business language studies in the united states: on nomenclature

Business Language Studies in theUnited States: On Nomenclature,Context, Theory, and MethodMICHAEL SCOTT DOYLEUniversity of North Carolina at CharlotteDepartment of Languages and Culture StudiesCharlotte, NC 28223–0001Email: [email protected]

Although it has existed for many decades in the national curriculum of U.S. higher education,the study of languages for business purposes has lacked a more serviceable and academi-cally communal name—a more rigorous toponymic identity—by which to identify itself as atheory-based field of scholarship. The intention here is to propose for consideration a namemodification for an existing field and provide some reflections regarding its evolution, theory,and method. In keeping with the rise of interdisciplines in other “studies” programs, businesslanguage’s empirically definable domain of inquiry, pedagogy, and curriculum developmentshould more appropriately be known as Business Language Studies (BLS). Further consid-eration of intrinsic theory is strongly encouraged to complement the extensive work alreadydone in extrinsic and applied BLS, given that the development of methods and methodologyhas far outstripped theoretical considerations per se, the latter of which are now warranted toanchor the field more adequately in U.S. higher education. It is time for greater attention to befocused on the articulation of a broader, more systematic, theory-based BLS research agendathat breaks new ground and provides additional insights into the decisive roles of languageand culture in a highly competitive global economy.

BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIES (BLS) HASlong been evolving as an empirically definabledomain of inquiry, pedagogy, and curriculum de-velopment, particularly since 1946 when businesslanguage courses became part of the tripartite,integrated curriculum—“business, language, andregional/cultural studies” (Branan, 1998, p. 3)—at the American Institute of Foreign Trade.1 Al-though it has existed for many decades in thenational curriculum of U.S. higher education(Doyle, 1987, 1992; Grosse, 1982, 1985; Grosse &Voght, 1990, 1991; Schorr, 2000), the study of lan-guages for business purposes has lacked a moreserviceable and academically communal name—a more rigorous toponymic identity—by which toidentify itself as a theory-based field of scholar-

The Modern Language Journal, 96, Focus Issue, (2012)DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2012.01276.x0026-7902/11/105–121 $1.50/0C©2012 The Modern Language Journal

ship. The intention here is to propose for consid-eration a name modification for an existing fieldand provide some reflections regarding the evo-lution, theory, and method in BLS.

BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIESNOMENCLATURE

Formal nomenclature for a field of study oftenfollows, rather than precedes, substantial sharedactivity and evolution—the incipient formation ofa “disciplinary utopia” (Holmes, 2000, p. 172)—inthat particular field. Holmes defined this utopiaas “a new sense of a shared interest in a com-mon set of problems, approaches, and objectiveson the part of a new grouping of researchers”(p. 172). The present article references Holmes’s“The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”because it provides a recent and clear exampleof a theory-based nomenclature proposition fora field of interdisciplinary studies that has much

106 The Modern Language Journal 96 (2012)

in common with major BLS considerations, suchas language (discourse domains, genres, skopos[Vermeer’s term for “aim” or “purpose,” 2000,p. 221], localization, etc.) and culture (the sit-ing and circumstance of language usage). Asidefrom serving to identify and territorialize, theformalization of new needed space via nomen-clature is clearly a political gesture: It encapsu-lates and stimulates further articulation and val-idation of the intellectual foundations—theory,method, and methodology—upon which a dis-cipline or subdiscipline builds itself through apragmatic and constructivist (shared and learner-centered) epistemology. It also identifies a schol-arly forum in which to explore further andrefine underlying intellectual assumptions (meta-reflection) as well as principles (derived from fun-damental, basic, pure, or intrinsic research) thatinform and upon which pedagogy and praxis (ap-plied or extrinsic research) may subsequently bebased.

Over the past half-century, the word “studies”has increasingly been used to identify interdisci-plinary humanities and social science fields suchas Communication Studies, International Studies,Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Stud-ies, and Translation Studies. As the global econ-omy continues to accelerate and require increas-ingly effective communication, it seems warrantedto follow suit and submit “Business LanguageStudies (BLS)” for consideration as the namefor “the dominant subfield within LSP [languagefor specific purposes]” (Grosse & Voght, 1990,p. 45) in the foreign language curriculum ofthe United States. International trade and globalconsumption of goods and services, character-ized by their need for around-the-clock commu-nications in and across many different languagesand cultures, will continue to “flatten” the world(Friedman, 2005, p. 7). BLS, based on a tripartitemodel of business + language + culture—whichis reflective of the fact that business is always doneby people who use language(s) in special ways inparticular settings—constitutes a core componentof this reality.

