Discourse & Communication

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Eastern voices: enriching research on communication in business: a forum Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, Ora-Ong Chakorn, Grace Chew Chye Lay, Yeonkwon Jung, Kenneth C . C . Kong, Shanta Nair-Venugopal and Hiromasa Tanaka DISCOURSE & COMMUNICATION 2007; 1; 131 DOI: 10.1177/1750481307071983 The online version of this article can be found at: http://dcm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/2/131

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ARTICLE

Bargiela-Chiappini et al.: Eastern voices 131

Eastern voices: enriching research on communication in business: a forum FRANCESCA BARGIELA-CHIAPPINI N OT T I N G H A M T R E N T U N I V E R S I T Y

CONTRIBUTORS: ORA-ONG CHAKORN, GRACE CHEW CHYE LAY, YEONKWON JUNG, KENNETH C.C. KONG, SHANTA NAIR-VENUGOPAL AND HIROMASA TANAKA

Discourse & Communication Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications. (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) www.sagepublications.com Vol 1(2): 131–152 10.1177/1750481307071983

A recent publication project entitled Asian Business Discourse(s) (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2005, 2006; Bargiela-Chiappini and Gotti, 2005) has brought to the attention of the international readership an original body of research on business discursive practices and organizational communication issues in a variety of Asian cultures. In this Forum, we discuss some of the topics highlighted by the project, which arise from the recent indigenous research in business discourse as a multidisciplinary field.

ABSTRACT

K E Y W O R D S : communication in business, English for business, face, indirectness, linguistic politeness, power

1. Introduction In this Forum we seek to: 1) provide a window on non-western perspectives within communication research in business settings; and 2) reflect on some of the salient topics that occupy researchers involved in the analysis, interpretation and improvement of communication practices in the workplace. The contributors to this Forum are not new to working together. They have all published under the ‘Asian Business Discourse(s)’ project (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2005), consisting of a collection of essays (Bargiela-Chiappini and Gotti, 2005), and a double special issue of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication (BargielaChiappini, 2005/06). When the first author proposed the idea of the Forum, she did not know what topics were going to be chosen, but it was obvious from the start that all of the contributors subscribed to a non-postmodern approach to language and communication that treats analytical categories as descriptive and, to a certain extent, deterministic. For example, we are taking for granted that there is a phenomenon


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out there called ‘politeness’, which is manifested in interaction and the nature of which remains the topic of animated debate (Eleen, 2001; Mills, 2003; Watts, 2003). For most participants to this Forum, reflexivity does not go as far as proposing a critical agenda for research in business organizations. The interpretative value of the interventions points to a certain degree of comfort with the ambiguity and ambivalence that permeate human communication. Contributors’ observations embrace a dialectic approach which does not always seek a synthetic resolution. While western scholarship, inspired by rationality, strives to reduce or eliminate ambivalence (Carr, 2006), the lesson of some of the positions taken in the Forum is one of ease with findings that do not easily fit existing western theoretical categories but call for the creation of new ones. Collaboration to the Forum began with an invitation from the first author to suggest salient issues encountered by the contributors in their research in the workplace. Proposed topics included, among others, (the usefulness of) the concept of culture, the functions of politeness, the importance of organizational ‘face’, the role of indirectness and of personal orientation in both written and spoken communication, the interplay of power, politeness and solidarity in business in-groups. After a selection imposed by space constraints, four areas of concern emerged as dominant, namely: aspects of politeness (Section 2); the role of face in business (Section 3); English as a medium of communication (Section 4); and intra-cultural and inter-cultural communication in business (Section 5). The concluding remarks bring the various strands together and make some suggestions for future research. Research in the international and multicultural nature of business contact has already highlighted as significant some of the topics which will be discussed in Sections 2–5. For example, the literatures in cross-cultural management, intercultural communication, and cross-cultural psychology, to name but three, all confirm that cultural customs and preferences greatly affect interpersonal and inter-firm communication. In this Forum, Asian (socio)linguists and discourse analysts contribute novel insights derived from analyses of situated discursive practices in their own cultural milieux, an approach that is well established within indigenous psychologies (Allwood and Berry, 2006). In line with the nature of a Forum, the ‘voices’ of individual authors have been kept as close as possible to the original, hence the variegated stylistic texture of the Sections. While some of the authors are forerunners in the field of business discourse in their respective countries (e.g. Chew Chye Lay, Yeonkwon Jung), others have found in the multicultural history of their country a favourable terrain for sociolinguistic research (e.g. Nair-Venugopal). Before moving on to Section 2, on the role and importance of politeness in business interactions, the authors will describe their work and the disciplines and approaches that have inspired it in short self-introductions. Ora-Ong Chakorn (OC) – Thailand: I am an applied linguist and discourse analyst with a strong interest in business discourse. As a lecturer in the Graduate School of Language and Communication at NIDA (National Institute for Development Administration), I am responsible for teaching courses on English discourse


Bargiela-Chiappini et al.: Eastern voices

analysis, business communication, and ESP (English for Specific Purposes). My research interests also include genre analysis, contrastive rhetoric and narrative discourse analysis. I am now conducting a research project on the chairperson’s message in Thai corporate annual reports in times of crisis. Grace Chew Chye Lay (GC) – Vietnam: I am an independent business consultant. My interest in business communication began when I went to the United Kingdom from Vietnam to do graduate work and began to realize the differences between the Vietnamese and my fellow students, most of whom were Japanese. Prior to that, I had also worked with Japanese kaishaman (‘salarymen’). For the analysis of communication in a globalized business environment, I see it as beneficial to combine lexical semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, without disregarding the ethnographic resources of the social group under study. Yeonkwon Jung (YJ) – Korea: I am working within corporate communication using approaches from business communication and PR-related disciplines. In my work I also draw on discourse analysis, pragmatics, contrastive rhetoric and sociolinguistics. I am currently involved in researching crisis communication and business negotiation. Kenneth C.C. Kong (KK) – Hong Kong SAR: I would describe myself as a discourse analyst using an eclectic approach that includes linguistics, social psychology and communication studies. The specific areas which have influenced my work are discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and functional grammar. I am increasingly interested in the multimodal analysis of semiotic resources in business communication. Hiromasa Tanaka (HT) – Japan: I started my career as a management consultant in Tokyo. While working for my clients, mostly multinational corporations, I became interested in the role of language in business. My interest led me to take part in a part-time doctoral programme in applied linguistics. Currently I have three roles: researcher, consultant, and professor teaching curriculum development and research methodologies. Shanta Nair-Venugopal (SN-V) – Malaysia: An interculturalist by vocation, I was an applied linguist who became a professor in sociolinguistics and inter-cultural communication at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. I am equally interested in the discourse of inter-cultural communication in global and local contexts of interaction, and in the sociolinguistics of language choice and communication in business contexts. I believe that the future of research in linguistics belongs to discourse and communication.

