Language Policy in Multilingual Organizations

Abstract

Little academic research on how language is used in corporations has been conducted in the field of language planning and policy.A number of language policy researchers have discussed the language needs of the business world, while virtually all of the scant literature on what a framework for corporate language policy would look like has been conducted by human resource management scholars and published in business management journals.This lack of attention in the academic literature is surprising, since corporate language policy (presumably) affects everyone, either directly or indirectly, who works in or will work in a corporation.Language presents particular resources and challenges in multilingual organizations.One particular challenge looked at in this paper is how to reconcile power implications of language choice with organizational need for effective communication.In order for an international organization to have an effective language policy, it must carefully consider its linguistic needs and be able to develop and capture the linguistic knowledge of its employees to surmount communication barriers.Language management as a form of knowledge management is proposed, and recommendations are made with regard to best practices, directions for language research, and opportunities for corporate-higher education partnerships.

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