The Economics of the Multilingual Workplace

François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo, François Vaillancourt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136978289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book proposes a path-breaking study of the economics of multilingualism at work, proposing a systematic approach to the identification and measurement of the ways in which language skills and economic performance are related.

Using the instruments of economic investigation, but also explicitly relating the analysis to the approaches to multilingualism at work developed in the language sciences, this interdisciplinary book proposes a systematic, step-by-step exploration of the issue. Starting from a general identification of the linkages between multilingualism and processes of value creation, it reviews the contributions of linguistics and economics before developing a new economic model of production in which language is taken into account. Testing of the model using data from two countries provides quantitative estimations of the influence of multilingualism on economic processes, showing that foreign language skills can make a considerable contribution to a country's GDP. These findings have significant implications for language policy and suggest strategies helping language planners to harness market forces for increased effectiveness.

A technical appendix shows how the novel technical and statistical procedures developed in this study can be generalized, and applied wherever researchers or decision makers need to identify and measure the value of multilingualism.

Part I
The Economic Perspective on Multilingualism

The first part of the book proposes a general introduction to the way in which economists look at language and multilingualism. The emphasis is placed on multilingualism at work, which is only a subset of the wider field of language economics. We address questions such as: why do languages matter economically? How does the economic perspective on language at work differ from other approaches, particularly those developed in applied linguistics? We then critically review existing survey results on multilingualism at work, before taking a closer look at language-based earnings differentials, which constitute exhibit number one in the case that foreign languages are economically valuable.

1
Language at Work

Identifying the Issue

1.1 ENDURING CONCERNS, LITTLE-KNOWN PROCESSES

Objective and Subjective Diversity

The rising interest in multilingualism, across various disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities, probably reflects widespread but ambivalent perceptions of linguistic diversity and its importance, and the sphere of work is one of the terrains where this ambivalence is most in evidence. Indeed, one question must be settled before we proceed: is multilingualism an increasingly important phenomenon, gaining currency as the bundle of processes often called “globalisation” is gaining ground? Or does globalisation essentially abet the role of one hegemonic language, eroding multilingualism to a mere set of bilingual pairs combining the hegemonic language with a local one? Strangely, there seems to be little interaction between proponents of either view, with the result that two independent lines of discourse are deployed with few opportunities for them to be confronted, let alone reconciled.

On one side, many scholars remind us that multilingualism is an ever more common feature of modern societies, and it has become a dominant theme running through sociolinguistics, the sociology of language and much of the literature in the communication sciences, with contributions addressing the issues in very different perspectives (see for example Edwards, 1994; Cigada, Gilardoni and Matthey, 2001; House and Rehbein, 2004; Hellinger and Pauwels, 2007, etc.), not to mention the abundant literature on cultural (as distinct from linguistic) diversity in contemporary societies. Numerous journals are devoted to the study of multilingualism.¹ Multilingualism has therefore acquired the position of a central, self-evident theme in the language disciplines, in which research now goes beyond the acknowledgement that languages are always in contact, and questions the very notion of languages as discrete constructs, emphasising instead communication competencies that draw on a continuum of skills straddling many languages (see for example Coste, 2002; Lüdi and Theme, 2002; Heller, 2007a).

On the other hand, several commentators tell us that linguistic diversity is eroding and that languages are disappearing (at least in the form of inherited systems of communication used by native speakers on an everyday basis) at a fast pace. Most lament the fact and call for a greater awareness of the loss this entails (see for example Crystal, 2000; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000; Martí et al., 2006); the power implications of the linguistic hegemony that gathers pace along with the demise of small languages have long been exposed (Gobard, 1976; Phillipson, 1992, 2003b; May, 2001). Others, however, see the decline of linguistic diversity as a natural, possibly inevitable process (De Swaan, 2001), sometimes insisting that this process has positive aspects (Jones, 2000; van Parijs, 2004b).

That linguistic diversity is simultaneously seen as increasing by some and decreasing by others may look like a paradox, which can be resolved by making a distinction between objective and subjective diversity (Grin, 2003a). Objective diversity, as measured by the number of languages currently spoken or by the variety of cultural systems associated with them, is most certainly declining. At the same time, subjective diversity, that is, the diversity that we are confronted with in our everyday lives, is probably higher for a larger proportion of people than ever before. This constant encounter with otherness is the result of the reassertion of long-suppressed local and regional identities, of large-scale migration flows and, again, of what is often referred to as “globalisation”.

