Linguistic Diversity in Professional Settings

Linguistic diversity is a cultural asset in our globalized world. But it can also pose challenges for individuals, for organisations, and also for societies. This volume focuses on professional settings and their needs, policies and practices. In higher education, these range from general policy making at the institutions themselves to specific multilingual approaches in curriculum development to linguistic practices in international teams and cooperations, as well as linguistic landscapes. The studies show the challenges which come along with linguistic diversity and internationalization. They also highlight different national and organisational contexts and show links between language choice, emotion and identity, as well as educational and ideological goals. The volume thus illustrates the multifaceted and complex nature of this subject.

Magdalena Zehetgruber, Bernadette Hofer-Bonfim, Elisabeth Peters and Johannes Schnitzer are working at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Economics and Business) at the Department of Business Communication. Their research focuses on the challenges raised by linguistic diversity in professional settings. They are particularly interested in the crucial role of multilingualism in corporate contexts and study different policies and practices.