English; European Union; French; language choice; language ideologies; multilingualism; stance
Résumé :
[en] This qualitative study investigates stances in reflective interviews to identify cultural patterns that shape the meaning of language choice within an international unit of an EU institution in Luxembourg. We employ the analytical concept of "language cringe" and propose a complementary concept, "language push," to showcase the effects and reproduction of language ideologies in dayto-day talk about languages at work. Our analysis reveals that, within a workplace culture that encourages flexible and convivial use of multiple languages, French speakers have to deal with the effects of the "logic of honour," which is culturally associated with the use of French in France. Based on our findings, we suggest that language choice should be considered a cross cultural dimension in multilingual environments, and that language-sensitive management scholarship should broaden its considerations beyond the traditional issues of language proficiency, namely by inspecting relational and affective factors that shape language use in multilingual workplaces.
Disciplines :
Arts & sciences humaines: Multidisciplinaire, généralités & autres
Auteur, co-auteur :
LOVRITS, Veronika ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > Multilingualism
Hélène Langinier; Ecole de Management de Strasbourg, France
EHRHART, Sabine ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > Multilingualism
Co-auteurs externes :
yes
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
French and language ideologies in a multilingual European Union institution: Re-constructing the meaning of language choice at work
Date de publication/diffusion :
26 février 2024
Titre du périodique :
International Journal of Cross Cultural Management
Aichhorn N Puck J (2017) “I just don’t feel comfortable speaking English”: foreign language anxiety as a catalyst for spoken-language barriers in MNCs. International Business Review 26: 749–763.
Angouri J Piekkari R (2018) Organizing multilingually: setting an agenda for studying language at work. European Journal of International Management 11(1/2): 8–27.
Auerbach C Silverstein LB (2003) Qualitative Data: An Introduction to Coding and Analysis. New York, USA: New York University Press, i–iv. DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9780814707807.003.0001.
Barmeyer C Bausch M Mayerhofer U (2021) Constructive Intercultural Management: Integrating Cultural Differences Successfully. Cheltenham, UK, Northhampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Barner-Rasmussen W Gaibrois C Wilmot NV (2023) Perfection, hybridity or shutting up? A cross-country study of how language ideologies shape participation in international business. International Business Review 33: 102189. DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2023.102189.
Beeler B Cohen L de Vecchi D, et al. (2017) Special issue on language in global management and business. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 17(1): 3–6. DOI: 10.1177/1470595817694696.
Berger PL Luckmann T (2001) Sociální konstrukce reality. Praha, Czechia: centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury. In: (Orig.: the Social construction of reality. [1966]. Anchor Book). Praha, Czechia: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury.
Blommaert J (2007) Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blommaert J Rampton B (2011) Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13(2): 1–22.
Bonache J (2021) The challenge of using a ‘non-positivist’ paradigm and getting through the peer-review process. Human Resource Management Journal 31(1): 37–48. DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12319.
Bourdieu P (2001) Le langage et le pouvoir symbolique. [Orig. Language and Symbolic Power 1991. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Brannen MY Piekkari R Tietze S (2017) The multifaceted role of language in international business: unpacking the forms, functions and features of a critical challenge to MNC theory and performance. In: Language in International Business. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 139–162.
Caligiuri P Sbaa MY Milosevic M, et al. (2022) Assessing cross-cultural performance: beyond just “being there”, revisited. Revisited. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management 22(3): 413–431. DOI: 10.1177/14705958221135216.
Cameron D (2004) Out of the bottle: the social life of metalanguage. In: Jaworski A Coupland N Galasinski D (eds) Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 311–322. DOI: 10.1515/9783110907377.311.
Chazan G Brunsden J (2016) Push to bid adieu to English as EU’s lingua franca. London: Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/e70b5042-3c65-11e6-8716-a4a71e8140b0] (accessed 17 November 2023).
Coghlan D Cirella S Rami Shani AB (2012) Action research and collaborative management research: more than meets the eye? International Journal of Action Research 8(1): 45–67. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-371164 (accessed 17 November 2023).
Coupland J Holmes J Coupland N (1998) Negotiating sun use: constructing consistency and managing inconsistency. Journal of Pragmatics 30: 699–721. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00055-1.
de Bres J (2014) Competing language ideologies about societal multilingualism among cross-border workers in Luxembourg. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2014(227): 119–137. DOI: 10.1515/ijsl-2013-0091.
de Bres J Lovrits V (2021) Monolingual cringe and ideologies of English: Anglophone migrants to Luxembourg draw their experiences in a multilingual society. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2021.1920965.
