Knowledge of successful Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) has been recognized to be an essential element in overall business know-how (Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen, 2010). In line with this notion, research has found that professionals use BELF and exploit a variety of discourse and pragmatic strategies that aid the process of cooperation and agreement so that mutual understanding can be reached (Firth, 1996; Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010; Pitzl, 2005). However, research has reported situations where business negotiators need to handle discord while maintaining a working rapport with the opposing party (e.g. Bjørge, 2012), indicating that the ability to produce the appropriate expression of disagreement is an imperative skill. Nonetheless, while there is now a better understanding of how business professionals establish common ground through using BELF, little work has been carried out on the subject on how professionals express disagreement in the same aspect (but see e.g. Bjørge, 2012; Stalpers, 1995). The present study aims to address this gap and expand the current knowledge on how business professionals express and handle disagreement in naturally-occurring face-to-face negotiations. The collected material consists of approximately 4 hours of BELF discourse recorded at a business convention in Germany. Fifteen disagreement episodes were identified, transcribed and analyzed using Conversation Analytic (CA) procedures. The present paper seeks to explore two aspects of the current topic, namely how business professionals (using BELF) express disagreement during business negotiations, and whether mitigation strategies are used when disagreement is expressed. The findings suggest that disagreements are solely content-related and are expressed in a variety of ways as they are coupled with a varied use of mitigation devices (i.e. delay and added support). Furthermore, there were instances of unmitigated expressions in the form of blunt contradictions. It is suggested that disagreements in BELF negotiations are required actions and may serve a dual purpose. The main goal of expressing disagreement is to increase clarity in cases where essential information may be misinterpreted or misguided; additionally, it indicates the speaker’s stance in the argument. Lastly, as there is a need for better knowledge of successful BELF, the present study is likely to be of interest for those who are engaged in the global business discourse community as well as researchers studying international business settings.

Many researchers agree that multicultural teams are a "double-edged sword" with the potential for high levels of creativity and production, but also conflict. This paper argues that effective communication is vital for developing "virtuous", rather than vicious, circles and that research into (B)ELF offers an insight into what effective communication in multicultural and multilingual teams can look like. The conceptual frame develops research into ELF and BELF by also drawing on organisational and management research to examine team processes and the role of language within them. The second part of the paper presents illustrative examples from data collected in an ethnographic study from an English-medium marketing master's programme at WU Vienna. The students' teamwork project comprises an international market entry simulation and can be seen as a training ground for managing both business content and team processes. The findings indicate that both the ELF context and the ELF talk furthered the development of rapport, and that the students' "casual talk" supported "their work talk". The paper finishes with a call for more empirical research into language use among recent business graduates and how to prepare students better for a globalised workplace.

The present paper focuses on exploring the usage of communicative strategies (CSs) by business professionals who use business English as a lingua franca (BELF) in telephone negotiations. The purpose of the study is also to analyze the occurrence of misunderstanding and non-understandings. The data consists of nine naturally-occurring spoken ‘buy-sell’ negotiations between business professionals from seven different countries around Europe and Asia.  The negotiations summed up to 1 hour and 30 minutes of recorded material. The transcripts of these negotiations were analyzed in detail by using the qualitative method ‘conversation analysis’ (CA). The results show that business professionals use CSs as pre-empting measures to prevent misunderstanding. In addition, CSs in the present data appear to be used to create cooperativeness and subsequently reach successful communication. The present study also found two scenarios where communicative breakdown occurred but were subsequently repaired through ‘clarity requests’, ‘confirmation checks’ and repetition. Lastly, the present paper recognizes that previous knowledge of the other party is an effective aspect in keeping upbeat negotiations and reaching mutual understanding.

Abstract Multinational corporations operating in Sweden often use English as their official corporate language. The employees are expected to communicate using English both internally and with external business contacts. English used for communication between people with different mother tongues is commonly referred to as ELF, English as a Lingua Franca, and when used in business contexts it is referred to as BELF, Business English as a Lingua Franca. This study was conducted to explore how BELF is used in the pharmaceutical sector in Sweden and what elements of BELF are challenging or necessary for successful communication. In the study five informants were interviewed about their experiences. The study showed that the informants use BELF for all types of communication and are comfortable with English as a lingua franca yet often switch over to Swedish if there are only Swedish speakers present. It was also found that clear, somewhat simplified English with focus on content and getting business done was preferred over grammatically correct and native sounding English. The respondents viewed an industry specific vocabulary as highly important bordering to a pre-requisite. The findings of this study support previous research in the field indicating that there is little difference when it comes to BELF for the pharmaceutical industry compared to other industries.

