English as a Lingua Franca in Workplace : the case of cosmetics liabilited limited company

Abstract

English has occupied a growing place in recent years, as an increasing number of international companies have been granted for Algerian partnership. The overall aim of this study is to investigate what type of English Algerian workforce communicates with at work, when most of their partners have not English as a mother tongue. This work aims also at investigating what type of communication stoppers, future jobholders need to be aware of, in order to achieve successful business when English is used as a Lingua Franca. Much focus has been devoted to oral workplace communication; yet, little concern has been dedicated to the written medium in English as a Lingua Franca context. Specific research questions regard both the identification of English type as used in written texts between Native and Non-native partners, and to what extent do its linguistic characteristics affect communication and business success. Chapter one seeks to make prominent the place of English in business success, especially in the Algerian context. It attempts also to bring together some strands in English as a global language and the different debates that are raised as regards to English types. Chapter two maps out the quantitative and qualitative approaches devoted to the case study of a Cosmetics Liability Limited Company. It describes the use of a triangulation throughout the study by means of a survey with 30 respondents, and an analysis of different types of written documents in English, typically exploited in the workplace. The results analysis is principally assisted by field visit observations. Chapter three displays the results that most of the respondents read and write English on a daily basis at work. The most frequently used types of texts are emails and instructions, related to the nature of performed work inside the company sectors. Company written records in English were indicated as well, to be containing a relatively considerable number of grammatical and morpho-syntactic deviations from Standard English, especially involving word order, verbs concord and word mechanics. Finally, the findings show, non negligible intercultural considerations to be aware of in business transactions. Considering the deviations diversity, observed in the nature of writing workplace texts, from the part of Non-native speakers of English as well as their different cultural conceptions in business dealings; it could be argued that authentic texts and data from target workplaces, instead of classroom tailored models, should be used in teaching English for Specific Purposes. The sole aim is to prepare learners and future workforce to face the diversity awaiting them in their future professional writing in English.