Language strategy In Multinational Company

A. The importance of language management in multinational companies has never been greater than today. Multinationals are becoming ever more conscious of the importance of global coordination as a source of competitive advantage and language remains the ultimate barrier to aspirations of international harmonization. Before attempting to consider language management strategies, companies will have to evaluate the magnitude of the language barrier confronting them and in doing so they will need to examine it in three dimensions: the Language Diversity, the Language Penetration and the Language Sophistication. Companies next need to turn their attention to how they should best manage language. There is a range of options from which MNCs can formulate their language strategy.

B. Lingua Franca: The simplest answer, though realistic only for English speaking companies, is to rely on ones native tongue. As recently as 1991 a survey of British exporting companies found that over a third used English exclusively in dealings with foreign customers. This attitude that “one language fits all” has also been carried through into the Internet age. A survey of the web sites of top American companies confirmed that over half made no provision for foreign language access, and another found that less than 10% of leading companies were able to respond adequately to emails other than in the company’s language. Widespread though it is however, reliance on a single language is a strategy that is fatally flawed. It makes no allowance for the growing trend in Linguistic Nationalism whereby buyers in Asia, South America and the Middle East in particular are asserting their right to “work in the language of the customer”. It also fails to recognize the increasing vitality of languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Chinese that overtime are likely to challenge the dominance of English as a lingua franca. In the IT arena it ignores the rapid globalization of the Internet where the number of English-language e-commerce transactions, emails and web sites, is rapidly diminishing as a percentage of the total. Finally, the total reliance on a single language puts the English speaker at risk in negotiations. Contracts, rules and legislation are invariably written in the local language, and a company unable to operate in that language is vulnerable.

C. Functional Multilingualism: Another improvised approach to Language is to rely on what has been termed "Functional Multilingualism". Essentially what this means is to muddle through, relying on a mix of languages, pidgins and gestures to communicate by whatever means the parties have at

their disposal. In a social context such a shared effort to make one another understand might be considered an aid to the bonding process with the frustration of communication being regularly punctuated by moments of absurdity and humor. However, as the basis for business negotiations it appears very hit-and-nuts. And yet Hagen’s recent study suggests that 16% of international business transaction; are conducted in a "cocktail of languages." Functional Multilingualism shares the same defects as reliance on a lingua franca and increases the probability of cognitive divergence between the parties engaged in the communication.

D. External Language Resources: A more rational and obvious response to the language barrier is to employ external resources such as translators and interpreters, and certainly there are many excellent companies specialized in these fields. However, such a response is by no means an end to the language barrier. For a start these services can be very expensive with a top Simultaneous Interpreter, commanding daily rates as high as a partner in an international consulting company. Secondly, any good translator or interpreter will insist that to be fully effective they must understand the context of the subject matter. This is not always possible. In some cases it is prohibited by the complexity or specialization of the topic. Sometimes by lack of preparation time but most often the obstacle is the reluctance of the parties to explain the wider context to an ’outsider". Another problem is that unless there has been considerable pre-explaining between the interpreter and his clients it is likely that there will be ambiguity and cultural overtones in the source messages the interpreter has to work with. They will of course endeavour to provide a hi-fidelity translation but in this circumstance the intelpreter has to use initiative and guess work. This clearly injects a potential source of misunderstanding into the proceedings. Finally while a good interpreter will attempt to convey not only the meaning but also the spirit of any communication, there can be no doubt that there is a loss of rhetorical power when communications go through a third party. So in situations requiring negotiation, persuasion, humor etc. the use of an interpreter is a poor substitute for direct communication.

E. Training: The immediate and understandable reaction to any skills-shortage in a business is to consider personnel development and certainly the language training industry is well developed. Offering programs at almost every level and in numerous languages. However, without doubting the value of language training no company should be deluded into believing this to be assured of success. Training in most companies is geared to the economic cycle. When times are good, money is invested in training. When belts get tightened training is one of the first "luxuries" to be pared down. In a study conducted across four European countries, nearly twice as many companies said they needed language training in coming years as had conducted training in past years. This disparity between "good intentions" and "actual delivery", underlines the problems of relying upon training for language skills. Unless the company is totally committed to sustaining the strategy even though bad times, it will fail.

