An exploration of business genres and business languages in the online communication of companies operating in multilingual markets.
(2025) PLIN Linguistic Day 2025 — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve (18.April.2025)
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- Abstract
- Business communication serves many purposes and involves numerous participants (Mayfield et al., 2020). In accordance with their specific aims and targeted public(s), companies communicate using different textual resources which have been classified into business genres based on various criteria including a) communicative function or purposes, b) topic, c) outward structure and d) linguistic forms (Janich, 2017; see also Bhatia, 2004). In the last few decades, electronic communication has gained momentum (Beer, 2017) and a wide range of business genres have been made available on online communication channels (e.g. websites, social media). These genres are part of the internal or external communication of companies and can be available in one or more languages. Although much research has been conducted on the use of business English as a lingua franca (BELF) (Aichhorn & Puck, 2017 ; Cucchi, 2019), few studies have examined the use of BELF and other languages in the external communication of companies operating in multilingual markets, for example in countries with multiple official or national languages. This poster reports on a PhD project that specifically sets out to examine the business genres that feature in the online external communication of companies that operate in multilingual markets, with a special focus on the languages used. The poster presents the background to the PhD project, the research questions addressed as well as the data (e.g. online channels, criteria for the selection of the companies under scrutiny) and methodology (quantitative and qualitative approaches) that will be used. The research aims to identify which genres (e.g. annual report, job offer, product presentation, advertisement) are available in which languages on a number of online external communication channels (i.e. website, Instagram, LinkedIn) of companies in three European multilingual markets, namely Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The project will provide insights into companies’ strategic use of their online external communication genres. It will explore the goals pursued and the publics targeted in the various channels and genres. In addition, it will seek to examine (1) the extent to which the external communication investigated is “integrated”, that is “consistent in terms of content and language” but also “coordinated and aligned among the different media” (Janich, 2017: 51), as well as (2) the extent to which the companies under scrutiny project a uniform corporate identity and how they use language(s) as a part of this identity in the genres included on their online channels.
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Citations
Detienne, F. (2025). An exploration of business genres and business languages in the online communication of companies operating in multilingual markets. PLIN Linguistic Day 2025, Louvain-la-Neuve.