RECENT BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIESCONTEXT AND EVOLUTION

In 1998, the American Association of Teachersof Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) sponsoredthe publication of Spanish and Portuguese for Busi-ness and the Professions, a paradigmatic volume that“provides the background necessary for the de-velopment of a course, a sequence of courses, ora complete program in Spanish and Portuguesefor the professions” (Fryer & Guntermann, 1998,

pp. xii–xiii). Part I, the major portion of thebook, contains 17 chapters on business and in-ternational trade.2 In his “Preface: Part I,” Branan(1998), a professor of French, heralded the bookas “the latest milestone in the evolution of a field”and stated that its publication “marks the end ofthe first cycle of the ‘business foreign languagemovement’” (p. 3), which “consisted of curricularintegration at both the baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate levels in academia and recognitionand funding by the federal government” (p. 4).Furthermore,

with the present volume, the AATSP, the largest of theAATs, joined the American Association of Teachers ofGerman (AATG) (Cothran, 1994; Keck, 1990) and theAmerican Association of Teachers of French (AATF)(Cummins, 1995; Loughrin-Sacco & Abrate, 1998) inproviding a business language handbook for all itsconstituents, thus concluding the last major phase ofthis first cycle.3 (p. 4)

Branan further indicated that the book “alsomarks the beginning of the second cycle,” forwhich he set three goals:

First, every business and every foreign language pro-gram at the post-secondary level in the United Stateswill collaborate as equal partners to offer a degree trackthat integrates both disciplines. Second, K–12 foreignlanguage programs will be fully articulated into thiscontinuum. And third, the movement will spread, asit has already begun to do, to all the professions: med-ical and health care, social work, law, science, andtechnology. (p. 5, emphasis in original)

Branan’s third goal of this second cycle was fore-shadowed in the more abbreviated Part II of Span-ish and Portuguese for Business and the Professions(Fryer & Guntermann, 1998), titled “EmergingAreas in Spanish and Portuguese for Special Pur-poses,”4 and has since experienced considerabledevelopment in the United States, particularly inSpanish.

The publication of Spanish and Portuguese forBusiness and the Professions (Fryer & Guntermann,1998), part of the shared curriculum developmentcontinuum indicated previously (AATG, AATF,and AATSP), represents a paradigmatic contribu-tion to our consideration in the United States ofmajor, non-English world languages in terms oftheir evolution and status as content-, language-,and culture-restricted domains within LSP. How-ever, the rapidly emerging field of BLS is nevernamed per se. Rather, as in the case of transla-tion studies before it became known and widelyaccepted as “Translation Studies,” the discipline isreferred to by its subject matter (Holmes, 2000)and somewhat vaguely as a “field” or “movement”(Branan, 1998, p. 4), variously referenced by other

Michael Scott Doyle 107

scholars as “Business Foreign Language” (Schorr,2000, p. 3), “applied language studies” (Grosse &Voght, 1991, p. 183), or “language for business”(Grosse & Voght, 1990, p. 45).

Although representative aspects of methodand methodology in business language aretreated via the particular case study of businessSpanish in this informative volume (Fryer &Guntermann, 1998), “the compleat curriculumguide for the field” (Branan, 1998, p. 4, emphasisin original), noticeably absent is a clearly statedtheoretical proposition that, in retrospect, wouldhave constituted an opportune prolegomenonor opening chapter. Nonetheless, over the past3 decades, the field has experienced extensivedevelopment of a variety of effective pedagogi-cal methods, materials, courses, and curricula fornon-English business language, based on an im-plicit theoretical foundation that has lacked ex-plicit articulation and evolution.5 Such a model—“a schematic description of a system, theory, orphenomenon that accounts for its known or in-ferred properties and may be used for furtherstudy of its characteristics”(American Heritage Dic-tionary of the English Language)—would help es-tablish for the evolving BLS interdiscipline theintellectual space that it still needs to occupy anddevelop as a more fully legitimized field of in-quiry in U.S. higher education, complementingits now well-established presence in the nationalcurriculum and pedagogy at “all sizes and types offour-year institutions . . . at private and public insti-tutions . . . fairly evenly distributed among small,medium and large institutions” (Grosse & Voght,1990, p. 38).

The absence of a disciplinary nomenclatureand an accompanying theoretical discourse hasalso made it unnecessarily difficult for businesslanguage specialists within foreign language de-partments to present their dossiers for promotionand tenure review because of lingering doubts re-garding the legitimacy of business language (BL)in terms of theory, intellectual foundations,6 andrelated scholarship—that is, as an unobjection-able field of inquiry, research, and publication.A similar theoretical shortcoming characterizedLSP through the late 1990s, “criticized for beingall practice and no theory because there has beenlimited concern in the literature with fundamen-tal ideas” (Basturkmen, 2002, p. 23).

