Using english as a foreign language in international and multicultural consulting: Asset or hindrance?

Abstract

When it comes to an encounter of people of mixed national and ethnical backgrounds, one of the major challenges is undoubtedly the linguistic diversity. Given the widely acknowledged status of English as the world language, English has also become the most widely used language when it comes to professional counselling in intercultural contexts. Due to the growing demand of counselling processes in English, a certain command of the English language has also become indispensible for consultants.

It has to be noted, however, that it’s rarely English native speakers who prompt a “multilingual” group to speak English. In most working contexts it is speakers, for “none of whom is the mother tongue” (House 1999: 74), who agree to use English as common code of understanding, i.e. English as a lingua franca (ELF). Current researches strongly question the status of native English norms as the only point of reference for ‘correct’ usage of English (cf. e.g. Seidlhofer et al. 2006).

Based on empirical data, this contribution chooses an interdisciplinary approach at the interface between linguistics and other social sciences to examine some implications of the use of ELF in professional counselling processes with a strong focus on supervision. It is meant to show that consulting processes in English, among non-native speakers, can be carried out successfully despite clear linguistic deviations from native speaker norms.

Zusammenfassung

Sprachliche Diversität stellt bei einer Begegnung von Menschen unterschiedlicher nationaler und ethnischer Hintergründe sicherlich eine der größten Herausforderungen dar. Der Status des Englischen als die Weltsprache ist mittlerweile weitgehend anerkannt. So ist Englisch auch in interkulturellen Beratungskontexten die am meisten verwendete Sprache.

Es muss jedoch betont werden, dass es selten muttersprachliche SprecherInnen sind, die eine „multilinguale“ Gruppe dazu veranlassen, Englisch zu sprechen. In den meisten Fällen sind es Personen, die nicht primär auf Englisch sozialisiert wurden (vgl. House 1999: 74) und die sich auf Englisch als gemeinsamen „Code“ der Verständigung einigen, i.e. Englisch als lingua franca (ELF). Aktuelle sprachwissenschaftliche Studien hinterfragen den Status von muttlersprachlichen Varietäten als einzig gültiges Referenzsystem für die „korrekte“ Verwendung des Englischen (vgl. z. B. Seidlhofer et al. 2006).

Vorliegender Beitrag wählt einen interdisziplinären Zugang an der Schnittstelle zwischen Linguistik und anderen Sozialwissenschaften. Basierend auf einem empirischen Datensatz werden die Implikationen der Verwendung von ELF in Beratungsprozessen – mit einem starken Fokus auf Supervision – untersucht. Der Artikel zeigt, dass Beratungsprozesse zwischen Nicht-MutersprachlerInnen trotz klarer Abweichungen von muttersprachlichen Normen höchst erfolgreich verlaufen können.

Appendix: VOICE transcription and spelling conventions

For the sake of readability of the transcripts analysed in chapter4, the most important features of the transcription and spelling conventions are provided. Please consult http://www.univie.ac.at/voice for more detail:

1. Decapitalization
No capital letters are used except for marking emphasis (cf. mark-up conventions)	Example: S8: so you really can <@> control my english
2. Intonation
Words spoken with falling intonation are followed by a full stop “.”	Example: S7: that’s point two. absolutely yes
Words spoken with rising intonation are followed by a question mark “?”	Example: S1: that’s what my next er slide? does
3. Emphasis
If a speaker gives a syllable, word or phrase particular prominence, this is written in capital letters	Example: S7: er internationalization is a very IMPORTANT issue
4. Pauses
Every brief pause in speech (up to a good half second) is marked with a full stop in parentheses	Example: SX-f: because they all give me different (.) different (.) points of view
Longer pauses are timed to the nearest second and marked with the number of seconds in parentheses, e.g. (1) = 1 second, (3) = 3 seconds	Example: S1: aha (2) so finally arrival on monday evening is still valid
Whenever two or more utterances happen at the same time, the overlaps are marked with numbered tags: <1> </1>, <2> </2 >,…Everything that is simultaneous gets the same number	Example: S1: it is your best <1> case </1> scenario (.) S2: <1> yeah </1> S1: okay
5. Laughter
All laughter and laughter-like sounds are transcribed with the @ symbol, approximating syllable number (e.g. ha ha ha = @@@). Utterances spoken laughingly are put between <@> </@> tags	Example: S1: in denmark well who knows. @@ S2: <@> yeah </@> @@ that’s right
6. Non-english speech
Utterances in a participant’s first language (L1) are put between tags indicating the speaker’s L1	Example: S5: <L1de> bei firmen </L1de> or wherever
7. Speaking modes
Utterances which are spoken in a particular mode (fast, soft, whispered, read, etc.) and are notably different from the speaker’s normal speaking style are marked accordingly	Example: S2: because as i explained before is that we have in the <fast> universities of cyprus we have </fast> a specific e:rm procedure
8. Anonymization
A guiding principle of VOICE is sensitivity to the appropriate extent of anonymization. As a general rule, names of people, companies, organizations, institutions, locations, etc. are replaced by aliases and these aliases are put into square brackets []. The aliases are numbered consecutively, starting with 1	Example: S9: that’s one of the things (.) that i (1) just wanted to clear out. (2) [S13]?
9. Unintelligible speech
Unintelligible speech is represented by x’s approximating syllable number and placed between <un> </un> tags	Example: S4: we <un> xxx </un> for the <7> supreme (.) three </7> possibilities S1: <7> next yeah </7>