Although globalisation is a somewhat catch-all word, the intensification of the international trade in goods and services around the world is usually seen as one of its undisputed features. Over the past 25 years, the value of international trade in nominal terms has been multiplied almost ninefold (from USD 2,231 billion in 1983 to USD 19,694 billion in 2008), significantly outpacing the growth of the world economy, which has multiplied about fivefold over the same period². The share of traded goods and services in the world economy has increased from 18.4% in 1983 to 32.4% in 2006. Although this connection has never been explicitly measured, it is very likely that such a massive rise in international trade increases the frequency of contact with people speaking other languages and therefore increases subjective diversity.

Thus, linguistic diversity is probably both increasing and decreasing. The former trend is reflected in the rising number of situations where we are confronted with various languages, while the latter can be observed in the rising number of situations where one dominant language, often English, is used instead of other languages for intergroup or international communication. Both trends can be observed in the workplace, which probably explains why issues such as the use of language in multilingual work settings, the way people with different linguistic backgrounds interact when working together, and the various strategies that companies can develop to ensure communication between management and employees have for a long time intrigued researchers from different disciplines.

Language in the Workplace: Contrasting Perspectives

Against this backdrop, one interesting development, particularly since the early 1990s, is the widely shared acceptance of the notion that language skills are relevant not just as part of a well-rounded education, but as an increasingly critical condition of access to financially and intellectually rewarding jobs—or, in fact, for access to a job at all in a growing range of economic sectors. Let us leave aside for now the descriptive surveys on multilingualism at work, which we review in Chapter 3, and the analytical economics literature, some of which is assessed in Chapters 3 and 4. We may note that although much of the published research about the usefulness of language skills at work focuses on the role of English (Cremer and Willes, 1991; Garzone and Ilie, 2007), many authors stress the importance of languages other than English (Lüdi and Heiniger, 2005), sometimes pointing out that English-speaking countries neglect other languages at their peril (Connell, 2002; Graddol, 2006).

The interest in multilingualism at work reaches well beyond academic circles, and the language skills required for the efficient discharge of one’s professional duties is a topic of interest for the media and the general public too. Clearly, the notion that language skills matter in a work context carries major implications for the education system, whether in terms of the choice of languages to teach or how best to teach them, to whom and up to what level of fluency. These issues are taken up again in Part III of this book, where we discuss the policy implications of our findings. But the widely shared interest in language at work probably also reflects the simple fact that language is at the very heart of all human activity and that this fact is particularly evident in the sphere of work, which nearly always involves language-based communication. Most solitary work requires the use of language too, even if it is confined to interaction with suppliers and clients. Although it is possible to think of some examples where work is truly and fully silent, they will typically be rather marginal cases.³

It is therefore unsurprising that language at work keeps attracting interest from various corners. However, the existence of this common interest is at the source of an enduring ambiguity, namely, the belief that the question is a straightforward one and that all the scholars studying “language at work” are necessarily interested in the same thing. In fact, they are not, and the realisation that an apparently well-defined theme actually takes the form of diverse (sometimes even diverging) concerns and interests provides, in large part, the impetus for this book. Our aim here is to look at language at work in a somewhat unusual manner.

Contrary to the bulk of linguistic research that studies multilingualism at work, this book is not chiefly concerned with describing observed language practices in a particular company or team. In the same way, our analysis of these practices is not structured around the strategies and motivations of actual individual actors with first names like Paul or Beatrice, observed in situ when working with colleagues who speak different languages. We shall not be particularly interested in specific instances of communication in multilingual settings, or in the interplay between the linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions of these processes. Accordingly, the ways in which linguistic and communicative competence is developed (possibly, as claimed by proponents of interactionist perspectives, as a result of a collaborative effort between speakers) are no concern of this book—although we discuss them in Chapter 2, if only to explain how and why our approach is different. And companies’ spending on foreign language teaching to their staff is not central to our approach either.