The problem, an issue of academic politics andgate-keeping, persists for non-English BLS, de-spite policy statements such as “The Evaluationof Nontraditional Fields” by the Association ofDepartments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) ofthe Modern Language Association of America(MLA):

The thrust toward interdisciplinary work and the studyof new technological advances, broaden the legitimateareas of both teaching and research within a foreign lan-guage department. Department members may be in-volved in disciplines not traditionally considered in-tegral parts of a foreign language department, suchas area studies, creative writing, film studies, foreignlanguage acquisition research, foreign language pedagogy,gender studies, and literary and technical translation.

In questions of promotion, tenure, and salary, col-leagues working in these fields should be evaluatedusing the same procedures and standards as thoseused for the more traditional fields but with properconsideration for the particular standards each disci-pline requires. (ADFL, “Evaluation,” 2011, emphasisadded)

It is telling that in 2011, the ADFL, which onlyrecently validated the subdiscipline of technicaltranslation as a legitimate area of both teachingand research within a foreign language depart-ment, does not even acknowledge an LSP suchas BL as a discipline category, much less a majorone. This lack of acknowledgment reflects a cleardisconnection from what has actually been occur-ring in the national foreign language curriculum,given that: (a) national language associations suchas the AATF, AATG, and AATSP have all devotedspecial volumes to BL; (b) specialized journalssuch as Global Business Languages and the Journalof Language for International Business (currently insearch of a new sponsor) publish scholarly articleson BL;7 (c) the federal government has so heavilyfunded curricular development and research inBL; and (d) the MLA itself issued a major reportin 2007, titled Foreign Languages and Higher Edu-cation: New Structures for a Changed World , callingfor a reengineering of the national curriculum inforeign languages because “the two-tiered config-uration [language vs. literature] has outlived itsusefulness and needs to evolve” (p. 4).

The MLA report (2007), in recognition of aparadigm shift in national needs and rationalefor foreign language instruction at both the un-dergraduate and graduate levels of learning, pre-scribes “an integrative approach with multiplepaths to the [foreign language] major” (p. 4) thatwill “produce a specific outcome: educated speak-ers who have deep translingual and transculturalcompetence” (p. 3). Such a transformation, whichwill serve to “counter the isolation and marginal-ization that language and literature departmentsoften experience on American campuses” (p. 6)—that is, strengthen their relevance and centrality—should be premised on an understanding of “cul-tural narratives” (p. 4) and “cultural subsystems”(p. 4) that move beyond the traditional [languageand literature] curriculum to include, amongothers, “the legal system, the political system, the


educational system, the economic system, and thesocial welfare system” (p. 5, emphasis added), allof which inform BLS, as may literary studies, itselfan example of LSP (e.g., Visiones, 2002, and Temasdel comercio, 2008, by Coria & Torres). Further-more, the most recent MLA brochures designedto promote the study of foreign languages andcultures, titled Language Study in the Age of Glob-alization: The College-Level Experience (MLA, 2008)and Knowing Other Languages Brings Opportunities(2008), highlight the value of being able to use(apply) foreign languages effectively in a globaleconomy as well as the intrinsic study of literatureper se.

The tripartite, integrated curricular structure—business, language, and regional/culturalstudies—inaugurated at the American Instituteof Foreign Trade in 1946 has served well asan adaptable template for similar curriculumdevelopment across the United States. Targetedfederal funding, as Branan (1998) indicated,has also played a key role in the quickeningof this far-reaching evolution in the teachingof foreign languages. In 1988, when Congressauthorized substantial funding for the creationof the first five Centers for International BusinessEducation and Research (CIBERs)8 to increaseand promote “the nation’s capacity for inter-national understanding and competitiveness,”the first of the six “mandatory activities” to beconducted by the CIBERs featured the sametripartite structure.9 This prescribed structurealso provides a blueprint for articulating moreclearly the latent theory of BL in the UnitedStates. Again, it is not that the unnamed fieldhas lacked theory; rather, there has been littlearticulation of the theory that underlies praxisand curriculum development.

The tripartite theory behind BLS is also evidentin the annual BL conferences sponsored, first byEastern Michigan University (1982–1997), thenby the CIBERs (1998–2011).10 CIBER-sponsoredworkshops, such as the “Annual Faculty Develop-ment in International Business: A Six-Day Work-shop for Professors of Business Spanish” (offeredannually by the University of South Carolina since1990) and the “Language and Culture for Inter-national Business: A Workshop for Foreign Lan-guage Educators” (offered annually by the Uni-versity of Memphis since 1995),11 have also beenpremised on the implicit tripartite BLS theory.