Detzen D Loehlein L (2018) Language at work in the Big Four: global aspirations and local segmentation. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 31(7): 2031–2054.
Dewaele J-M Saito K (2022) Positive Psychology can help overcome the pernicious native speaker ideology. The European Educational Researcher 5(2): 225-234. DOI: 10.31757/euer.526
d’Iribarne P (2009) National cultures and organisations in search of a theory: an interpretative approach. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 9(3), 309-321.
Doerr NM (2009) The Native Speaker Concept: Ethnographic Investigations of Native Speaker Effects. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Edwards J (2009) Language and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Garrido MR (2022) The evolution of language ideological debates about English and French in a multilingual humanitarian organisation. Language Policy 21: 47–73.
Gunnarsson B-L (2014) Multilingualism in European workplaces. Multilingua 33(1–2): 11–33. DOI: 10.1515/multi-2014-0002.
Hall ET (1990) The Hidden Dimension. New York: Anchor Press-Doubleday. [1966 Reprint].
Harzing AW Pudelko M (2013) Language competencies, policies and practices in multinational corporations: a comprehensive review and comparison of Anglophone, Asian, Continental European and Nordic MNCs. Journal of World Business 48(1): 87–97.
Holmes P Fay R Andrews J, et al. (2016) How to research multilingually: possibilities and complexities. In: Zhu H (ed) Research Methods in Intercultural Communication. London: Wiley, 88–102.
Irvine JT Gal S (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In: Kroskrity PV (ed) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 35–84.
Jaffe A (ed) (2009) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Janssens M Steyaert C (2014) Re-considering language within a cosmopolitan understanding: toward a multilingual franca approach in international business studies. Journal of International Business Studies 45(5): 623–639.
Jonsen K Fendt J Point S (2018) Convincing qualitative research: what constitutes persuasive writing? Organizational Research Methods 21(1): 30–67.
Karhunen P Kankaanranta A Louhiala‐Salminen L, et al. (2018) Let’s talk about language: a review of language‐sensitive research in international management. Journal of Management Studies 55: 980–1013.
Kassis-Henderson J (2005) language diversity in international management teams. International Studies of Management and Organization 35: 66–82. DOI: 10.1080/00208825.2005.11043722.
Kraft K Flubacher M-C (2023) Multilingualism in the workplace: issues of space and social order. In: McKinney C Makoe P Zavala V (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism. 2nd edition. Milton Park: Routledge, 369–382. DOI: 10.4324/9781003214908-29.
Kramsch C Whiteside A (2008) Language ecology in multilingual settings. Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied linguistics 29(4): 645–671.
Kraus PA (2018) From glossophagic hegemony to multilingual pluralism? Re-assessing the politics of linguistic identity in Europe. In: Kraus P Grin F (eds) The Politics of Multilingualism. Europeanisation, Globalisation and Linguistic Governance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/wlp.6.
Kruse J (2012) Das Barcelona-Prinzip. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Krzyżanowski M (2010) The Discursive Construction of European Identities. A Multi-Level Approach to Discourse and Identity in the Transforming European Union. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Langinier H Ehrhart S (2020) When local meets global: how introducing English destabilizes translanguaging practices in a cross-border organization. Management International 24(2): 79–92.
Leal A (2021) English and Translation in the European Union: Unity and Multiplicity in the Wake of Brexit. Milton Park: Taylor & Francis. DOI: 10.4324/9780429282812.
Liddicoat A (2015) Multilingualism research in Anglophone contexts as a discursive construction of multilingual practice. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11(1): 9–24.
Lønsmann D (2014) Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: language ideologies and processes of exclusion. Multilingua 33(1-2): 89–116.
Lovrits V (2022) Making meaning of multilingualism at work: from competence to conviviality. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2022.2047987.
Lovrits V de Bres J (2021) Prestigious language, pigeonholed speakers: stances towards the ‘native English speaker’ in a multilingual European institution. Journal of SocioLinguistics 25(3): 398–417. DOI: 10.1111/josl.12431.
McIntyre A (2008) Participatory action research. In: Qualitative Research Methods. Los Angeles: Sage, Vol. 52.