The topics just listed, which attempt to capture, even if roughly, the gist of the questions that inspire much of the published literature on “language at work”, reflect the typical concerns of many applied linguists, which may be characterised (admittedly with some simplification) as an ethnography of language practices at work, where economic variables are treated as merely contextual. In Chapter 2, these strands of research are briefly reviewed, but we may already note that interesting as they are, they do not shed light on another class of questions, which have to do with economic processes and the way in which they may be affected by linguistic processes.

It is in fact striking that despite their insistence on revealing the meaning of human action, the perspectives just mentioned leave out economic variables that are supposedly fundamental and constitute the driving force behind all economic activity, and presumably contribute to make human action understandable. For example, variables like market share, cost, revenue and profit are wholly absent from this literature beyond, at best, a mere mention of the fact that such variables do come into play. If we agree that at the end of the day, the business of business is business, and that firms, big or small, are set up in order to generate profits and only survive if they do, it is plausible to assume that this literally essential dimension will have an impact on all aspects of productive activity and that language use at work is no exception. Putting it differently, the study of multilingualism at work raises the question of how multilingualism affects variables like productivity, costs and profits. Accordingly, it is likely that some key dimensions of language use at work will simply be overlooked if the economic processes at hand are not identified, let alone included in the analysis.⁴

Furthermore, these processes are very likely to influence employers’ demand for particular language skills. If we make the rather straightforward assumption that people’s decisions to learn languages respond, at least in part, to signals from the labour market, including signals regarding the foreign language skills that are in demand at a particular time in a particular place, it seems obvious that economic processes are not only contextual. Rather, we might say that we can hardly expect to understand language learning processes and the corresponding macro-level language dynamics without paying adequate attention to the economic variables at stake.

These issues, however, have remained surprisingly under-researched, and the aim of this book is to fill this gap, at least in part. Our approach, therefore, deliberately departs from the mainstream applied linguistics research on language at work. It is rooted in economics, with distinct concerns and goals. This book is concerned with understanding how language variables (particularly those that reflect the fact that a work setting is, in some way or other, multilingual) affect economic variables such as costs and profits, as well as the processes, first and foremost production, through which the values taken by those variables are defined. These core economic variables constitute our “entry point” into the issue of languages at work, and they will lead us to identify questions that are fundamentally different from those that the applied linguistics literature and its many specialisations usually address.

Specificity of the Economic Approach

Economic analysis introduces a clear hierarchy of concerns in the study of the behaviour of actors, and the firm is assumed to be ultimately interested in profit, all other matters being instrumental in the maximisation of profit. Obviously, a company is composed of men and women of flesh and blood, harbouring all kinds of interests, passions and values, operating in a politically, socially and economically defined context which typically takes the form of norms or expectations constraining the actors’ actual degree of autonomy. Though these points are well-taken, they are also regarded, from an economic standpoint, as rather self-evident. Reminding readers of the existence of social relations or cultural constraints is fine and well, but it is so obvious that it does not, per se, greatly increase our understanding of the fundamental processes at hand. Furthermore, all the attention typically lavished, in some fields of specialisation, on the case-specific, possibly idiosyncratic features of multilingual communication in a particular setting (like a particular work meeting at the headquarters of one particular company) often gets in the way of a distinct, arguably overarching goal, namely, the attempt to tease out, from the daunting complexity of facts, a more general and synthetic understanding of these processes (Pool, 1991a).

The quest for generality is a permanent, almost obsessive concern of economic analysis (Becker, 1976, Chap. 1), which can also be found in relatively far-flung branches of the discipline, such as the language economics which concerns us here. Acres of forests have been sacrificed to the discussion of the relative merits of the distinct epistemologies that underpin these different approaches to social research: on the one hand, an emphasis on providing true accounts of social reality—idiosyncratic as manifestations of this reality may be—and, on the other hand, a concern for elucidating general (ideally causal) patterns—simplified as the resulting models may appear. In this book, we shall not enter this debate, since it is the object of an ample literature, whether in terms of a general epistemology of the social sciences (Winch, 2007 [1958]; Elster, 1989), in the discipline of economics proper (Blaug, 1992; Mayer, 1993; Keen, 2001), or in the specific case of the applicati...

Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I The Economic Perspective on Multilingualism
• Part II Foreign Language Skills, Foreign Language Use, and Production
• Part III Policy Implications and Future Prospects
• Appendix I Language-Augmented Production Model
• Appendix II Estimation Procedure and Results
• Appendix III A Simple Recruitment Model
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index