In addition, this same tripartite model of busi-ness, language, and regional/cultural studies has,of course, been woven to varying degrees into thedesign of many of the BL textbooks currently avail-able at the intermediate and advanced levels of

instruction. For example, the fifth edition of Exitocomercial: Practicas administrativas y contextos cul-turales (Doyle, Fryer, & Cere, 2011), further de-veloping its original 1991 structure,

seeks to develop cross-cultural communicative com-petence for business purposes, which means that anindividual is able to draw on his/her knowledge ofbusiness (concepts and practices) and culture (fromgeographic literacy to high “C” and low “c” culture),and apply this knowledge effectively in communica-tive situations. (p. iv)

Visiones and Temas del comercio, two recent booksthat link literature and business Spanish, are alsopremised implicitly on the tripartite model: Vi-siones (Coria-Sanchez & Torres, 2002) emphasizes“social and economic perspectives” (p. x), andTemas (Coria-Sanchez & Torres, 2008) focuses “oneconomic and commercial concerns as they ap-pear in Hispanic narrative” (p. vii), “with interest-ing, new, and perhaps unexpected perspectiveson the subject of business and economic activityin Hispanic cultures” (Coria-Sanchez & Torres,2008, p. ix).

It is in the broad context outlined in the preced-ing paragraphs that a belated prolegomenon tothe theory and theory-based method and method-ology of BL may serve as (a) a useful model forBLS in U.S. secondary and higher education atthis time, and (b) a catalyst for further theoreticalresearch12 in this increasingly crucial field, as dif-ferent nations and culturolinguistic communitiesseek more effective cross-cultural communicationto manage better what Friedman (2005, p. 204)has referred to as “friction” in a flat world. Fric-tion refers to the fact that, despite the growinguse of technology to “flatten” the world in orderto facilitate or streamline business and interna-tional trade in a sun-to-sun global economy, peo-ple must still interact; they must still communicatein and across different languages and cultures.13

By definition, a prolegomenon such as this isprovisional.

BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIES THEORY,METHOD, AND METHODOLOGY

Theory will seek to provide a working defini-tion and conceptual model for BLS; method willrefer to representative constituent parts, steps,procedures, and techniques in BLS; and methodol-ogy will refer broadly to a set of working meth-ods for BLS, a body of practices and proce-dures used by those who work and conduct re-search in the discipline (see Figure 1). Methodsand methodology, of course, presuppose a theory,


FIGURE 1Business Language Studies Theory, Method, andMethodology

BLS THEORY:•Definition•Conceptual Model

METHOD:•Parts•Steps•Procedures•Techniques

METHODOLOGY:•Set of working methods, practices, and procedures

regardless of whether it is fully developed andarticulated.

This empirically based, theoretical overture toBLS, which endeavors to extract and extrapolatetheory from the extensive record of BLS methodand methodology, will address two fundamentalquestions about the discipline—(a) What is it?and (b) How is it done?—and will briefly out-line descriptive, theoretical, and applied BLS,three branches of consideration whose relationis as fluidly dialogic and dialectical as the com-plementary symbiosis that exists among theory,method, and methodology. It will also serve asa basis for a provisional identification of majortheory-based BLS research areas in which workremains to be done, both basic (intrinsic) and ap-plied (extrinsic), the latter of which represents amovement from knowledge of and about (concep-tual “know-what” and “know-how”) to the instru-mentality and measurability of practical problemsolving and task performance (“do-what” and “do-how”) for specific purposes in particular situationsthat relate to the conduct of business and trade asthese occur in and across languages and cultures.The main focus at present will be in the appliedBLS areas of content, pedagogy, course and cur-riculum development, and evaluation of learneroutcomes, with examples drawn from businessSpanish.

Borrowing from Holmes’s (2000) model forTranslation Studies, BLS, in turn, may be de-fined as a major empirical subdiscipline of LSPwhose objective is to examine and predict howlanguages are, may, or should be used to conductbusiness in various communicative situations andcultural contexts. It is characterized by multithe-

oretical intellectual foundations derived (a) fromestablished disciplines such as economics, lin-guistics (e.g., applied, comparative, psycho- andsocio-), psychology, anthropology, sociology, his-tory, philosophy, political science, language study(which dates back to the Latin trivium—grammar,rhetoric, and logic—of the Middle Ages), geog-raphy, business (i.e., principles of management,marketing, finance, advertising, etc.), and inter-national business; and (b) from emerging fieldssuch as communication studies (business com-munications), intercultural communications, andglobal studies. In today’s global economy, BLS is,by nature and stage of development, an eclec-tic and opportunistic interdiscipline, appropriat-ing theoretically according to its needs and cir-cumstances. The interdisciplinary paradigm ofBLS specifically builds on, combines, and appliesthe following fundamental areas of inquiry andpedagogy: business content (lexicon, principles,and application); cultural contextualization, geo-graphic literacy, and culturoregional studies (thesiting of where and how business is conducted);situational performance (communicative strate-gies, functions, and task-accomplishment activi-ties); and measurable learner outcomes.

