Interpersonal Communication

In today’s linguistically-diverse business world, communication using English as a lingua franca (ELF)—the most frequently chosen common corporate language (CCL)—often overlooks intercultural difficulties. ELF words are generally perceived as conveying a unique meaning to all when, in fact, the sense that speakers make out of them draws on what is most easily accessible in their own minds—that is, their specific universe of meaning. This, along with the communicative styles imported from their native languages, slows organisations’ dynamics—a fact often mistakenly attributed to speakers’ poor ELF skills. Such meaning relativity has an impact on the credibility of cross-cultural studies relying on questionnaires. They use ELF formulations that, taken out of their original contexts, undergo back-and-forth translations, before being amalgamated and presented as evidence, although inherently flawed.