences to reduce production line stand-stills, to assure constant product quality, to innovate the production process, … • contribute to corporate knowledge development • e.g. at his workplace by documenting shared findings, informing colleagues about novel procedures or products, …… Language Competence Planning

8. Language and the acquisition of expert competences • if mainly skills acquisition: • a good part will rest on observation • to understand oral or written comments, special register L2-competences should suffice (not necessarily C-level) • recommended procedure: separate (explicit) training in L2, … • if mainly knowledge acquisition: • a good part will rest on knowledge representation • e.g. visualisation of knowledge structures, knowledge bridges from the abstract to the visible, … where B- or C- level language competences should be prerequisite • recommended procedures: multilingual knowledge managem't (implicit language training, not necessarily translation) Language Competence Planning

9. Disclaimer • Not yet done • a time line for when which measure has to be started (= language competence logistics) • Experiences • in multilingual knowledge management are currently still limited to multilingual CLIL projects conducted by my students in business environments as part of their MA thesis projects Language Competence Planning

10. Knowledge map Example: knowledge map (designed by participants in the course "Corporate Knowledge Development", spring term 2007) Language Competence Planning

11. Cross-linguistic designations Sample evidence: • explicit designations • e.g. E pollution of the air, G Verschmutzung der Luft, ….. • (possible across all languages) • terms (scenarios) • (a) E chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), G Fluorchlorkohlewasserstoffe (FCKW), … • (b) E digital versatile disc (DVD), G DVD • (c) G Salzburger Landesregierung, E • (d) language-independent corporate designations (usually acronyms) Language Competence Planning

12. Cross-cultural documentation Sample evidence: • documents (scenarios) • (a) one document in one or more languages is appended to only one topic • (b) different document types in one or more lang's are appended to one topic • (c) one or different doc's in one or more lang's are appended to different topics • (d) one doc in one or more lang's is appended to a Topic-Relation-Topic unit e.g. explaining why "air pollution - may cause - lung diseases" • (e) different doc' types in one or more lang's are appended to a TRT-unit e.g. a report, a warning, an advertisement, … • (f) one or different doc's in one or more lang's are appended to different TRT's e.g. if a report is considered relevant for different other domains, TRT's, … Language Competence Planning