2. Aspects of politeness FB: Attempting even a cursory review of the literature on politeness would require a separate article. A more modest but more relevant introduction to a field that has occupied scholars in a range of disciplines is a recent issue of the Journal of Politeness Research devoted to ‘Politeness at Work’ (Mills and Beeching, 2006). The range of intra- and inter-cultural analyses there included points to the relevance of a politeness analytical framework for the study of communicative


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business practices. The applications of such a framework also highlight the need for: (1) further empirical work on what constitutes ‘polite’ (or ‘impolite’) behaviour, and how it relates to corporate norms and values; (2) empirical studies of intercultural communication in business settings affected by potentially conflicting politeness codes; and (3) due consideration given to the findings of politeness research for the training of expatriates and staff in regular contact with their counterparts abroad (Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris, 2006). Some of the contributors to the Forum have recently explored politeness in the workplace (e.g. Chakorn, 2006; Chew, 2005; Jung, 2005; Kong, 2006) and provided original insights from within their respective cultures. The following Section reveals a remarkable similarity in the understanding of ‘politeness’ in five distinct Asian countries: Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong SAR and Malaysia. In the first part (2.1), the Forum addresses the contentious issue of what constitutes ‘politeness’. Again, similarities are in evidence here, rather than differences, pointing perhaps to the universal nature of the phenomenon. Western politeness scholarship introduced a dichotomy that has proved resilient to criticism and which has sought to characterize ‘polite’ behaviour as normative politeness versus strategic politeness. As it is the case for many such dichotomies (e.g. collectivism versus individualism), research has shown that the two opposite poles are in fact discrete points on a continuum: therefore, in predominantly collectivist societies normative politeness is salient, expressed especially in highly codified verbal behaviours, but it is not exclusive of strategic politeness, especially in business contexts (see 2.2). The Section ends with a mini-case study (2.3), which illustrates the sophisticated system of values and customs regulating the use of routine verbal expressions such as ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ in Vietnamese. 2.1 DEFINING POLITENESS YJ (Korea): Korean politeness is defined as ‘decorum’ or ‘modesty’ (cf. Dong-a Korean Dictionary, 2005). This definition points to politeness as consideration of or attention to the other’s feeling by showing other-respect or self-denigration. Based on this definition, ‘being polite’ in Korea means generally conforming to collectivism, hierarchy, and indirectness. This may account for native speakers’ inferences and for the construction of roles in interaction with others. In this respect, the ‘politeness perspective’ is of relevance to the study of business communication. It can help business people communicate more efficiently, for example by understanding cases of pragmatic transfer, thus avoiding a common cause of misunderstanding. GC (Vietnam): In a society influenced by Confucianism, believed to have been introduced into Vietnam in 111 BC (Duiker, 1995), being ‘polite’ (li.ch su.; lê˜ phép) means appropriate dress code, speech, behaviour and action. These aspects associated with the Confucian concept of ritual (lê˜ ) – one of the five virtues extolled by Vietnam’s neo-Confucian legacy (see Malarney, 2002). Someone who is correct in speech, dress and action is called lê˜ phép (‘polite’) and one who does not speak, dress, or act appropriately for the occasion is said to thiếu lê˜ d¯oˆ. – literally, ‘lacking a certain degree of ritual’. Generally ‘polite’ speech is directed



towards the elderly at home and outside, as well as people in the higher social and political echelons such as one’s teachers and employers. Ranks and authority are carefully observed and sometimes feared. OC (Thailand): In the Matichon Dictionary of the Thai language, politeness is defined as courtesy, good conduct or behaviour (behaving like a gentleman or a lady, e.g. showing respect to other people, avoiding unacceptable manners). It could be said that politeness in the Thai context is based on the kreng jai concept. There is no exact English equivalent for the Thai word kreng jai; the closest translation is perhaps ‘consideration’. This leads to indirect strategies for the performance of certain types of speech acts in situations where English speakers would not necessarily see the need for indirectness, since they would perceive no threat to face. Sukwiwat (1983: 205) states that kreng jai can be translated as ‘to have consideration for (someone)’ or ‘to be reluctant to impose on (someone)’. Thais value social harmony, and typically try their best to avoid arguments or conflicts in order to maintain what Sriussadaporn-Charoenngam and Jablin (1999: 384) call ‘an emotionally and physically stable environment’. Therefore, they tend to be very considerate of other people’s feelings and show respect for etiquette and protocol, which can be considered as their ‘politeness norms’. Kreng jai is especially salient in Thai status-oriented relationships, for example, of deference to authority. KK (Hong Kong SAR): The word ‘politeness’ in Chinese literally means ‘polite appearance’. Similar to Thai culture, politeness has a very strong normative component in China. If you do not do something expected by the norm, you will suffer. In Chinese, impoliteness is almost equal to lack of good upbringing. I think the normative aspect of politeness is somehow shared by many Asian countries. However, it is also interesting to underscore the fact that Chinese culture is also marked by instances of blunt behaviour towards strangers, which can be explained by the low position occupied by foreigners in the Chinese hierarchy of relationships: relatives, close friends, not quite close friends, strangers. SN-V (Malaysia): In Malaysia, despite the overt homogenizing effects of globalization and its obvious lure, mainstream culture has been dictated considerably by the cultural norms of the majority group, the Malays, the largest indigenous group, who make up more than half the total population and dominate the political scene. The hallmark of Malay culture (‘high-context’ but not in the typical Edward Hall [1976] sense) is social indirectness: like the Japanese they share an abhorrence for direct confrontation, social conflict and loss of face. Good behaviour or budi with its cluster of desirable cultural traits that safeguard face is the most valued cultural characteristic among the Malays. Genuinely Asian in origin (its roots are from the Sanskrit buddhi meaning wisdom, intellect or understanding), budi is now firmly established in the Malay lexicon to ‘include ethics, as well as intellect and reason’ (Lim, 2002); ‘budi now carries many nuances of meaning in the Malay worldview and plays a pivotal role in every aspect of Malay life’ (Lim, 2003). Like the Japanese the Malays are a ‘collectivistic’ people. Long viewed as preferring indirectness in interpersonal communication, the Malays are very


