Enhancing Explicitness in BELF Interactions: Self-Initiated Communication Strategies in the Workplace
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2019.i13.567Keywords:
BELF, corpus linguistics, linguisticsAbstract
Differences in the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of participants to ELF communication, as well as in their linguistic abilities, may pose obstacles to the accomplishment of communicative goals in international encounters (Kaur 2011, Mauranen 2006). Achieving mutual understanding requires therefore the adoption of co-operative behavior by participants to ensure the success of the interaction. In the professional context, where communicative events may be heavily task-oriented, clarity emerged as an essential feature of communicative success (Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta 2011, 255). Participants therefore make use of a number of Communication Strategies (Cogo 2009; Kaur 2009, 2011; Björkman 2011, 2014) to pre-empt and/or solve instances of misunderstanding and communication breakdown, including appeals and requests as well as other self-initiated strategies with the purpose of enhancing explicitness and therefore anticipating potential problems (Mauranen 2006, Kaur 2011). This paper will focus on a set of Communication Strategies aimed at increasing explicitness that have been attested in ELF communication, in order to identify which types occur in BELF interactions and their role in ensuring communicative success in such contexts. To this purpose, naturally-occurring BELF data drawn from business conversations and meetings in the Professional Business and Professional Organizational subsections in the VOICE corpus will be analyzed from a qualitative perspective. The outcome is expected to be in line with previous findings in different ELF context, with speakers displaying strategic competence and making use of Communication Strategies in order to get their points across while ensuring that intelligibility is maintained.References
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---. English as an Academic Lingua Franca: an Investigation of Form and Communicative Effectiveness.
Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2013.
---. “An Analysis of Polyadic English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Speech: a Communicative Strategies
Framework.” Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014): 122-138.
Bjørge, Anne K. “Conflict or Cooperation: the Use of Backchanneling in ELF Negotiations.” English for Specific
Purposes 29.3 (2010): 191-203.
Cogo, Alessia. “Accommodating Difference in ELF Conversations.” English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and
Findings. Eds. Anna Mauranen and Elina Ranta. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2009. 254-273.
Coupland, Nikolas, Howard Giles and John M. Wiemann. Miscommunication and Problematic Talk. London:
Sage, 1991.
Dörnyei, Zoltán, and Mary Lee Scott. “Communication Strategies in a Second Language: Definitions and
Taxonomies.” Language Learning 47.1 (1997): 173-210.
Ehrenreich, Susanne. “English as a Business Lingua Franca in a German Multinational Corporation.” Journal
of Business Communication 47.4 (2010): 408–431.
Firth, Alan, and Johannes Wagner. “On Discourse, Communication and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in
SLA Research.” Modern Language Journal 81 (1997): 285-300.
Franceschi, Valeria. “Making Sure Everybody is on the Same Page: Interactional Communication Strategies
in BELF Encounters.” Submitted.
Gotti, Maurizio. “Explanatory Strategies in University Courses Taught in ELF.” Journal of English as a Lingua
Franca 3.2 (2014): 337-361.
Hülmbauer, Cornelia. “From Within and Without: The Virtual and the Plurilingual in ELF.” Journal of English as
a Lingua Franca 2.1 (2013): 47-73.
Kankaanranta, Anne, and Brigitte Planken. “BELF Competence as Business Knowledge of Internationally
Operating Business Professionals.” Journal of Business Communication 47.4 (2010): 380-407.
Kankaanranta, Anne, and Leena Louhiala-Salminen. “‘What Language does Global Business Speak?’ – The
Concept and Development of BELF.” Ibérica 26 (2013): 17-34.
Kaur, Jagdish. English as a Lingua Franca. Co-constructing Understanding. Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing,
2009.
---. “Raising Explicitness through Self-repair in English as a Lingua Franca.” Journal of Pragmatics 43.11
(2011): 2704-2715.
Kirkpatrick, Andy. “The Communicative Strategies of ASEAN Speakers of English as a Lingua Franca.” English
in Southeast Asia: Varieties, Literacies and Literatures. Ed. David Prescott. Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 118-137.
---. 2008. “English as the Official Working Language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN):
Features and Strategies”. English Today 24.2 (2008): 27-34.
Lichtkoppler, Julia. “‘Male. Male.’ -- ‘Male?’ -- The Sex is Male.’ The Role of Repetition in English as a Lingua
Franca Conversations.” Vienna English Working Papers 16.1 (2007): 39-65.
Louhiala-Salminen, Leena, and Anne Kankaanranta. “Professional Communication in a Global Business
Context: The Notion of Global Communicative Competence.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Special issue on Professional Communication in Global Contexts, 54.3 (2011): 244-
262.
Mauranen, Anna. “Signaling and Preventing Misunderstanding in English as Lingua Franca Communication.”
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177 (2006): 123-150.
--- “Hybrid Voices: English as the Lingua Franca of Academics.” Language and Discipline Perspectives on
Academic Discourse. Ed. Kjersti Fløttum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2007.
243-59.
--- Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.
Meierkord, Christiane. “Interpreting Successful Lingua Franca Interaction. An Analysis of Non-native-/Nonnative Small Talk Conversations in English.” Linguistik Online 5.1 (2000)
https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.5.1013. Last Visited April 4, 2019.
Norrick, Neal R. “Functions of Repetition in Conversation.” Text 7 (1987): 245-264.
Palmer-Silveira, Juan Carlos. “The Need for Successful Communication in Intercultural and International
Business Settings: Analytic and Comparative Studies, New Trends and Methodologies.” Ibérica 26
(2013): 9-16.
Pitzl, Marie-Luise, Angelika Breiteneder and Theresa Klimpfinger. “A World of Words: Processes of Lexical
Innovation in VOICE.” Vienna English Working Papers 17.2 (2008): 21–46.
Pitzl, Marie-Luise. English as a Lingua Franca in International Business. Resolving Miscommunication and
Reaching Shared Understanding. Saarbrücken: VDM-Verlag Müller, 2010.
Savignon, Sandra. Communicative Competence. Theory and Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Schegloff, Emanuel. “When ‘Others’ Initiate Repair.” Applied Linguistics 21.2 (2000): 205–243.
Seidlhofer, Barbara. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Tarone, Elaine. “Communication Strategies, Foreigner Talk, and Repair in Interlanguage.” Language Learning
30.2 (1980): 417-431.
VOICE. The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (version POS Online 2.0). Director: Barbara
Seidlhofer; Researchers: Stefan Majewski, Ruth Osimk-Teasdale, Marie-Luise Pitzl, Michael Radeka,
Nora Dorn. 2013. http://voice.univie.ac.at/pos/, Last Visited January 7, 2019.
VOICE Project. “Mark-up Conventions. VOICE Transcription Conventions [2.1]. 2008.
http://www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/VOICE_mark-up_conventions_v2-1.pdf, Last Visited January
7, 2019.
Widdowson, Henry. Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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