English plays a significant role in Panama as a language of commerce. It is the language most widely used in the banking business. And opportunities for advancement are far more common in banks than in other businesses. A good program in this field is necessary to meet the needs of bank employees in the financial world. The program will be primarily oral since bank work covers a great many different kinds of tasks. The program for Panamanian bank employees examines English-speaking bank employees' main needs for communication skills.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis looks at social interaction from the point of view of social-institutional process. In doing so, it aims to account for i) how broader institutional processes are instantiated in local interaction, and ii) how western technologisation (in the Foucaultian sense) relates to or is instantiated in local interaction.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2007 / Advisor -- Bonnie Mennell Includes bibliographical references (pages 85-86).

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.

This dissertation aims to integrate various learning approaches, i.e., multiple literacies, experiential learning, game-enhanced learning, and global simulation, into an extracurricular module, in which it remodels traditional ways of teaching input, specifically, the lexical- and grammatical-only approaches of business English at a private university in Bangkok, Thailand. Informed by those approaches, a game-enhanced simulation was specifically designed as an experiential space for L2 learners to experience the dynamic and real business contexts of language use. A strategy-simulation video game, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum (RCT3), was selected and used in the implementation of the pilot course. The game was embedded in a global simulation of two amusement park companies – where students worked in groups of five to form characters and socially interact with others. The global simulation involved learners in a sequence of genre-based (e.g., memoranda and business presentations) and technology-based tasks (e.g., using Gmail, Google Docs, and LinkedIn). Ten second-year students from five disciplines – Accounting, Logistics Engineering, Technology and Creative Business, Logistics Management, and Airline Business Management, participated in the study. Within this game-enhanced simulation, it turned out that each student simulated the role of a department head that was relevant to her or his discipline, for example, department heads of Financial Management, Technical Service Management, Customer Relationship Management, Legal and Operations Management, and Human Capital Management. The findings show that the learners' interactivity within the gameplay depicted the pedagogical affordances of RCT3 for a business English simulation, that is, exploratory interactivity, goal-orientedness in gameplay, goal-orientedness for roleplaying, and emergent narratives. The data present how this videogame features an interplay between two game perspectives – ludology and narratology. That is, ludic affordances in RCT3 could be activated in a narrative system: meaningful personal or emergent narrative by well-designed global simulation tasks. The simulations were established through students’ interpretation and creativity in gameplay and roleplay as related to their disciplines. Moreover, the game-enhanced simulation appeared to provide learners with an effective social context for promoting global English development and professional identity formation, which moved them beyond the learning practices of traditional coursebooks and classroom settings. Students of the study had opportunities to use professional Discourses related to their disciplines as ways to establish their desired identities within the simulated global workplace.

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.

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No description available.