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protocol conscious and respect the social distance imposed by the hierarchical order; yet interdependence is highly valued too. Malays seem to manifest a cultural inclination and an art for interdependent talk in dealing inter-culturally with non-Malaysians and intra-culturally with other non-Malay Malaysians. Even in positions of power Malays will display both deference and solidarity in negotiations (Paramasivam, 2004), which might be interpreted as either weakness or power depending on who the other interlocutors are. Other main cultural traits of the Malays are jaga hati, which refers to the expression of concern for the feelings of others, and timbang rasa, or protection of the feelings of others, which may also be interpreted as ‘giving and saving face’. There is also bersopan santun or halus which refers to being polite, courteous and refined, and hormat, or being respectful or humble and even self-depreciating (Dahlan, 1990). 2.2 NORMATIVE VERSUS STRATEGIC POLITENESS ? FB: The shared emphasis on decorum and good manners that characterizes (the definition of) ‘politeness’ in Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Korea should not blind us to the nuances and complexity of the local realizations of ‘polite behaviour’ in everyday interaction, especially in business settings. The contributions that follow echo a growing consensus on the co-existence of both norm and strategy in polite behaviour: the former may be more salient in hierarchical cultures but is also present in more egalitarian cultures – although its manifestations are difficult to detect and interpret. Similarly, the workplace provides many examples of the interplay of normative and strategic behaviour, regardless of the corporate or national cultures shaping it. YJ (Korea): Some thoughts on politeness with ritual and social distance. We need to be careful about how we define ‘distance’. According to the Dong-a Korean Dictionary, the contextual meaning of ‘distance’ is ‘a close relationship between the two’. Korean rituals are most frequently used by interactants who are close to or like each other. However, common greetings (e.g. annyenghaseyyo? ‘How are you doing?’; mwe haseyyo ‘What are you doing?; etikaseyyo? ‘Where are you going?’; etikassta oseyyo? ‘Where have you been?’; pap mekesseyo? ‘Did you eat your meal?’) are not always expressions of social distance in Korea. Some ritual conversational routines are also used between people who are not so close or, more infrequently, between strangers (in particular between middle-aged women). Some Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs) without redress (Brown and Levinson, 1987) can serve the function of minimizing social distance. Let’s take the case of possibly the most studied face-threatening acts, ‘requests’, made baldly in a Korean company context. A request without redress, particularly between power equals, can enhance the listener’s positive face, as it is seen to emphasize a close relationship and to demonstrate respect and interest in the work of the addressee, and in his or her ability to satisfy the request. Naturally, the degree of imposition affects the degree of perceived threat. The interplay of Power and Distance (Brown and Levinson, 1987) in politeness phenomena is a noticeable feature of the Korean business context; the degree to which it affects the distribution or the choice of politeness strategies depends on the dominant corporate culture (whether Korean or western).



OC (Thailand): The Thai language expresses a high degree of sensitivity to hierarchy through subtle linguistic nuances and a complex system of pronominal reference which reflects the importance accorded to interpersonal relationships. For example, ‘Khun’ is a conventional Thai title or term of address used in both spoken and written Thai for both male and female addressees. On the surface, it is equivalent to Mr, Mrs, or Ms. While conveying a sense of respect, politeness and formality, ‘Khun’ can be perceived as normative rather than strategic. Senawong (1996: 26) explains that ‘in Thai, when it is necessary to address a person with his/her first name, the addressee has to put a title in front of the name. Apart from occupational titles and kin terms, a polite title Khun is commonly used, for example, Khun Mali, etc.’ In the social-business context, ‘Khun’ can be followed by a nickname especially in spoken discourse. In Thai business correspondence, ‘Khun’ is widely used when addressing or referring to a Thai person. It is always followed by a first name, except when one’s surname needs to be specified: the address form is then constructed as ‘Khun + First Name + Surname’. When Thais write a letter in English, they tend to use ‘Khun’ instead of Mr or Mrs when addressing a Thai person. For example, ‘For more information, please call Khun Dhanu or Khun Ornanong at [phone number] today.’ This trend is essentially culture-specific and considered unique to the Thai business context. Assuming that ‘Khun’ expresses normative politeness, the strategic way of addressing people would be the use of another term of address ‘Dhan’, which conveys an additional degree of politeness, deference and formality. However, if ‘Dhan’ is used inappropriately (and the strategic intent fails), it may show the addressor as affected and conceited. KK (Hong Kong SAR): I totally agree that politeness has a strategic aspect, which does not deny normative aspects, especially in the Chinese context. Strategic politeness is especially important in workplace discourse where people have to negotiate in order to achieve their goals. 2.3 ON SAYING ‘ THANK YOU ’ AND ‘ SORRY ’ IN VIETNAM GC: Lexical ‘equivalents’ across languages often differ in form and usage. Take the expressions for ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ in Vietnamese. Vietnamese has lexical equivalents for ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’, but more idiomatic and frequently used expressions also exist: for example, a very polite form of ‘goodbye’, consisting of the word for ‘I’ – reflecting one’s position with respect to ‘other(s)’ in the group – followed by xin phep and the honorific particle. Similarly, di nhe and many other expressions exist that translate the casual equivalent of ‘goodbye’. Various verbal and non-verbal forms exist in Vietnamese that translate ‘thank you’. The polite ‘thank you’ is expressed by the articulation of the first person pronoun selected on the basis of the speaker’s age and relation to the hearer, followed by xin (to beg, plead or request). Expressions of gratitude are used even in simple business transactions, regardless of seniority, when either the buyer or seller receives change, and especially when more change than expected, or a gratuity, is received. This contradicts Nguyên Phuong Linh’s conclusion that the Vietnamese language lacks ‘thank you’ routines (Clyne, 1994), which is based on the reality of service encounters in Vietnam. Foreigner customers accustomed to market-economy