Nekula M Marx C (2014) Verständigung und Sprachmanagement in deutsch-tschechischen Grenzorganisationen. 10.14361/transcript.9783839423967.45. In: Engel N Göhlich M Höhne T, et al. Grenzen der Grenzüberschreitung: Zur “Übersetzungsleistung” deutsch-tschechischer Grenzorganisationen. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1fxdrp
Nurmi N Koroma J (2020) The emotional benefits and performance costs of building a psychologically safe language climate in MNCs. Journal of World Business 55: 101093.
Ollila S Yström A (2020) Action research for innovation management: three benefits, three challenges, and three spaces. R&D Management 50: 396–411. DOI: 10.1111/radm.12407.
Park JS-Y (2011) Framing, stance, and affect in Korean metalinguistic discourse. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 21(2): 265–282.
Phillipson R (2010) The EU and languages: diversity in what unity? In: Kjaer AL Adamo S (eds) Linguistic diversity and European democracy. Farnham: Ashgate, 57–74.
Piller I (2015) Monolingual ways of seeing multilingualism. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11(1): 25–33. DOI: 10.1080/17447143.2015.1102921.
Schoen C (2022) A Bruxelles, la langue française veut retrouver ses lettres de noblesse. La Croix. Available at: La Croix 14.02.2022.
Siepmann D (2006) Academic writing and culture: an overview of Differences between English, French and German. Meta 51(1): 131–150. DOI: 10.7202/012998ar.
Śliwa M Johansson M (2014) How non-native English-speaking staff are evaluated in linguistically diverse organizations: a sociolinguistic perspective. Journal of International Business Studies 45(9): 1133–1151.
Smith JK (1984) The Problem of Criteria for Judging Interpretive Inquiry. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 6(4): 379–391. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1163977.
Soderberg AM Holden N (2002) Rethinking cross cultural management in a globalizing business world. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 2(1): 103–121.
Sokolovska Z (2016) Imagining europe’s linguistic diversity in the council of europe’s parliamentary assembly. Language & Communication 51: 40–49. DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2016.07.004.
Spotti M Blommaert J (2017) Bilingualism, multilingualism, globalization, and superdiversity: toward sociolinguistic repertoires. In: García O Flores N Spotti M (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. online edn. Oxford Handbooks: Oxford Academic. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212896.013.1.
Stryhn Meyer J (2020) French-Only Court? Agora. The magazine of the European and International Public Service 83, p.20. [online: https://unionsyndicale.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/agora-83_Digital.pdf] (accessed 17 November 2023).
Szkudlarek B Osland JS Nardon L, et al. (2020) Communication and culture in international business – moving the field forward. Journal of World Business 55: 101126. DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101126.
Tietze S (2004) Spreading the management gospel–in English. Language and Intercultural Communication 4(3): 175–189.
Tietze S Piekkari R (2019) Languages and cross-cultural management. In: The Sage Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management. Los Angeles: Sage.
Torsh HI (2020) Linguistic Intermarriage in Australia: Between Pride and Shame. Sydney: Palgrave Macmillan.
Trépos J-Y Ehrhart S Hamez G, et al. (2016) Frontières linguistiques et communautés de travail. Un bilinguisme à l’épreuve du changement industriel. Questions de communication 29: 351–374.
Vaara E Tienari J Piekkari R, et al. (2005) Language and the circuits of power in a merging multinational corporation. Journal of management studies 42(3): 595–623.
van der Worp K Cenoz J Gorter D (2018) Multilingual professionals in internationally operating companies: tensions in their linguistic repertoire? Multilingua 37(4): 353–375. DOI: 10.1515/multi-2017-0074.
Vaughn LM Jacquez F (2020) Participatory research methods – choice points in the research process. Journal of Participatory Research Methods 1(1). DOI: 10.35844/001c.13244.
Verschueren J (2000) Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 10(4): 439–456. DOI: 10.1075/prag.10.4.02ver.
Vivian J Brown R (1995) Prejudice and intergroup conflict. In: Argyle M Coleman AM (eds) Social Psychology. London: Longman, 57–77.
Wilmot NV Vigier M Humonen K (2023) Language as a source of otherness. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. DOI: 10.1177/14705958231216.
Wodak R Krzyżanowski M Forchtner B (2012) The interplay of language ideologies and contextual cues in multilingual interactions: language Choice and code-switching in European union institutions. Language in Society 41: 157–186. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404512000036.
Woo D Giles H (2017) Language attitudes and intergroup dynamics in multilingual organizations. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 17(1): 39–52. DOI: 10.1177/1470595817701507.
Woolard KA Schieffelin BB (1994) Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23(1): 55–82.
Yildiz Y (2012) Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. New York: Fordham University Press.