The Study of Language and Communication in Cross Cultural Business

梁爽

【Abstract】Language plays an important role in the contemporary business communication. Regarding to the businesspersons' choices of language, jargon, jokes and their applications in cross cultural business, suggests that language is in fact a part of a strategic discourse between diverse groups within the organization and the business scope.

【Key words】English; jargon; humor; talking business

The cross culture languages do not so much define bounded groups as diverse relationships with other local and global communities in a wider social environment. By narrowing the focus to consider the medium through which it takes place, language and communication technologies. I propose that language communications are not the tools by which one group dominates another, but that they are the site of conflict, negotiation and discourse between cultures, incorporating global and local cultural elements.

1. English: “Global” and “Local” Language

1.1 As lingua franca

In the present period of globalization, English is generally considered to be the lingua franca in the transnational and cross cultural business world, or, as some commentators put it, the “global language of business”. Language was thus not so much a means of defining one social group against another, as a means of negotiating a series of interconnected and cross cultural social groups through self-presentation and personal interaction.

1.2 Elide distinctions

Furthermore, language, take English for example, could be used to elide and smooth distinctions between groups both on a conceptual level and on a personal level. On one occasion, I heard the phrase “it doesn't matter, they all speak English,”which was normally used by English people to explain why they had not learned the foreign language in the company with colleagues from different countries in the world.

2. The Language of Business: Meetings and Jargon

2.1 Meetings

Another powerful language use is jargon. Certain buzzwords and phrases seem to be universal throughout the business world as well as the cross cultural communication. Terms like “Joint Venture”“Human Resource Management,”“Success driven”and so forth are peppered throughout the conversations and communications of businesspeople of all nationalities with different cultural backgrounds. More often, we see business jargon as more of a“global language of business”than English. Meetings thus form a cross cultural secular ritual in the transnational business world.

2.2 Jargon

In these meetings, business“jargon,”buzzwords and phrases are often used as a form of restricted code. In the HR managers' meetings, people of all nationalities continually came up with the same catchphrases: flat structure, high integrity, success driven, performance criteria.

In line with what was seen during the restructuring initiative, then, meetings thus were less about defining dominant and subaltern groups, and more about negotiating social relations through defining culture with the global jargon uses.

3. Humor

Humor is another form of communication in which complex social maneuvering is hidden under a simple exterior, smiles and jokes sometimes.

Like jargon and language crossing, then, humor defines a multiply-linked, multilayered series of interactions rather than defining solidary groups. This, once again, can form the basis for strategizing, both playful and more serious, in the financial sphere.

4. Talking Business

Communication is a key facilitator of strategic self-presentation in a transnational business environment, enabling actors to construct and reconstruct the positions which they occupy within the global finance scope. Boden, describes“talk”as a medium for negotiating the structure of the organization; here too, however, one might note that it also negotiates other sorts of relationships at the same time. The complexity of language thus enables its use for strategic interaction.

5. Conclusion

Language socialization can be broadly defined as “an investigation of how language both presupposes and creates anew, social relations in cultural context”. From the above, we can see the need for a methodology for investigating the models of conduct. Besides, how this varies from the cultural norm should be incorporated into the study of language socialization and cross cultural business communication.

Reference:

[1]Lillian H Chaney.Intercultural Business Communication.Upper Saddle River,N J:Prentice Hall,2004.