Cultural contextualization and geographic lit-eracy are indispensable BLS considerations, espe-cially in the realm of transnational business, be-cause business is conducted by people from andin different countries with different cultural andsubcultural identities and roles. As CongressmanPaul Simon (1980) reminded us in The Tongue-Tied American, “unless complemented by aca-demic training in the history, culture, economicsand politics of a given society, the knowledge ofits language alone becomes a dull instrument”(p. 59). Victor (1992) wrote that “the study of cul-tural differences and similarities so essential to in-ternational business success is largely inseparablefrom the study of international business commu-nication” (p. xiv). In addition, Galloway (1987)warned that “to develop students’ language skillsand neglect a sense of cultural context in whichthe language is used may be simply to providestudents with the illusion that they are communi-cating” (p. 69).

Adapting Holmes’s (2000) mapping of Trans-lation Studies, an interdisclipinary language–culture field that serves as a rigorous and adapt-able model, three major branches of the BusinessLanguage Studies interdiscipline are: (a) descrip-tive BLS, (b) theoretical BLS, and (c) appliedBLS.

Descriptive BLS analyzes and describes thevarious phenomena of BLS “as they manifest


themselves in the world of our experience”(Holmes, 2000, p. 176). Thus, it may range fromthe macro analysis and description of BL usedin actually conducting business in different situa-tions and contexts (e.g., countries, languages, cul-tures, subcultures, historical periods, genders) tothe micro manifestation or use of BL in differentdiscourse domains, texts, and genres and accord-ing to different functional areas or genres of busi-ness (e.g., management, marketing, advertising,sales, import–export). Descriptive BLS may be (a)product-oriented (e.g., it describes or compares,diachronically as well as synchronically, existing orpast BL texts and scenarios, including realia); (b)function-oriented (how BL works “in the recipientsocio-cultural situation” [Holmes, 2000, p. 177],as opposed to simply describing BL texts and sit-uations); or (c) process-oriented (which focuseson “the process or act” [Holmes, 2000, p. 177] ofBL itself).

Theoretical BLS, or BLS theory, in contrast,does not concern itself with describing existingBL, its observed functions, or processes; rather,it employs or anticipates the results of descrip-tive BLS, which draws from the many disciplinesthat inform it, to “evolve principles, theories,and models which will serve to explain and pre-dict” what BL “is and will be” (Holmes, 2000,p. 178). BLS theory may be classified initiallywith rubrics, adopted and adapted from Holmes,such as the following: (a) medium-restricted (per-formed by humans, machines, or both in con-junction); (b) area-restricted (delimited by the lan-guage[s] and culture[s] involved, e.g., Spanish asused in Panama in the tourism sector, as com-pared to how it is used in the same sector inCuba, Colombia, Argentina, or Spain); (c) rank-restricted (e.g., by semiotic unit of BL analysis andperformance, such as word, sentence, paragraph,text, image, logo, sound, individual department,company [micro, small, medium, large], industry,sector of the economy, national economy, com-mon market or regional economy, global econ-omy); (d) discourse-type-restricted (different genresof BL communication—e.g., annual reports, con-tracts, advertisements, warning labels, businesscorrespondence, email, text-messaging, Web pagelocalization, Facebook, Twitter, crowd-sourced orsmart-mob translation); (e) time-restricted (the evo-lution of BL, e.g., the increasing use of English-language business terminology that is embed-ding itself within the non-English language, e.g.,in banking, advertising, or office and communi-cation systems lexicon, when compared to thepaucity of such loan words several decades ago);(f) problem-restricted (which may focus on specific

issues such as ethics, fair trade, sustainable de-velopment, or localization, i.e., the cultural adap-tation aspect of advertising, translation, productplacement, etc.). Such restricted theoretical con-siderations inform what would comprise an intrin-sic general theory of BLS.

Applied BLS, a third major branch of consid-eration, is an extrinsic consideration that extendsbeyond descriptive and theoretical concerns toBLS utility, that is, as in pedagogy, course and cur-riculum development, assessment of learning out-comes, and BLS policy (e.g., which BL curriculashould be funded at the macro level by the federalor state government or, at the micro level, by in-dividual institutions—should it be BLS–Spanish,–French, –Japanese, –Chinese, –Arabic, –Swahili,–Creole, –Catalan?).

