K jazykové situaci v nadnárodních podnicích působících v České republice

• Authors: Nekvapil J. , Nekula M.

Title variants

EN

ON THE LANGUAGE PLANNING SITUATION IN MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This article deals with intercultural contact in branches of multinational companies or corporations founded in the Czech Republic by German, Austrian or Swiss owners. Multinational businesses (large ones in particular) are trying to regulate the communication within the company. This is achieved predominantly by introducing an official corporate language in the company, employing people fluent in the language, and promoting language courses. Our research, based on the analysis of questionnaires and semi-structured interview data, has shown that the foreign employees seldom adapt to the language of the local employees, while the adaptation of the local employees to the language of the foreign ones is not only usual but also expected. The regulation of the communication therefore results in the promotion of primarily asymmetrical language adaptation, which benefits the German, Austrian and Swiss owners and the German-speaking foreign employees delegated by them (the so-called expatriates). However, the companies examined also promote the use of English to a considerable extent, which provides a basis for symmetrical communication between local and expatriate employees.

Keywords

EN

CORPORATE LANGUAGE; CZECH; CZECH REPUBLIC; ENGLISH; GERMAN; LANGUAGE PLANNING; MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovo a slovesnost: časopis pro otázky teorie a kultury jazyka (Slovo a slovesnost: A journal for the theory of language and language cultivation)
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 67
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 83-95
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Nekvapil J.

author

Nekula M.

• J. Nekvapil, Ustav lingvistiky a ugrofinistiky FF UK, nam. Jana Palacha 2, CZ-11638 Praha, Czech Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07CZAAAA03276754