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Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Multilingualism in Professional Contexts

Advances in Language-Sensitive Management Research

9781035332076 Edward Elgar Publishing

Edited by Philippe Lecomte, President of GEM&L, Retired professor of International Communication, Toulouse Business School, Mary Vigier, Professor Emeritus, Department of Management, ESC Clermont Business School, France, Claudine Gaibrois, Professor of Global and Intercultural Management, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Business School and External Lecturer in Language Diversity, Research Institute for Organizational Psychology, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and Betty Beeler, Retired Professor of Intercultural Management, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce, Saint-Etienne, France

Publication Date: 2024 ISBN: 978 1 03533 207 6 Extent: 250 pp

This book provides readers with the latest research on the dynamics of language and language diversity in professional contexts. Bringing together novel findings from a range of disciplines, it challenges practitioners and management scholars to question the conventional understanding of language as words with stable meanings, an assumption which treats language as a tool that can be managed by language policies that ‘standardize’ language. Each of the contributions is designed to recognize the strides that have been made in the past two decades in research on language and languages in organizational settings while addressing remaining blind spots and emerging issues. Particular attention is given to multilingualism, sociolinguistic approaches to language in the workplace, migration challenges, critical perspectives on the power of language use and the management of organizations as dialogical, discursive spaces.

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Critical Acclaim

Contributors

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This book provides readers with the latest research on the dynamics of language and language diversity in professional contexts. Bringing together novel findings from a range of disciplines, it challenges practitioners and management scholars to question the conventional understanding of language as a tool that can be managed by language policies that ‘standardize’ language.

Each of the contributions is designed to recognize the strides that have been made in the past two decades in research on language and languages in organizational settings while addressing remaining blind spots and emerging issues. Particular attention is given to multilingualism, sociolinguistic approaches to language in the workplace, migration challenges, critical perspectives on the power of language use and the management of organizations as dialogical, discursive spaces.

Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Multilingualism in Professional Contexts offers new insights into familiar and less familiar issues for international business scholars, sociolinguists, management practitioners and business communication scholars and experts, and brings understanding to the central role that language usage and linguistic diversity play in organizational processes.

Critical Acclaim

‘The editors have compiled empirically grounded chapters which utilize new theoretical perspectives, demonstrate cultural and political sensitivities about language use in organizational contexts and beyond. Such a collection is no mean feat to achieve and editors and authors are to be congratulated for this important and innovative book.’
– Susanne Tietze, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Contributors

Contributors include: Jo Angouri, Sercan Hamza Bağlama, Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen, Betty Beeler, Linda Cohen, Cihat Erbil, John Fiset, Claudine Gaibrois, Leonie Gaiser, Marianne Grove Ditlevsen, Kristina Humonen, Marjana Johansson, Anne Kankaanranta, Jane Kassis-Henderson, Peter Kastberg, Philippe Lecomte, Dorte Lønsmann, Yaron Matras, Mustafa Özbilgin, Tiina Räisänen, Guro R. Sanden, Martyna Śliwa, Janne Tienari, Rebecca Tipton, Mary Vigier

Contents

Contents:

Foreword xiv
Introduction to Understanding the Dynamics of Language and
Multilingualism in Professional Contexts 1
Betty Beeler, Mary Vigier, Claudine Gaibrois and Philippe Lecomte

PART I MULTILINGUALISM IN A RAPIDLY
CHANGING WORLD: NEW PERSPECTIVES
ON LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES IN ORGANISATIONS
1 Introduction to Multilingualism in a rapidly changing
world: new perspectives on language differences in organisations 7
Claudine Gaibrois
2 Recognition theory: a new lens for investigating language
differences in multilingual organisations 13
Marjana Johansson and Martyna Śliwa
3 Diversity, activation and self-support: clashing
institutional logics around the inclusion of refugees on the
labour market 30
Dorte Lønsmann
4 Agency and multilingualism in public health care:
how practitioners draw on local experiences and encounters 46
Yaron Matras, Rebecca Tipton and Leonie Gaiser

PART II LANGUAGE PRACTICES IN MULTILINGUAL
WORKPLACES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
5 Introduction to Language practices in multilingual
workplaces and implications for human resource management 62
Mary Vigier
6 Ethnographic study of a manager’s engagements with
written ‘English’ workplace genres in MNCs 67
Tiina Räisänen and Anne Kankaanranta
7 Revisiting ethnography and reflexivity for
language-sensitive workplace research 84
Kristina Humonen and Jo Angouri
8 Multilingual organisations: employee motives and human
resource management adaptive strategies 101
John Fiset

PART III ORGANISATIONS AS DISCURSIVE,
POLYPHONIC SPACES:
A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
9 Introduction to Organisations as discursive, polyphonic
spaces: a multidisciplinary approach 119
Betty Beeler
10 Organizing through and by multilingualism: writing
languages into the study and practices of organizations 124
Marjana Johansson and Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen
11 Revisiting identity-construction in the multilingual
workplace: an intersectional approach 140
Linda Cohen and Jane Kassis-Henderson
12 Duality of language as a tool for integration versus
mobility at work: utility of a polyphonic perspective 154
Cihat Erbil, Mustafa F. Özbilgin and Sercan Hamza Bağlama

PART IV DIFFERENT CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
ON THE POWER OF LANGUAGE IN
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
13 Introduction to Different critical perspectives on the
power of language in international business 169
Philippe Lecomte
14 Language in multilingual organizations: power, policies
and politics 173
Guro R. Sanden
15 Voices in the employee magazine: a critical investigation 189
Peter Kastberg and Marianne Grove Ditlevsen
16 Let us (not) speak Finnish! On language, power relations
and ambivalence 205
Janne Tienari
Conclusion to Understanding the Dynamics of Language and
Multilingualism in Professional Contexts 219
Claudine Gaibrois, Betty Beeler, Philippe Lecomte and Mary
Vigier

Index