Figure 2 provides a schematic summary and rep-resents an adapted provisional cartography of BLSat this time, bearing in mind Pym’s (1998) caveatthat such maps tend to direct our eyes in certaindirections while overlooking others. Also consis-tent with Pym’s concerns, the map in Figure 2should be considered as one in which humanagents and historiography are always key factors.14

The definition of BLS and a general mappingof the major theoretical branches of this interdis-cipline suggest fruitful possibilities for both ba-sic and applied research, which Washington, D.C.has been willing to fund in recent decades viathe CIBERs and various U.S. Department of Ed-ucation Title VI grants. Suggestions such as thefollowing renew and extend the Final Report Pre-pared by the University of California, Los AngelesLanguage Resource Program for the Busi-ness Language Research Priorities Conference(Feb. 8–9, 2002), which concluded that “the re-search questions that appear in this report indi-cate that there is still a need for basic researchin most aspects of business language education”(Campbell & Bauckus, 2002, p. 23). In terms ofbasic research today, for example, BLS warrantsfurther study of its own particular nature as a ma-jor category of LSP, and how, when, and to whatextent it draws from and blends with other fields—from intercultural communication to discourseand genre studies, translation studies, linguistics,psychology, history, sociology, and so forth—as itdevelops and sharpens its own meta-critical andmeta-theoretical discourse. Further explorationof BL “archaeology” is of interest—who, what,how, where, when, for whom, and to what effect(Pym, 1998, p. 5)—as well as how BL relates to andreflects power and hegemony in diachronic andsynchronic shifts as different languages repositionthemselves in terms of ascendancy for purposes of


FIGURE 2Provisional Map of Business Language Studies

GENERAL THEORY OF BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIES (BLS)

Pure Theory (Intrinsic) Applied Theory (Extrinsic)

Theoretical

BLS Praxis

BLS Pedagogy

Descriptive

Course Development

Curriculum Development

Faculty Training

Business Men and Women

Methods

Methodology

Learner Outcomes

Assessment

BLS Policy

Product- Oriented

Function- Oriented

Process- Oriented

GeneralProvisional

or Partial

Medium-Restricted

Area -Restricted

Rank -Restricted

Discourse-type- Restricted

Time -Restricted

Problem -Restricted

Locus of new research yet to be done

Locus of previous and

ongoing research

competitiveness in business and trade. In the ap-plied area, where most of the research has actuallybeen funded, numerous issues still require fullerand better answers to the questions they poseregarding such concerns as teaching methods(in-class, on-site, experiential, virtual, online, theuse of technology); course and curriculum devel-opment (from transnational and technologicallyfacilitated modules to virtual, online curricula);development and refinement of pedagogicalmaterials (including BL games); assessment oflearner outcomes (in language and cultural profi-ciency, the latter of which might particularly ben-efit from comparative corpus-based research andanalysis); continuing education; faculty training;and local, regional, and national BLS policy.

APPLIED BUSINESS LANGUAGE STUDIES

Thus defined and situated, applied BLS stip-ulates a framework for intercultural communi-cation and cross-cultural literacy, which com-prehends language (e.g., discourse domains,

rhetoric, pragmatics, skopos, localization, andgenre studies, register, style, tone), demograph-ics (who, how many, where), geography, history,trade, values, beliefs, customs, and conduct. Interms of pedagogy, BLS is concerned with themovement of learners from theory and cogni-tion to praxis (theory applied) and the measur-able ability to conduct business successfully inanother language and culture. A tripartite ped-agogical model for BLS, the principal compo-nents of which—business content, cultural con-text, and geographic setting (area or regionalstudies)—are anchored together via communica-tive activities that draw from and ideally synthe-size the three constituent parts, is represented inFigure 3.

The three major components, as well as their re-spective subcomponents (partially outlined here),may range from greater or lesser degrees ofcoverage that, at the extremes, may be eithercomplete (exclusive) or noncoverage, depend-ing on the emphasis accorded to each and theblending of the components into a whole. For


FIGURE 3Tripartite Pedagogical Model for Business Language Studies

BUSINESS

CONTENT

CULTURAL

CONTEXTGEOGRAPHIC

CONTEXT

Human ResourcesLabor Relations

Goods and ServicesMarketingFinance

Import/ExportE -commerce

Legal Environment, etc.

WorldRegions and Specific Countries

Geographic FeaturesClimate

Capitals, Major Cities, and PortsNatural ResourcesInfrastructure, etc.

Large “C” and small “c”:History

LanguagesBeliefs and Attitudes

Literature and ArtsEthnic Groups, Age Distribution

Legal and Political Systems, etc.

COMMUNICATIVEFUNCTIONS

& ACTIVITIES

Economics (macro and micro)Management

BankingAccounting

Property, Plant, and EquipmentInsurance

Communication SystemsInformation Technology

example, a BL course may focus exclusively onbusiness content and vocabulary to the exclusionof the cultural and geographical contexts, or itmay distribute the three components in a bal-anced manner (one third for each). A variablematrix, as illustrated in Table 1, suggests a fluidand organic adaptability with many permutationsfor research, needs assessment, course and cur-riculum development, development of pedagog-ical materials, and formats for learner outcomesassessment.

