Developing Professionals’ Linguacultural Competence in the Classroom

Abstract

English as a business lingua franca (BELF) is the shared language used in the business domain by speakers with different L1s. Crossing political and linguistic borders, BELF communication is context-specific and inherently transcultural (Camerer & Mader, 2012; Louhiala-Salminen et al., 2005).
Therefore, a fundamental requirement for BELF users is linguacultural competence; the ability to communicate successfully with people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Kazemian et al., 2022; Louhiala-Salminen et al., 2005). In the Chinese context, cultural issues have been reported to be the second most difficult aspect of BELF communication (behind understanding different accents) (Du, 2021). However, there is very little theoretical, pedagogical, or practical research about how to execute BE training for job-experienced BELF users, particularly relating to linguacultural competence. Therefore, a novel conceptual framework – the linguacultural competence (LCC) framework – was created, specifically aimed at developing the LCCs of job-experienced BELF users. This study reports on how the framework was developed, validated, and implemented pedagogically. It is hoped that the findings of this study can inform BE pedagogy for active, job-experienced learners and users to enable them to conduct business transculturally with efficiency, precision, and success.

Link to publication in Asia TEFL

Link to publication in Scopus