The Business English (BE) degree in China was established as an independent dis-cipline in 2007. Business English used to be taught as a component of English lan-guage and literature degrees. There are now about 50 universities in China offer-ing BE degrees, but the change in the status of Business English has not been with-out attendant problems. Most Chinese universities offering degrees in BE have failed to combine the teaching of English language and literature and the teaching of business in very meaningful ways, and have given English language learning a much larger share of the curriculum. Business English is taught in university Eng-lish departments rather than in Business Schools, and most BE teachers only have a background in English language and literature, with no practical work experience in the area of international business. These teachers have little knowledge of how English is used in the workplace, and might have difficulty contextualizing BE teaching in real business situations where English is used as a lingua franca (BELF). The fact that non-native speakers’ communications predominate in the BELF environment calls into question the emphasis on native-like correctness in university BE teaching. Language needs analysis (LNA) was conducted in order to discover the English language needs of BE graduates starting work in Chinese companies with an inter-national clientele. Data from questionnaires, interviews and business emails sent to and from recent graduates were analysed. The findings from questionnaires and interviews indicate that emailing is the most frequent mode of communication in English in the Chinese companies that employ BE graduates, although speaking skills are also highly prized. All groups of re-spondents (BE teachers, company employers and RGs) thought standardized na-tional English tests (e.g. TEM4, TEM8) were important for securing a job. It was found that most of the company employers and recent graduates believed that ad-hering to native-like norms was not important in a BELF environment where most of their clients were non-native English speakers who did not have a very high lev-el of English. The findings from analysis of my corpus of 86 business English email chains (307 messages, 34,837 words) suggest that MEMC graduates are communicatively adept at business email communication and can establish rapport with their cli-ents and mitigate potential face-threats, despite the fact that their English is some-times non-standard. Current teaching materials, methods and practices in BE teaching in China still place greatest emphaisis on conformity to a set of native-like norms, however, rather than pragmatic competence. These findings have interesting implications for ESP course content and the teach-ing of Business English as a lingua franca (BELF). BE lecturers might be unwilling to use authentic BELF emails as models in the classroom, because the writers have a restricted command of English. There were no signs of any miscommunication in the email exchanges, however, and specifically BELF usage may well have had a disarming effect on clients, helping to achieve the writers’ purposes more effec-tively than textbook English would have done.

Purpose: This study aims to provide a better understanding of the importance of mastering foreign languages in building international business relationships as well as whether English should be considered an interlingua in international negotiations. Theoretical framework: This study ́s theoretical framework consists of the disciplines Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing and psychic distance. In B2B marketing a sustainable business relationship is built on the customer experience which in turn rests the four pillars of trust, integrity, communication, and interdependence. Psychic distance includes the subdisciplines cultural distance, inter-organizational distance, and linguistic distance. Method: This study employs a qualitive research with an abductive approach. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews. The respondents consisted of four employees at Business Sweden, who are working in different markets, and two Swedish export companies in the manufacturing industry. Conclusion: The study shows that the choice of language mainly affects communication and trust between the parties. The perceived integrity is affected more by the parties' socio- pragmatic skills than their linguistic skills. Mutual dependence affects the parties' attitudes towards language choice rather than vice versa. The study also shows that despite the English status as Lingua Franca, misunderstandings can still arise that are based on the communicators' cultural background. / Syfte: Denna studie syftar till att ge ökad förståelse för betydelsen av behärskningen av främmande språk vid skapandet av internationella affärsrelationer samt den funktion som engelskan fyller vid internationella förhandlingar. Teori: Uppsatsens teoretiska referensram utgörs av begreppen Business-to-Business (B2B) marknadsföring och psykiskt avstånd. En hållbar affärsrelation i B2B marknadsföring bygger på kundupplevelsen eller företagens uppfattning av varandra. Denna kundupplevelse bygger i sin tur på fyra grundpelare: förtroende, integritet, kommunikation och ömsesidigt beroende. I psykiskt avstånd ingår kulturellt avstånd, interorganisatoriskt avstånd och språkligt avstånd. Metod: Denna studie är baserad på en kvalitativ med en abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer. Respondenterna utgjordes av fyra anställda på Business Sweden, som är placerade på olika marknader, samt två svenska exportbolag inom tillverkningsindustrin. Slutsats: Studien visar på att språkvalet främst påverkar kommunikationen och förtroendet mellan parterna. Den upplevda integriteten påverkas mer av parternas sociopragmatiska kompetenser än deras språkliga kompetenser. Ömsesidigt beroende påverkar parternas attityder gentemot språkvalet snarare än vice versa. Studien visar även på att trots engelskans status som Lingua Franca kan det fortfarande uppstå missförstånd som grundar sig i kommunikatörernas kulturella bakgrund.