When the model is applied to the exam-ple of business Spanish, the geographic con-text, on the one hand, may specify components,clusters, or aggregates such as Spain (Europe),the Hispanic or Spanish-speaking Caribbean,Hispanic or Spanish-speaking Central America,the Andean region, the Southern Cone re-gion, Equatorial Guinea (Africa), and Hispanic,Latino, or Spanish-speaking United States. On theother hand, geoeconomic configurations may begiven priority: for example, AC, CARICOM, DR–CAFTA, the EU, LAIA, Mercosur, or NAFTA,15 orgeodemographic subcategories may be empha-sized, such as urban versus rural, capital versusprovince, or coastal versus inland. The cultural

contexts will largely be determined by the geo-graphic setting in which BL will be used (e.g., thehistory, ethnic groups, languages). Similarly, busi-ness practices in the functional areas will be con-sidered in light of how the Mexicans, Venezuelans,Peruvians, and so forth, each nationality aggre-gated and disaggregated, actually conduct busi-ness within and beyond their respective culturalparameters.

A theoretical application of this model, in termsof pedagogical methodology, allows a critical andtimely content (business), embedded within vari-able geographicocultural contexts (both heuris-tic, as designed for purposes of instruction,and authentic, the use of realia, and experien-tial learning), to be combined with comprehen-sive, multiskill, communicative development inspeaking, listening comprehension, interpreting,reading, writing, translating, and paralingual ex-pression (kinesics and proxemics). In the commu-nicative activities component of the model, whichis where the BL is embedded in targeted geo-graphicocultural contexts as the three parts of themodel are variably prioritized or synthesized, thefocus is on developing critical thinking, problemsolving, and a variety of real-world communicative


TABLE 1Variable Matrix for Tripartite Business Language Course Coverage

Component Degree (%) of Inclusion/Coverage

Business Content 100.0 0.0 0.0 75.0 12.5 12.5 50.0 25.0 25.0 33.0 OtherCultural Context 0.0 100.0 0.0 12.5 75.0 12.5 25.0 50.0 25.0 33.0 OtherGeographic Context (area or region) 0.0 0.0 100.0 12.5 12.5 75.0 25.0 25.0 50.0 33.0 Other

functions commonly used to perform myriad tasksin business: for example, to inform, describe, an-nounce, solicit, compare, contrast, analyze, cal-culate, measure, summarize, persuade, respond,present, congratulate, complain, hire, fire, buy,sell, and negotiate.

Learner development is generated through avariety of pedagogical situations and texts, whichfor listening comprehension may include phoneconversations, role plays (of meetings, negotia-tions, sales, and purchases, etc.), interviews, CDsand DVDs, radio, television, videos, movies, Inter-net, presentations (either as the presenter or as amember of the audience who asks questions andmakes observations about the topics of the pre-sentation), interpreting, sight translation, fieldtrips, or other ethnographic, experiential, andautobiographically inscribed (see Doyle, 2008)learning opportunities, including service learn-ing and internships. For writing, the activities maytypically range from responses to questions andcase studies, to writing or editing business letters,memoranda, emails, messages (phone, texting,tweets, sticky notes, etc.), filling in documents(checks, orders, invoices, contracts), producingreports, executive summaries, advertisements andpublic relations texts, brochures, flyers, newslet-ters, translations (including the use and back-translation and postediting of machine trans-lation and computer-assisted translation),16 andcreating Web pages. For the development of read-ing skills, the texts may include books (embracing,as we have seen earlier, literary works that allow forthe mining of business and socioeconomic themesor portraits), newspapers, magazines, Web pages,articles, correspondence and documents (letters,memoranda, etc.), advertisements and public re-lations texts, warning labels, summaries and an-nual reports, case studies, graphics (e.g., line, bar,pie, flow charts), tables, brochures, newsletters,flyers, manuals, user guides, and so forth.

Course and curriculum development representanother methodological core component of ap-plied BLS. Appendix A summarizes the eight mostcommon types of BL courses in U.S. higher edu-cation, as currently taught at the beginning, in-

termediate, and advanced levels of instruction,with their relative advantages and disadvantages.These courses range from generic courses thatcover the waterfront in terms of business content,to regional or prevailing industry-specific, func-tional area-specific, hybrid, and business and cul-ture courses taught in English rather than in thetarget foreign language.

In another methodological consideration, thedifferent course types are included in U.S. highereducation in a variety of ways that representdifferent levels of commitment and investmentby the various institutions. Appendix B outlines11 types of existing curriculum design in a pro-gression from the more simple and limited pro-gram (testing the waters with modules) to themore complex and vastly more rewarding transna-tional degree program.