<p>kursa poslovnog engleskog jezika koji ima za cilj razvoj pragmatičke<br />kompetencije polaznika i unapređenje poslovne komunikacije na engleskom jeziku.<br />Uspostavljanje i održavanje uspe&scaron;ne poslovne komunikacije koja uključuje poslovne<br />ljude kojima je engleski jezik zajedničko sredstvo komunikacije zavisi od njihove<br />sposobnosti da koriste jezik na odgovarajući način u odgovarajućem poslovnom<br />kontekstu.<br />Istraživanje za disertaciju sastojalo se iz dva dela. U uvodnom delu<br />istraživanja učestvovali su predavači poslovnog engleskog jezika, studenti koji slu&scaron;aju<br />kurs poslovnog engleskog jezika i zaposleni polaznici koji pohađaju kurs poslovnog<br />engleskog jezika u &scaron;kolama stranih jezika. Cilj ovog dela istraživanja je bio da se<br />prikupe podaci o nastavi poslovnog engleskog jezika kod nas &ndash; na koji način se ona<br />organizuje i &scaron;ta bi trebalo uključiti u nastavu kako bi polaznici bili &scaron;to uspe&scaron;niji u<br />poslovnoj komunikaciji na engleskom jeziku.<br />Nakon toga usledilo je glavno istraživanje u kome je učestvovalo dvadeset<br />zaposlenih polaznika koji su pohađali kurs poslovnog engleskog jezika. Oni su bili<br />podeljeni u dve grupe, kontrolnu i eksperimentalnu, sa po deset polaznika. Obe grupe<br />su pohađale kurs poslovnog engleskog jezika. Kontrolna grupa je kurs slu&scaron;ala samo<br />na osnovu odabranog udžbenika, a eksperimentalna grupa je pohađala kurs koji je<br />izrađen na osnovu analize potreba i u skladu sa poslovnim situacijama u kojima oni<br />koriste engleski jezik. Pre početka kursa obe grupe su popunile upitnik sa op&scaron;tim<br />podacima o njima i upitnik za analizu potreba, ulazni test op&scaron;teg engleskog jezika i<br />ulazni test poslovnog engleskog jezika. Podaci dobijeni upitnikom za analizu potreba<br />upotpunjeni su pitanjima u prvom intervjuu. Napredak u sposobnosti kori&scaron;ćenja<br />engleskog jezika u poslovnoj komunikaciji obe grupe, posebno u pogledu kori&scaron;ćenja<br />govornih činova, praćen je tokom kursa pomoću pet testova nakon svake obrađene<br />teme.<br />Istraživanjem su dobijeni kvantitativni podaci (pomoću testa i upitnika) i<br />kvalitativni podaci (pomoću upitnika i intervjua) koji su detaljno analizirani. Na<br />osnovu analize svih podataka može se zaključiti da su polaznici iz eksperimentalne<br />grupe ostvarili primetno bolji napredak na testovima koji su pratili kurs, ali i u<br />sposobnosti poslovne komunikacije, &scaron;to je bio i cilj kursa.<br />Značaj ovog istraživanja je vi&scaron;estruk jer ukazuje na potrebu da se veća pažnja<br />posvećuje izradi kurseva poslovnog engleskog jezika za zaposlene polaznike,<br />detaljnoj analizi poslovnog konteksta u kome rade i njihovih stvarnih potreba. Takvi<br />kursevi omogućavaju polaznicima da lak&scaron;e i uspe&scaron;nije razviju svoju pragmatičku<br />kompetenciju i unaprede poslovnu komunikaciju.</p> / <p>This thesis in applied linguistics and language teaching focuses on designing a<br />business English course for the purpose of the development of pragmatic competence<br />of business English learners in order to improve their business communication in the<br />English language. Establishing and maintaining successful business communication<br />involving business people who use English as a common communication language<br />depends on their ability to use the language in an appropriate way in an appropriate<br />business context.<br />The research for this thesis consisted of two parts. The first part of the research<br />involved teachers of business English, students who attended business English<br />courses and employed learners who attended business English courses in private<br />language schools. The purpose of this part of the research was to collect the data on<br />business English language teaching, the way the courses are organized and what<br />should be included in the courses so that the learners are able to participate in<br />business communication in the English language.<br />This was followed by the main part of the research, which involved twenty<br />professionals attending a business English course. They were divided into two groups,<br />control and experimental, with ten learners in each group. Both groups attended a<br />business English course, however, the control group had a course based only on the<br />selected course book, and the experimental group had a course designed on the basis<br />of needs analysis and in accordance with the business situations in which they use<br />English language daily. Prior to the course learners in both groups completed a<br />general data questionnaire, a needs analysis questionnaire, general and business<br />English language entrance tests. The data gathered by the needs analysis questionnaire<br />were additionally clarified by the answers in the first interview. The learners&#39; progress<br />in using English in business communication in both groups, especially regarding the<br />use of speech acts, was monitored by five tests, one after each of the topics covered<br />during the course.<br />The data collected in the research, both quantitative (collected by tests and<br />questionnaires) and qualitative (collected by questionnaires and interviews), were<br />thoroughly analyzed. The analysis led to a conclusion that learners from the<br />experimental group showed substantially better improvement in tests and their overall<br />ability to communicate in business related contexts.<br />The significance of this research is manifold and suggests that greater attention<br />should be paid to designing business English courses for professionals and to a<br />thorough needs and business context analysis. Such courses would enable learners to<br />develop their pragmatic competence more successfully and, consequently, improve<br />their business communication.</p>

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.