style service, more often than not, expect to be thanked by, or apologized to, and neither cam on (‘thank you’), nor xin loi (‘sorry’) may be forthcoming. On the frequency of use of ‘thank you’ in Vietnam and Thailand, one of my informants, who commutes between Hanoi and Bangkok, notes that ‘In Bangkok, it is very different because I receive kop kun ka-ed [thank you – female speaker] and kop kun krop-ed [thank you – male speaker] TO DEATH’ (personal communication, email 10 March 2004). Tess Do (2004) explains the Vietnamese use of ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ as follows: 1) Among family members or close friends, thanking one another very often would sound too formal, creating a distance between the speakers. For the Vietnamese, to be too polite (e.g. thanking everyone quite often) is considered insincere (gia doi, khach sao, kieu cach, chot luoi dau moi). To display excellent communication skills may also be also be looked upon with suspicion. In Vietnamese, silence (or few words) and modesty are valued more than loud words. 2) Older people or people in higher authority or positions may not feel the need to say ‘thank you’ (or ‘sorry’) to those they consider as their junior or subordinate. To do so on their part would be equivalent to self-demotion (ha minh) because a junior or subordinate has an obligation or duty to serve them. A generation or so ago, most Vietnamese parents would not say ‘thank you’ to their children and certainly not ‘sorry’. To say in English, ‘sorry’ or ‘thank you’, is somehow easier and ‘lighter’ than to say in Vietnamese cam on con or xin loi con. To serve or to do something nice for one’s parents is a son or daughter’s duty (bao hieu cha me), and it is not considered a favour. 3) Some people may think that, if someone thanks them and tries to repay the debt as soon as possible, it means that they may also want to ‘forget’ the favour quickly. Returning a favour too quickly is also seen as a sign of insincerity: for a Vietnamese person, to receive a favour from someone is to be indebted for life. One can never really repay it completely. The person granting the favour can keep reminding the beneficiary of it, and expect him or her to show unfailing gratitude (mang on suot doi). Favour and debt that occur during one’s lifetime can also be carried on to the next generations (VSG, 29 July 2004). The gravity of feelings inherent in the use of ‘thank you’ explains why verbalized expression of gratitude such as cåm ơn (‘thank you’), smiles and attentive service shown by a business owner often signal that a handsome margin has been reaped from the sale. Hue-Tam also agrees with Tess Do that the Vietnamese do not easily accept favours unless pragmatic advantages are obvious (VSG, 28 July 2004). If ‘thank yous’ are not routine expressions in service encounters, ‘sorrys’ (xin loi ) are even rarer. In a Business Studies Project at the United Nations International School of Hanoi in 1999, presented to the International Baccalaureate Examination Board, high-school student Kim Yoo Na reported that her interviews with Korean corporate managers revealed that one of the sources of interpersonal conflict within



their companies was that Vietnamese workers did not readily apologize for their mistakes. A similar remark about the Vietnamese is also found on the website of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA, n.d.) in a notice for Vietnambound Japanese travellers:

(In Vietnam, where car insurance is not common, all compensation arising from traffic accidents have to be borne by the individual. Furthermore, in case you are the victim of an accident, it is often impossible to obtain compensation from the Vietnamese driver who has no financial means. In most circumstances, the driver will not admit his/her mistake, which accounts for the failure of most compensation claims). [my translation]

3. The role of ‘face’ in business FB: A discussion on politeness would not be complete without reference to the central construct of ‘face’. After its first appearance in western scholarship in a classic article by Hsien Chin Hu (1944), ‘face’ was later adapted by the American sociologist Erving Goffman (1967) and applied to the analysis of western (North American) interpersonal behaviour. More recently, anthropologists Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson turned it into the conceptual core of their seminal monograph Politeness. Some Universals in Language Use (1987). In 3.1 the contributors discuss the interplay between authority and face, and the implications of highly face-threatening actions such as blaming and apologizing in organizational contexts. Concern for own and other face also has deep implications for the analysis of communicative practices in companies and other business contexts. In 3.2 the authors turn to the influence of face issues on researcher–company relationships in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand. Issues of access, trust, rapport, relationship maintenance and field exit have all been dealt with before in the ethnographic literature but the subjects have usually been western institutions or organizations, typically studied by western researchers. 3.1

BLAME , RESPONSIBILITY AND FACE : THE ROLE OF THE CEO / SENIOR MANAGEMENT IN A CRISIS

YJ (Korea): My recent involvement in crisis communication management has led me to reflect on whether it is natural for the head of an Asian business organization to take responsibility for a crisis situation, even though it is not his or her fault. When a business organization is in crisis, it tries to restore its image through


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crisis communication management. One of the best-known ways of managing crisis communication is to make a public apology (to the stakeholders). In Korea, it is natural for the boss to take public responsibility for the company’s crisis, because s/he represents the ‘face’ of the business organization. This requires apologies that are meaningful, compassionate, and responsible. An apology can be delivered using a company name rather than the representative’s name, but an apology through a company name will be less effective, since it denotes less personal responsibility. Even though it was an employee other than the chief executive actually causing the problem in the first place, in Korea the blame is attributed to the person in charge of the business; holding the chief executive responsible helps save his/her organization’s ‘face’. This claiming of responsibility by the leader may also reflect the collective nature of the Korean culture. GC (Vietnam): Due to the gravity of articulating ‘sorry’ in Vietnamese generally (see 2.3), a likely question to be asked is: what will be the repercussions of not apologizing? Compensatory actions might be taken instead of stating formal apologies. In traditional Vietnamese businesses, which are often small, the owner/leader has the greatest decision-making power and empowerment is not commonly practised unless the ranks immediately below are trusted kin of the leader. In the case of MNCs (multinational companies), that is, jointventures, power sharing and responsibility depend on the corporate culture of the companies involved. HT (Japan): When trouble arises, Japanese people often apologize, even if it is not their fault. The illocutionary force of an apology in Japanese is to calm down the counterpart’s anger without admitting that the trouble is the speaker’s fault (Nishiyama, 1973). The following incident that I witnessed as a consultant illustrates the point. It concerns a Japanese company manager who expected an employee of a US company, the Japanese company’s counterpart, to apologize when a problem arose that was not the American’s fault but the fault of the US company’s affiliate. The conflict that ensued was most probably caused by the different notions of blame and apology as well as a different orientation (group or individual) of the individuals involved. Following group-oriented thinking, the Japanese manager expected the American employee to apologize on behalf of the US company’s affiliate; for the Japanese, the American employee, the US company, and its affiliate were ‘one’. The American did not apologize because it was not his fault but the affiliate’s fault. His thinking pattern was more individual-oriented. Eventually, the conflict between the two individuals in dispute had an adverse effect on the relationship between their companies. 3.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH HT (Japan): There have been a number of articles reporting successful practice in Japanese companies, for example: Kaizen (Quality Control) activities, Kanban (Just in Time production) system, or small group activities. If the information sought is not face threatening, Japanese companies are quite supportive of researchers. However, when data might possibly yield negative findings, Japanese corporations do not usually let researchers take their data and use them for research purposes. Senior management feel very face-threatened by a possible publication describing a