F. One notable and committed leader in the field of language training has been the Volkswagen Group. They have developed a language strategy over many years and in many respects can be regarded as a model of how to manage language professionally. However, the Volkswagen approach underlines that language training has to be considered a strategic rather than a tactical solution. In their system to progress from "basics" to "communications competence" in a language requires the completion of 6 language stages each one demanding approximately 90 hours of refresher course, supported by many more hours of self-study, spread over a 6-9 month period. The completion of each stage is marked by a post-stage achievement test, which is a pre-requisite for continued training. So even this professionally managed program expects a minimum of three years of fairly intensive study to produce an accountant. Engineer, buyer or salesperson capable of working effectively in a foreign language. Clearly companies intending to pursue this route need to do so with realistic expectations and with the intention of sustaining the program over many years. Except in terms of "brush-up" courses for people who were previously fluent in a foreign language, training cannot be considered a quick fix and

Questions 27-32

Summary

Complete the following summary of the Whole Paragraphs of Reading Passage, choosing A-L words from the following options. Write your answers in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

MNCs often encounter language barrier in their daily strategy, then they seek several approaches to solve such problems. First, native language gives them a realistic base in a different language speaking country, but problem turned up when they deal with oversea_____27_____. For example, operation on translation of some key_____28_____, it is inevitable to generate differences by rules from different countries. Another way is to rely on a combination of spoken language and____29____, yet a report written that over one-tenth business _______30_____processed in a party language setting. Third way: hire translators. However, firstly it is ______31______, besides if they are not well-prepared, they have to resort to his/her own _____32_____ work.

A. gestures

B. clients

C. transaction

D. understanding and assumption 

E. accurate

F. documents

G. managers

H. body language

I. long-term

J. effective 

K. rivals 

L. costly

Questions 33-39

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

33 What understandable reaction does Training pay attention to according to the author?

34 In what term does the writer describe training during economy depression?

35 What contribution does Volkswagen Group set up for multinational companies?

36 What does Volkswagen Group consider language training as in their company?

37 How many stages are needed from basic course to advanced in training?

38 How long does a refresher course (single stage) need normally?

39 At least how long is needed for a specific professional to acquire a foreign language?

Questions 40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, c or D.

Write your answers in boxes 40 on your answer sheet.

40 What is the Main function of this passage?

A. to reveal all kinds of language problems that companies may encounter 

B. to exhibits some well-known companies successfully dealing with language difficulties

C. to evaluate various approaches for language barrier in multinational companies

D. to testify that training is only feasible approach to solve language problem

 

Reading Test 11

Section 1

THE ORIGIN OF WRITING

 

Writing was first invented by the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia before 3,000 BC. It was also independently invented in Meso-America before 600 BC and probably independently invented in China before 1,300 BC. It may have been independently invented in Egypt around 3,000 BC although given the geographical proximity between Egypt and Mesopotamia the Egyptians may have learnt writing from the Sumerians.

 

There are three basic types of writing systems. The written signs used by the writing system could represent either a whole word, a syllable or an individual sound. Where the written sign represents a word the system is known as logographic as it uses logograms which are written signs that represent a word. The earliest writing systems such as the Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan glyphs are predominantly logographics as are modem Chinese and Japanese writing systems. Where the written sign represents a syllable the writing system is known as syllabic. Syllabic writing systems were more common in the ancient world than they are today. The Linear A and B writing systems of Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece are syllabic. The most common writing systems today are alphabetical. These involve the written sign (a letter) representing a single sound (known as a phoneme). The earliest known alphabetical systems were developed by speakers of semetic languages around 1700 BC in the area of modem day Israel and Palestine. All written languages will predominately use one or other of the above systems. They may however partly use the other systems. No written language is purely alphabetic, syllabic or logographic but may use elements from any or all systems.

 

Such fully developed writing only emerged after development from simplier systems. Talley sticks with notches on them to represent a number of sheep or to record a debt have been used in the past. Knotted strings have been used as a form of record keeping particularly in the area around the Pacific rim. They reached their greatest development with the Inca quipus where they were used to record payment of tribute and to record commercial transactions. A specially trained group of quipu makers and readers managed the whole system. The use of pictures for the purpose of communication was used by native Americans and by the Ashanti and Ewe people in Africa. Pictures can show qualities and characteristics which can not be shown by tally sticks and knot records. They do not however amount to writing as they do not bear a conventional relationship to language.

