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“It’s hard for them to even understand what we are saying”(.) Language and power in the multinational workplace

Kyoungmi Kim (School of Education, Language and Psychology, Centre for Language and Social Justice Research, York St John University, York, UK)
Jo Angouri (Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK)

Critical Perspectives on International Business

ISSN: 1742-2043

Article publication date: 28 February 2022

Issue publication date: 5 January 2023

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of language ideologies in negotiating organisational relationships in a Korean multinational company (MNC). By adopting an interactional sociolinguistics (IS) approach, this paper illustrates how language becomes part of a mechanism of negotiating group membership and of perpetuating or challenging power asymmetries through social and ideological processes.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on interview data from an ethnographic case study of a Korean MNC to understand language ideologies in one working team. The interview data are analysed through an IS framework to connect the situated interaction to the broader social context.

Findings

This paper shows that participants’ discourse of linguistic differentiation becomes an interactional resource in challenging the organisational status quo. Linguistic superiority/inferiority is constructed through particular sequencing and the systematic production of a dichotomy between two groups – expatriate managers and local employees – at various levels of their company structure. Group membership is enacted temporarily in positioning the self and the others.

Originality/value

This paper offers a methodological contribution to international business language-sensitive research on language and power by conducting interactional analysis of interview talk. Through the lens of IS, it provides insights into how discourse becomes a primary site of negotiating power and status and a multi-level approach to the study of organisational power dynamics and the complex linguistic landscape of any workplace.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper forms part of a special section “Critical Perspectives on Language in International Business”, guest edited by Claudine Gaibrois, Philippe Lecomte, Mehdi Boussebaa and Martyna Sliwa.

Citation

Kim, K. and Angouri, J. (2023), "“It’s hard for them to even understand what we are saying”(.) Language and power in the multinational workplace", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 27-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-06-2020-0084

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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