failure in their company. Even if researchers use pseudonyms, Japanese managers are often afraid that readers might still guess the company’s identity and perceive this as a potential threat to their ‘face’. GC (Vietnam): In Vietnam, access depends on the research topic. If we are studying the success story of a company, that is, the positive aspects of a business, then I am sure most companies would be willing to lend themselves as showcases. It is not advisable to approach the head of the company with a cold call. As in any other business dealings, in Vietnam it is of the utmost importance that we are recommended by someone reliable and known to both the CEO and the researcher. If our attempts fail, we might have to try other means such as getting to know the employees and seeking their assistance. For any kind of research that I do in Vietnam, I know that most, if not all people, do not like to be recorded during interviews. The alternative methods of data collection are writing down the answers – word-for-word to guarantee accuracy – and written surveys. To secure greater co-operation, the researcher will find it useful to ask someone for a recommendation letter or to go to the company with written evidence of his or her official affiliation or position. For surveys that broach on sensitive political topics, most Vietnamese will not like to respond to written surveys and the interviewer will have to resort to writing down everything. YJ (Korea): Doing research in Korean business organizations is quite difficult. A couple of years ago, I was planning to collect some written materials from a Korean business company. Since someone introduced me to the company, it was not too difficult for me to contact the individual in charge of releasing the materials. The person quickly promised to offer me the materials I had requested, but added that he would need about a month to collate them. When I visited him again a month later, nothing was available yet. I was upset, but I did not express my sentiments to save my introducer’s face, and mine too. Instead, after he finished work, I took him out for a drink to build solidarity. After an extended period of social drinking with him, I finally obtained the materials I wanted. Of course, the requested data were released based on the understanding that the contents would be treated confidentially. OC (Thailand): Regarding data collection, most Thai companies do not fully understand what discourse analysis is for and how it is done, so they are reluctant to provide data such as business letters or facsimiles to researchers who simply walk in (with or without an appointment), or write to them with a pre-paid envelope asking for samples. It is difficult to obtain anything even when the researchers can produce official letters of reference and/or other forms of identification. In my experience, Thailand is not a ‘research-friendly’ country when it comes to linguistic, applied linguistic and discourse analytic research because unlike scienceand technology-related research, language-related research is not considered as ‘high impact’ work. As a result, there is a limited arena for researchers in the field. Most Thais do not know what linguists, applied linguists or discourse analysts do, and do not have easy access to their research. People are more interested in language skills development. The key to obtaining data from Thai business organizations is perhaps, as in Korea, through connections. Things are much easier if you know someone in the organization who can help you collect the data you need.


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4. English as a medium of communication FB: The contributions that follow, on the use of English in business contexts in various Asian countries, do not seem to be affected by the critical debates surrounding ‘English as the international language of business’. Critique is not (yet) seen as a priority in academic communities where language-based research in organizational settings is still in its infancy (e.g. Korea, Japan, Vietnam). Research can be hampered by issues of access, as in many western countries, but also of perceived relevance and usefulness (see 3.2). The role and importance of English for communication with the rest of the business world is largely taken for granted. Controversies surrounding the interplay between English and the native languages, and which variety of English should be used in business, are still largely the preserve of western scholarship (see Bargiela-Chiappini, 2006 for a review of current debates). A noticeable exception is the work of Nair-Venugopal (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006). 4.1 THE ROLE OF ENGLISH IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS HT (Japan): The position of English in Japanese business is changing fast; it is becoming more and more crucial in various industries. A growing number of cross-border mergers and alliances in Japan are creating the need for Englishspeaking employees. Good command of English is believed to be critical by senior executives who have access to a broader, medium-term perspective on business while other employees struggle to see the relevance of English to their work, especially if it does not require the use of a foreign language. GC (Vietnam): The discrepancy outlined by HT above is unlikely to happen in Vietnam where the key to career success and a higher and a better pay package in a foreign joint-venture is to know the language(s) spoken by the managers of the foreign company and its customers. The problem lies in the linguistic ability of the employees and the high tuition fees rather than in their motivation to learn. YJ (Korea): Korea is a monolingual society. The same is true for Korean businesses. The Korean language is used in the majority of Korean firms. Korean business people sometimes mix English with Korean. This is the case when English jargon is used to facilitate work. However, English is becoming a more and more prestigious language in Korea (e.g. for promotion at work; for entering top universities, etc.). The place of English in Korea is somewhere between a second language and a foreign language, probably closer to the former. Korean parents make every effort to improve their children’s knowledge of English and large numbers of Korean university students go abroad to learn English. OC (Thailand): In Thailand, English is still a foreign language, but it is increasingly vital in almost every field (e.g. education, business, diplomacy, IT, hospitality, and even sports). Many Thais use English loan words in their speech and writing. I do not see this as code-switching because it is not evident enough. In many cases, grammatical categories are used incorrectly such as verbs instead of adjectives, or adjectives instead of nouns. Nowadays, many young Thais from well-to-do families either study in international schools or go abroad for all levels of study. The ability to understand and use English can place a person among the Thai elites.