As a result of globalisation, the number of companies working globally is increasing at an unprecedented pace. Consequently, the need to communicate with people from other countries is getting bigger. In such intercultural communication, a common language must be used to interact. The language of choice is most often English, which is the business lingua franca (BELF) today. Furthermore, email has become the obvious choice of medium when interacting with foreign business associates. The present study was conducted through intensive and extensive analyses, investigating BELF emails written by 21 individuals with 14 different native languages. The data consists of 209 emails. The study follows Bjørge’s (2007) work on formality in emails written in academic settings. The aim of the study was to determine how formal the participants were in greetings and closings and whether they accommodated their language to the respondent. The results suggest that the level of formality mainly depends on the purpose of the email and, to some extent, how formal the correspondent is. The accommodation to the correspondent seems to be individual. The present study wishes to extend knowledge on email communication in BELF settings. The results are likely to be relevant for teachers and students of Business Communication and English as a Second or Foreign Language along with managers in internationally functioning companies, especially as regards what should be considered in BELF communication.

The increasing globalization of trade has resulted in a growing need for Swedish corporations to ensure that their work force is able to communicate in English. In order to meet this demand, there is a growing market of companies offering courses in Business English. When English is used for communication between people from different linguacultural backgrounds in a business context it is referred to as BELF (Business English as a Lingua Franca). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not the participants and teachers in different classes of Business English are more open to the non-native speaker model, as this type of course is supposed to prepare the students for communication with people of various nationalities. This was done with the aim to explore how these attitudes can be linked to the development of communicative competence in a business context. In the study a survey was distributed to twenty-one participants of courses in Business English and four teachers were interviewed. The study showed that although the business context affects the attitudes of the participants, there is still a preference for a native-like model. However, the teachers show an open attitude towards BELF, focusing instead on promoting communicative competence in their teaching. The findings of this study support previous research in the field indicating that there exists a certain discrepancy between the perceptions of the teachers and learners as to what constitutes an effective communicator.

This is a case study on the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people using English as a lingua franca in their business communication. The aim of this paper is to establish if misunderstandings in communication occur between Chinese and Nordic language speakers (Finnish and Swedish) in a business environment and, if they do, what the nature of these misunderstandings is. In this paper, recorded conversations are analysed to establish if there are misunderstandings between the parties. The recordings were made at a global industrial company in Sweden and in China. Interviews with the participants were also carried out in order to establish their own ideas concerning the communication flow and to find out if the participants are themselves aware of using any particular communication strategies when interacting with one another. The results of the case study show that there were some misunderstandings in the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people; however, there were not any particularly serious misunderstandings with respect to the company’s business aims and objectives. The results indicate that the parties use communication strategies to enhance their messages and to determine if a message has been conveyed successfully. The strategies that were commonly used were confirmations in the form of follow-up questions and speaking slowly. Written or non-verbal communication were found to be used as a supplement to verbal communication. A strategy that the participants themselves noted as successful was keeping their messages short and simple. This is also known as the KISS-principle. The result of the study indicates potential misunderstandings caused by the Chinese using Yes as an act of active listening rather than agreement and it is suggested that an awareness of this cultural difference may help improve the intercultural communication between the parties.

Though a popular and somewhat controversial topic in discussions on language in IB, the notion of English as a (business) lingua franca/(B)ELF still lacks clear conceptualisation. This paper argues that research in IB and linguistics can be mutually complementary and supportive in conceptualising BELF, and that it is important to separate the concept of BELF from that of a common corporate language. The paper synthesises key works from both disciplines to conceptualise BELF as an emergent, multilingual use of English that adapts to the demands and resources of the specific context. It further argues that Wenger's concept of Communities of Practice offers a useful bridge between the disciplines, and that there is a need for more empirical research.