Issues of language and competence in intercultural business contexts

Abstract

This paper explores some of the tension between language ability as a type of workplace competence and standardized language use in Malaysian business contexts, which are set against the backdrop of the globalized workplace. Standardized English language use is prioritized as a value-added skill, over contextualized or localized language use as authentic language ability, in these contexts which are natural sites of intercultural communication in multilingual, multiethnic Malaysia. It is contended that standardized English may not be able to compete with the authenticity of contextualized or localized language use for it is the latter that ensures that the work of the localized workplace gets done first before it can lay claim to the globalized economy. The tension between such authentic language use as innate ability and prescribed language use as skills can impinge on intercultural communication competence (ICC). Three studies that demonstrate such tension in the localized Malaysian and globalized business contexts are discussed following an examination of ICC in Anglo-American contexts.

Artikel ini menyelidiki ketegangan kebolehan berbahasa sebagai kecekapan di tempat bekerja, dan penggunaan bahasa standard dalam konteks perniagaan di Malaysia yang dibandingkan dengan tempat bekerja global. Penggunaan bahasa Inggeris standard yang dilihat sebagai kecekapan yang lebih bernilai, diutamakan berbanding penggunaan bahasa berkonteks dan tempatan sebagai kemampuan berbahasa yang sahih, di dalam konteks komunikasi antarbudaya di Malaysia yang terdiri dari pelbagai bahasa dan bangsa. Artikel ini dicadangakan bahawa bahasa Inggeris standard mungkin tidak dapat bersaing dengan penggunaan bahasa Inggeris berkonteks atau tempatan yang sahih. Ini adalah kerana pengunaan bahasa berkonteks dan tempatan dapat memastikan bahawa segala urusan kerja di tempat bekerja tempatan akan diselesaikan terlebih dahulu sebelum kerja di tempat bekerja global akan dilakukan dan disiapkan. Ketegangan antara penggunaan bahasa yang sahih sebagai kebolehan semulajadi dan penggunaan bahasa yang disarankan akan memberi kesan terhadap kecekapan berkomunikasi antarbudaya. Tiga kajian yang menunjukkan ketegangan sedemikian dalam konteks perniagaan di Malaysia dan global akan dibincangkan setelah meneliti kecekapan berkomunikasi antarbudaya dalam konteks Anglo-Amerika.

Keywords:

• English
• Malaysia
• contextualized language use
• intercultural communication competence

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the organizers of IALIC-2013 for the honour of presenting the original version of this paper as a keynote speaker at the 13th International Conference of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, from 29 November to 1 December, at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Shanta Nair-Venugopal is guest scholar at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), National University of Malaysia/UKM. She was previously Principal Fellow in language, discourse and IC at the Institute of Occidental Studies (IKON), and Professor in the School of Language Studies and Linguistics. She has published widely in the area of language and IC, and recent publications include The Gaze of the West and Framings of the East, by Palgrave Macmillan (2012), and ‘Linguistic ideology and practice: Language, literacy and communication in a localized workplace context in relation to the globalized’ in Linguistics and Education (2013).