4.2 ENGLISH VIS - A - VIS OTHER LANGUAGES IN BUSINESS CONTEXTS GC (Vietnam): In Vietnam, English has become number one in importance as the foreign language for business. Everyone knows that learning a foreign language such as English will help further one’s career, enhance one’s contacts network, boost one’s knowledge and status (e.g. access to information on the web) and ultimately lead to a bigger pay package. The recommended number of years of English tuition at school is now 10. It is widely learnt at English language centres but unfortunately not all English courses are good enough to prepare individuals for work. Most are textbook-based, although this is rapidly changing. However, other foreign languages also recommended by the education ministry are French, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean and Russian, based on conspicuous foreign investments in Vietnam. English remains the most important business language in joint-ventures but Vietnamese is still the dominant language of domestic business. SN-V (Malaysia): English remains, as the language of colonial legacy, the normative choice for Malaysian industry and commerce (with Malay being used more widely and Chinese less so today) but it is more than evident as I show in my earlier work (Nair-Venugopal, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2006) that the standard usage of the old colonial heritage is giving way to localized norms of literacy and use on the ground, much to the hapless consternation of gatekeepers (the government included) who have been singing the ineffectual mantra of standard ‘international’ English – whatever that means. More recent research (Yuen, forthcoming) also shows how localized and even clichéd language use is beginning to buck attempts at reasserting standard English usage in the workplace in the face of the evolution of new forms of emerging norms of literacy in the Malaysian workplace; a result of the natural processes of language change and variation, driven largely by the engine of education in Malay. And it is timely to say here (before section 4.3 which deals with business writing styles and the influence of English), that this localized variety of English, or Malaysian English, does not appear to pose any tangible risk to intelligibility even for expatriates. Indeed, it is the socio-cultural dimensions of the speech situation and the speech event that appear to determine intelligibility in business contexts in Malaysia as they presumably do elsewhere too. KK (Hong Kong SAR): Hong Kong offers an interesting perspective here. As a former British colony, English enjoys a unique role in Hong Kong in that it is the language of business. This is not only true of communication between Hong Kong and other countries but also of inter-firm communication. This issue has become more complex after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Now, Putonghua, the national language of China, has become important especially when dealing with clients in mainland China. What I find most interesting is the code-switching across three different languages (Cantonese, Putonghua and English); it is also evident that when a speaker code-switches, he or she always does it for interactional purposes. HT (Japan): English has become the dominant language in Japan even in corporations from non-English speaking countries. For example, Michelin Japan changed their official languages from French and Japanese to English and


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Japanese in 1998. Since 1997, their job interviews have been conducted in English (Yoshihara et al., 2001). Currently most Japanese affiliates of European multinational corporations use English instead of the language of their respective countries. Chinese is becoming the second most important language in some manufacturing sectors although its importance is relatively small compared to English. My data from a large automobile manufacturer show that 80 percent of the company’s budget for foreign language training is spent on English tuition and 20 percent on Chinese. Two-thirds of engineers in the overseas section of an electrical engineering company use English and one-third Chinese. However, when Japanese senior executives discuss business with their Chinese counterparts they tend to use English. 4.3 BUSINESS WRITING STYLES AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH OC (Thailand): Muntasutra-Paengpipat (1997) divides Thai letters into three main categories: personal, business and governmental. The basic differences between business and governmental correspondence are common knowledge among Thai people, and are worth noting in brief. In Thailand, the governmental sector, consisting of various ministries, has a different style of letter writing from the private or business sector. The symbol of Garuda (an Asian mythical bird) is always printed as a crest in the top middle section of the letter. Most letters in this category are typically used in the Thai bureaucratic context. They are written in formal Thai (known as official Thai) by government officials, and need to be reviewed, approved of and copied to file before sending to Thai recipients in either the public or the private sector. Business letters are those exchanged by Thai business professionals. They use less formal language and do not have fixed formats and specific features like governmental letters. Letters written in English by Thai officials are different from those written in Thai as they do not follow Thai stylistic patterns, and are generally more flexible. They tend to drop the fixed formats and keep only a few features such as the code name. The Garuda crest is also used less frequently. In my corpus of English business correspondence collected from a number of Thai offices, there is a small number of governmental letters, not all of which follow the fixed Thai formats and styles of writing. They would have been written in a different way if they were in Thai, using the official register which is very deferential, distant, and topicoriented. Note that the Thai language has various registers, some of which (e.g. official Thai) cannot be directly translated into English. YJ (Korea): Korean business writing generally adopts a ‘we-orientation’, as Koreans prefer to use inclusive pronouns in casual conversation (e.g. wuli hakkyo ‘our school’, wuli jip ‘our house’). However, they also display ‘other-orientation’ depending on contextual factors such as the medium used or social distance. In general, I/you pronouns are avoided in Korean, and this also applies to business contexts. However, when the social distance between interactants is small, the ‘I–you orientation’ is preferred, also in business, particularly when communicating through a less formal medium such as email.



Some Korean business people appear to be influenced by a certain western rhetorical style. I remember the case of a Korean manager who in his speech untypically chose to start from the conclusion before moving on to the main content. GC (Vietnam): In Vietnamese business writing, the exclusive ‘we’ (chung toˆ i, referring to ‘my group and I’, excluding the addressee of the document) is used for formal letters. The use of ‘I’ is prevalent when the language is English. A Vietnamese working in a joint-venture and using English for business communication will use ‘I’ but when switching to Vietnamese, he or she is very likely to change to the exclusive ‘we’ (chung toˆ i).

5. Intra- and inter-cultural communication in business FB: It is appropriate to conclude the Forum with a Section contrasting eastern and western communicative practices. The insights that the contributors have shared thus far on communication in Asian business provide a natural backdrop to the encounter between the two cultural paradigms. The generalizations that emerge from broad-brush depictions of cultures, within the scope and constraints of a modest Forum, tend to concentrate on noticeable differences; but as we saw in earlier Sections, similarities are equally remarkable, if less expected. Through increased business contact, the dominance of anglophone models of management and communication and the advances of technology are slowly translating into progressively more similar patterns of mediated and face-to-face interaction. In this Section, the authors speculate on some of the ‘peculiarities’ of their native cultures that struck them as they pursued their research in business settings. As space is a major constraint here, we invite readers to explore in more depth the work of each contributor in their recent publications (e.g. Chakorn, 2006; Chew, 2005; Kong, 2006; Nair-Venugopal, 2006; Tanaka, 2006). HT (Japan): The interplay of politeness and power characterizes intercultural business communication. For example, when GC describes the Vietnamese as direct their behaviour can be explained using Brown and Levinson’s concept of bald on record, which is the want to perform a Face Threatening Act (FTA) with maximum efficiency. The indirectness attributed to the Japanese could also be seen as expressing their want to preserve the face of their business partner(s), by using off record strategies. However when I observe intra-organizational communication in Japan, senior employees often come across as very direct and critical of their junior employees, particularly during training sessions. This seems to relate to the power relation between them. When equally powerful people interact or when a person communicates with a more powerful interlocutor, off record or negative politeness (the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his or her action be unimpeded by others) seems to be expected in Japanese business settings. GC (Vietnam): In my extensive conversations with the Australian employees of a Japanese company (Chew, 2006), the Australians declared themselves shocked by the behaviour of Japanese senior managers ‘going overboard’ with reprimands. The Japanese see work as an obligation; therefore if a job is not done properly, they



