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Language Use in Multinational Corporations: The Role of Special Languages and Corporate Idiolects

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The Palgrave Handbook of Economics and Language

Abstract

In this chapter we argue that multinational corporations (MNCs) can be understood from a language perspective; and in this we include national languages (e.g. English, Finnish, German, Japanese) as well as special languages (such as occupational vocabularies which we discuss fully below). We also take account of considerations of language as sociolects, which are context-specific applications of languages, where specialist discourses mingle with national languages in unique contexts-of-use. Together, these form the highly complex transnational business communication capital of MNCs. We bring a sense of order into this complexity through an attempt to develop a mental map of this language complexity in the MNC. Therefore, we draw on a metaphor by which we align the MNC to a metropolis, and we use in particular recent research located in Manchester, UK, where language diversity and its effects were studied. Thus, we propose that there exists a specific analogy between language usage and behaviour in cities and in MNCs. This at first glance unusual analogy will be exploited to create this mental map, whereby we attempt to capture myriad forms of languages and language use within the MNC, both in their local context and their international extension.

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Authors
  1. Susanne Tietze
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  2. Nigel Holden
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  3. Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Brussels, Belgium

    Victor Ginsburgh (Honorary Professor of Economics) (Honorary Professor of Economics)

  2. Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA

    Shlomo Weber (Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics, Leading Scientist) (Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics, Leading Scientist)

  3. Center for Study of Diversity and Social Interactions, New Economic School, Moscow, Russia

    Shlomo Weber (Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics, Leading Scientist) (Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics, Leading Scientist)

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© 2016 Susanne Tietze, Nigel Holden and Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen

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Tietze, S., Holden, N., Barner-Rasmussen, W. (2016). Language Use in Multinational Corporations: The Role of Special Languages and Corporate Idiolects. In: Ginsburgh, V., Weber, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Economics and Language. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-32505-1_12

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