Titel:
Language ideology in a post-merger context: exploring legitimation strategies in language policy and employee attitudes towards English as an organisational language
Author(s):
Ivan Olav Vulchanov (Copenhagen Business School). Contact: iov.msc@cbs.dk
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Abstract
The English language has become an established lingua franca in international business. In order to unpack the commonly taken for granted role of English in international organisational contexts, the present study examines the underlying individual and collective legitimation of English as an organisational language. While sociolinguistic research has highlighted language ideology as a factor behind language norms in organisations, and organisation studies have examined discursive legitimation, fewer studies have combined the two concepts to investigate the micro-discursive practices of ideological language legitimation. On the basis of a critical realist qualitative case study, this paper analyses the generative mechanism involving language ideology and normalising, rationalising and moralising legitimation. The findings indicate that, in the Danish/German side of a recently merged international corporation, agency through legitimation, and structure through language ideology form an interdependent generative relationship which produces and reproduces the role of English as the organisational language. Furthermore, this relationship is enabled by the dynamic post-merger context, where the role of English perseveres in the Danish/German context, despite being embedded in a highly multilingual wider organisational context.
Data used:
Qualitative single case study, 10 semi-structured interviews, 60 pages corporate documents, 2 months participant observation, 3 hours virtual meeting recordings
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