have the right to ‘blast out’ at a fellow worker – but not one of a higher status – thus temporarily setting aside ‘face’ issues. In the case of the Vietnamese, I am not totally confident that Brown and Levinson’s ‘bald-on-record’ (a potential cause of face threat) can define behaviour such as the Vietnamese choice of asking personal questions in conversation with foreigners. To the Vietnamese, this is a justifiable approach, a way of life; therefore personal questions cannot be classified as ‘face threatening’ in Vietnam. However if foreigners are new to Vietnamese customs they can be very offended by being approached in an over-familiar way. KK (Hong Kong SAR): In the American work culture, it is quite unacceptable to give blunt directives, even to one’s subordinates. This is the reason why a range of strategies can be found in HK where managers have been influenced by diverse interactional styles (from Mainland China, America, Britain). For example, I received a telephone call at work one morning when I was very busy. The woman on the phone introduced herself with ‘I’m Susan. I am wondering if you are busy now’. I found her approach annoying because I did not know her and I was expecting to be told at least her affiliation and perhaps the purpose of the call. This incident struck me as a rather ‘Chinese way’ of asking somebody to do something: quite indirect and expressing deference to an addressee of higher hierarchical status. Chinese people can also be very blunt to strangers; ultimately, the communication style a manager adopts reflects the degree of western influence and the hierarchical position of the interlocutor(s). The data I collected in companies in mainland Chinese contexts do not contain blunt directives, which suggests that the type of business and its location play a significant role in interactional styles in business contexts. I found that managers in Hong Kong can be direct, or indirect, depending on the firm type: for example, bosses in legal firms tend to be very direct when giving orders. Bosses in smaller firms tend to be more indirect, instead using the Chinese argumentative logic. OC (Thailand): Western business people who are not accustomed to the Thai way of life can be easily bewildered when they walk into a typical Thai office and see Buddha images on little shrines decorated with delicate flower garlands. Most Thai offices bear the white marks on the door or the wall of the main entrance as a sign of having been blessed by the Buddhist monks. Buddhism is often regarded as part of Thai people’s lives, both personal and professional. Monarchy and Buddhism are two main institutions of the Thai society. Although Thailand is now ruled by an elected government led by a prime minister acting under a constitution, the present king, King Rama IX, remains the most important figure of the kingdom. The Thai society is considered hierarchical; social hierarchy is marked by a system of grading interpersonal factors such as age, social status, family or educational background and occupational position. In a Thai office, the furniture can also represent the status of the employee in the company. For example, a low-level office worker normally has a plain desk and a small chair in a corner either at the front entrance or at the far end of the room whereas a high-level employee has a bigger chair and desk in a better location, or sometimes has his/ her own room. In their study of communicative competence in Thai companies, Sriussadaporn-Charoenngam and Jablin (1999: 409) point out that ‘for Thais,



communicative competence was associated with knowing when, where and with whom to express respectful manner in the organization, knowledge of chain of command communication, knowing how to communicate with and honour senior organizational members and show respect for their experience’. As part of business culture, Thai business people do give presents to their clients especially on occasions such as New Year. The choice of presents depends on the business relationship or the importance of the clients. According to interviews conducted in the field, some American expatriates misinterpret this custom and condemn it as illegal. If they do give presents, in their choice of presents Americans tend not to differentiate, in accordance to Thai business norms, between socialbusiness relationships and status-related relationships. Thais view this situation as uncomfortable and embarrassing. SN-V (Malaysia): I am struck by the convergence in the views expressed so far with respect to cultural norms vis-a-vis politeness and face-work. I believe (although it may be a stereotypical view of the Far East) that despite the differences of history, political and socio-cultural ideology and perhaps even everyday cultural and discourse practices, the people of Japan and Korea (and mainland China) at the very least, if not Vietnam and Hong Kong too, share more of the prototypical Asian values than a country like Malaysia (or even Singapore for that matter). One cannot ignore the fact that the ‘homogeneous’ nature of these societies in relation to language, mainstream cultural and ethnic composition makes for a more ’unified’ understanding of their cultural norms and practices which naturally impinge on discourse practices. Such sites seem to be intrinsically wired for cross-cultural communication and behaviour with ‘aliens’. However, I believe they may not have the same potential for intercultural behaviour that a country like Malaysia has given its large minority mix at a little under 40 percent of the total population. This may hold true for Singapore too, albeit to a lesser extent, given its mixed ethnic population and a considerable expatriate/migrant labour force. But having said that, all nations big and small, homogeneous or heterogeneous, are equally subject in this age of apparently equal media and communication technological opportunities to the same forces and threats of globalization (even if to varying degrees), that is, acculturation through cultural osmosis and reproduction. And many workplaces in the so called Far East, South-East Asia and South Asia have assumed the same mantle or at least veneer of sameness as in western sites mainly due to the global influence of western liberal capitalism in calling the shots, as it were, and in the rush to serve international markets. The signs are everywhere – from normative western styles of power dressing in the workplace (witness the suit for both men and women or the jacket for men, in sweltering South-East Asian temperatures, for instance), to English as the prevailing normative language choice, to after-work socializing and interaction styles and western management and business communication styles in the workplace. Indeed there was a time in the late 20th century when it seemed that we could not get nearly enough western management ‘mahagurus’ on to a plane to inspire us. Of course, like all bubbles these burst too when Asians realized that while we


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could accept and imbibe the universals we still had to deal with the particulars. In mainly Muslim Malaysia, for instance, one would be quite hard pressed to get males and females to hug (let alone kiss) each other openly after an evangelical, rally-type American management training session or even join hands to sing the signature song despite its psychological merits. Once the novelty wore off it was time for reflection and introspection and invariably back to business as usual in responding to cultural and socio-political specificities; whether injunctions governing social interaction between superiors and peers, or the pervasive use of religious icons and cultural markings even in modern offices as in Thailand, or the observance of dietary restrictions at company functions in Malaysia, or the culture-specific manners and kinesics of interpersonal communication between colleagues and between clients everywhere in Asia. But now in a rather quirkily ironic reinvention of the end game, other ‘mahagurus’ peddle ‘new’ management skills based on Sun Tze Wu’s ancient martial philosophy and even the secrets of Genghis Khan’s successful conquests. Globalization appears to have come full circle to Asia! But there is also evidence of the more vaunted effects of globalization: for instance, the shift towards flatter organizational structures and more open networks and autonomous teams, with their implications for the salience of social identity in intercultural communication. ‘The need for collegiality and rapport in relation to social identity overrides the need to conform to cultural norms’ (Jaganathan, 2006), attesting to the interplay of normative versus strategic communicative behaviour. Field research also points to a decline in overt powermarking in the Malaysian organizations investigated, consonant with the perceived flattening of hierarchical power structures.