 

An alternative idea was that a system by which tokens, which represented objects like sheep, were placed in containers and the containers were marked on the outside indicating the number and type of tokens within the container gave rise to writing in Mesopotamia. The marks on the outside of the container were a direct symbolic representation of the tokens inside the container and an indirect symbolic representation of the object the token represented. The marks on the outside of the containers were graphically identical to some of the earliest pictograms used in Sumerian cuneiform, the worlds first written language. However cuneiform has approximately 1,500 signs and the marks on the ouside of the containers can only explain the origins of a few of those signs.

 

The first written language was the Sumerian cuneiform. Writing mainly consisted of records of numbers of sheep, goats and cattle and quantites of grain. Eventually clay tablets were used as a writing surface and were marked with a reed stylus to produce the writing. Thousands of such clay tablets have been found in the Sumerian city of Uruk. The earliest Sumerian writing consists of pictures of the objects mentioned such as sheep or cattle. Eventually the pictures became more abstract and were to consist of straight lines that looked like wedges.

 

The earliest cuneiform was an accounting system consisting of pictograms representing commodities such as sheep and a number. The clay tablets found might for example simply state “ten sheep”. Such writing obviously has its limitations and would not be regarded as a complete writing system. A complete writing system only developed with the process of phonctization. This occurs when the symbol ceases to represent an object and begins to represent a spoken sound, which in early cuneiform would be a word. This process was assisted when the symbols which initally looked very like the object they represented gradually became more abstract and less clearly related to an object. However while the symbol became more closely connected to words, it was words dealing with objects, such as sheep, bird or pot. It was still not possible to write more abstract ideas such as father, running, speech or foreigner.

 

The solution to this problem was known as the rebus principle. Words with the same or similar pronuciation to an abstract word could be used to represent the abstract word. The sign for eye could be used to represent the word “I”. The sign for deer could represent the word “dear”. Which word is referred to by the picture is decided by an additional sign. Pictographs which originally represented a word began to represent the sound of the word. The rebus principle is used to represent abstract words in all word writing systems in Sumer, Egypt, China and in the Aztec and Mayan writing in central America.

 

The Rebus principle lead to cuneiform becoming a form of logo-syllabic writing consisting of both logograms and syllabic writing. The effect of the change from logographic to logo-syllabic writing was substantial. Logographic writing cannot produce normal prose and is resticted to nouns, numbers, names and adjectives. The vast majority of early Sumerian writing consisted of bureaucratic records of products received or products distributed. Only when syllabic writing was introduced into cuneiform did it become possible to write prose such as myths and royal propaganda.

 

The next major development in writing in the old world was the development of the alphabet. The alphabet was developed out of Egyptian hieroglyphs which contained 24 signs for 24 Egyptian consonants. About 1700 BC Semites who knew Egyptian hieroglyphs began making certain changes in their writing system. They put the letters in a particular sequence and gave them simple names to assist learning and ease of memory. They also dropped the logograms and other signs used in hieroglyphs and just kept the Egyptian consonants and resticted the signs to those for individual consonants. Finally, they introduced vowels into their alphabet. Alphabets were soon to spread over most of the world as they provide both flexibility and simplicity for a writing system.

 

Question 1-3

 

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1 - 3 on your answer sheet.

 

There are three types of writing systems. Logography utilizes written signs representing a 1……….Syllabic writing systems were more common in the ancient world, as they adopt

written sign symbolizing a 2……………The most common alphabetical systems use a letter to

represent a 3………………

 

Question 4- 10

 

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

On your answer sheet please write

TRUEifthe statement is true

FALSEifthe statement is false

NOT GIVENif the information is not given in the passage

4. There is no language that adopts elements from only one writing system.

5. Inca quipus used talley sticks to track payments and commercial transactions.

6. The marks on the outside of the containers originated from pictograms used in Sumerian cuneiform.

7. The first written language was created to document the quantities and types of livestock and food.

8. Cuneiform could not express abstract concepts at all.

9. Affected by the rebus principle, cuneiform combined the elements of both logograms and syllabic writing.

10. Most countries adopt alphabetical writing systems due to their flexibility and simplicity.

 

Question 11 - 14

 

Use the information in the passage to match the options (listed A - E) with statements (listed 11-14) below.

Write the appropriate letter (A - E) in boxes 11 - 14 on your answer sheet.

 

NB Some options may match more than one statement.

 

A. Egyptians 

B. Native Americans

C. Semites 

D. Chinese 

E. Sumerians

 

11………..developed the alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

12………..used pictures for the purpose of communication.

13………..invented a written language which consisted of signs looked like wedges.

14………..might have independently invented writing 5,000 years ago.

Section 2