6. Concluding remarks The keen interest of the contributors in the application of a politeness analytical framework to business communication reflects renewed trends in politeness theory research, especially within cultures other than the anglophone ones. In some Asian contexts socio-cultural values that have (apparently) become less salient in the West (seniority, religion, family) are laced with politeness and face-saving concerns in ways that cannot be readily extrapolated without losing sight of the multifaceted cultural nature of business interactions. In intracultural contact mutual adaptation and understanding through (assumed) shared knowledge can be achieved through relatively limited interactional accommodation; in inter-cultural situations there are further layers of additional baggage to be negotiated, even when the interactants are experienced professionals in their field with prior exposure to the international business scene. In this latter scenario, sensitivity to covert and overt ‘difference’, be it in terms of cultural preferences or taboos, negotiating techniques or the extent of expected relational work, can be helped by an awareness of interactional aspects of behaviour that politeness analysts have highlighted and subjected to extensive study in the last three decades. Moreover, in many Asian societies, ‘face’ is a concept that is familiar beyond academic circles and is attended to in everyday conversation.



The examples quoted by the contributors to the Forum demonstrate how ‘face’ can be usefully integrated in a context-sensitive, micro-analytical framework for intercultural business interactions. As well as this, ‘face’ can be an obstacle to scholars new to field research in (Asian) business organizations. Business is a notoriously difficult environment for linguists and discourse analysts to work in, especially if companies and managers see no personal gain from interviews, observation, recordings and other equally ‘face-threatening’ practices (see Section 3.2). In this respect Thai and Japanese companies are no exception; the importance of internal contacts and trustbuilding practices are as valid in Vietnamese and Korean companies, respectively, as they are for researchers seeking to collaborate with western companies. In corporate contexts, partnership research between academics and business professionals may only be possible when the former are acting as consultants (see Hiromasa Tanaka and Grace Chew Chye Lay, this article). There is little doubt that the importance attached to hierarchy and status in Asian organizational contexts is a complicating factor in the process of seeking to make contact with a company, not to mention establishing a long-term relationship that may eventually lead to the much sought-after ‘data’. In the West, the credentials of the researcher and the pedigree of his or her university would be determining factors in securing an audience to discuss a mutually beneficial research proposal. It is perhaps not surprising that the relatively recent penetration and spreading of English as a foreign language in certain Asian societies (e.g. Vietnam, Korea and Japan) is not yet seen as a development deserving critical appraisal. In former British colonial territories, however, the pressure exerted by growing indigenous linguistic awareness has created a fertile ground for the affirmation of local identities through the deployment of equally efficient and effective emerging varieties of English, or through code-mixing (see the findings by Shanta NairVenugopal, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003a and b, 2004, 2006). A communicative style is at least partly influenced by the language used: in English, it is hard to do justice to the complex system of address forms present in Thai or Vietnamese; rendering the same level of deference or formality expected in some Asian languages would require a process of stylistic ‘complexification’ which is unknown to modern English. For all the commendations for clarity and transparency that it attracts in the prescriptive business communication literature, English carries a cultural baggage that is nowhere more invisible, yet pervasive – as well as widely and often unconditionally accepted – than in management discourse and practice. The word ‘management’ often needs a phrase to be effectively translated in other languages – and its ideological roots remain impenetrable to most. As an unprecedented example of spacing and time engineering (Hoskin, 2004), management builds on North American and Northern European cultural notions of space, time, value, human relations and organization. MBA courses and business schools in the 1980s and 1990s have trained an elite of managers and executives who have spread the Anglo-Saxon world-view with the zeal and conviction of religious missionaries. It will be interesting to see whether management can be subjected to acculturation in Asian organizations, a process from which new indigenous forms of organizing could emerge.


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152 Discourse & Communication 1(2) Watts, R. (2003) Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yoshihara, H., Okabe, Y. and Sawaki, S. (2001) Eigo de keisei suru jidai [International Management in English]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku. Yuen, Chee Keong (forthcoming) ‘Ringing the Changes: A Study of Language Variation and Use in the Business Correspondence of Executives in a Financial Institution in Malaysia’, PhD research currently being undertaken at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

F R A N C E S C A B A R G I E L A - C H I A P P I N I is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University. She has published widely on business discourse and is the editor of The Handbook of Business Discourse (forthcoming). [email: francesca. [email protected]] O RA - O N G C H A KO R N

is a lecturer in the Graduate School of Language and Communication at the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) in Bangkok, Thailand. She received a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Warwick, England. Her main research interests are cross-cultural discourse analysis and genre analysis. [email: [email protected]]

G R A C E C H E W C H Y E L AY is an independent business consultant. In her analyses of the globalized business environment, she is trying to marry classical lexical semantics and pragmatics with discourse analysis, without disregarding the ethnographical profile of the social group under study. [email: [email protected]]

is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Korea University. He holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and a MA from University of Hawaii. His research work has appeared in Genre Variation in Business Letter Writing and Asian Business Discourse(s). [email: [email protected]]

YEON KWON JUNG

K E N N E T H C . C . K O N G is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University. His current research interests include intercultural business communication, discourse analysis and visual semiotics. He has published extensively in these areas. [email: [email protected]]

Formerly Professor in Sociolinguistics and Intercultural Communication in the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, UKM, S H A N TA N A I R - V E N U G O PA L is currently affiliated to the Institute of Occidental Studies, UKM, as research associate. Her publications include books, chapters and articles in international journals. She sits on the editorial boards of JAPC and ESP Across Cultures. [email: [email protected]] ( H I R O ) TA N A K A is Professor at Meisei University, Tokyo, as well as a consultant/ trainer for various business corporations. His research interests include English and intercultural communication curriculum development in business corporations. Since 1999 Hiro has completed educational needs analysis projects for several multi-national companies in Japan. [email: [email protected]]

HIROMASA


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