Methodologically, in BLS, the tripartite contentof business + language + culture is delivered viacourses that constitute a curriculum characterizedby content-based, skills development instructionin BL. The continuum of content/skills develop-ment → course design → curriculum design →methods of instruction is completed by learneroutcomes assessment. Although actual evaluationnecessarily occurs after course and curriculumdevelopment, after syllabus design, and after theteaching and learning have taken place, learnerevaluation should serve as the conceptual start-ing point: to have a clear vision of the desiredBL learner outcomes so that the instructionalmethodology will lead the learners to what theyshould know and know how to do, which, one pre-sumes, is what they will later be tested on. In thissense, the clear place to begin is at the end. Ap-pendix C illustrates the methodological sequenceof steps for this crucial part of applied BLS, inwhich Step 6, Course Revision and Feedback, in-forms Step 1, Envisioning Desired Learning Out-comes, in a cycle of continuous improvement eachtime the BL course is taught.

In terms of testing what BL learners have assim-ilated, both as achievement (mastery of content)and proficiency (what the learner can do with thecontent), the model presented in Appendix D


accounts for the course design inventory pre-sented earlier.17 Table 1 of Appendix D providesan example of a comprehensive master grid wherea global assessment would, in principle, coverrepresentative core functional areas of business(e.g., economics, management, human resources,banking and accounting, real estate, goods andservices, insurance, marketing, finance, import–export), as well as eight communicative skills. Theselection of functional areas, of course, is variableand may range from traditional macro and mi-cro economics to e-commerce, risk management,sustainable green trade, cross-cultural businessethics, and so forth. Table 2 of Appendix D repre-sents the traditional written examination format,which ignores the time-consuming assessment ofspeaking ability, via a reconfiguration of the sam-ple master grid such that it now corresponds tothe generic BL course described earlier. Finally,Table 3 of Appendix D adapts the master grid toshow how the assessment corresponds to the func-tional area-specific type of course that restrictsbusiness vocabulary coverage to allow for more in-depth study of isolated key topics such as BL formarketing, finance, management, and so forth.For the BL student, the evaluation of learner out-comes (the final exam in a BL course) is the cul-minating step in a classroom learning process.For those who teach and conduct research inBLS, the methodology of outcomes assessment isbut a part of the applied branch of the field ofBLS.

CONCLUSION

The study of languages for business purposeswould benefit from a more serviceable and aca-demically communal name—a more adequate to-ponymic identity—by which to identify itself as atheory-based field of scholarship. In keeping withthe rise of other interdisciplines in other “stud-ies” programs in U.S. higher education, its em-pirically definable domain of inquiry, pedagogy,and curriculum development should more appro-priately be known as Business Language Studies(BLS). Further consideration of intrinsic theoryis strongly encouraged in order to complementthe extensive work already done in extrinsic andapplied BLS, given that the development of meth-ods and methodology has far outstripped theo-retical considerations per se, the latter of whichare now warranted to anchor the field more ad-equately in U.S. higher education. It is time forgreater attention to be focused on the articula-tion of a broader, more systematic, theory-basedBLS research agenda that breaks new ground andprovides additional insights into the decisive rolesof language and culture in a highly competitive

global economy. This future work in the interdis-ciplinary utopia that has been evolving for manydecades into Business Language Studies can cer-tainly be conducted within national associationssuch as the AATs, the MLA, the American Associ-ation for Applied Linguistics, and the AmericanCouncil on the Teaching of Foreign Languages,which, in turn, should formally acknowledge therightful place of BLS within academia, both intheory and in practice.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by funds provided by theWang Center for International Business Education andResearch (CIBER) at the University of Memphis. Theauthor wishes to thank Dr. Ben L. Kedia, the RobertWang Chair of Excellence in International Business, Di-rector of the Wang Center for International BusinessEducation and Research (CIBER), and Director of theInternational MBA Program at the University of Mem-phis, for his support. The author also wishes to thankDr. Roberta Z. Lavine, University of Maryland, and Drs.Anton Pujol, Concepcion Godev, and Carlos M. Coria-Sanchez, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, fortheir early feedback on the article.

NOTES

1Presently the Thunderbird School of Global Man-agement: http://www.thunderbird.edu/.

2The Fryer and Guntermann (1998) volume pro-vides an overview of the history and development ofnon-English business language in U.S. higher educa-tion (Voght & Grosse, 1998), and addresses topics rang-ing from models for initial needs analysis in programdevelopment (Cowles, 1998) to curricular connec-tions (Galloway, 1998), international business content(Arpan, 1998), cross-cultural communication training(Cere, 1998), Hispanic technical and cultural content(Labarca, 1998), literature in the international busi-ness classroom (Vega Carney, 1998), development oforal skills (Guntermann, 1998), business communi-cations (Valdivieso & Valdivieso, 1998), evaluation oflearner outcomes (Campbell, 1998; Christensen, 1998;Doyle, 1998), multimedia (Kelm, 1998), public out-reach (Bender, 1998), internships (Suarez, 1998), fac-ulty training opportunities (Fryer & Tissera, 1998),and resource materials for business Spanish (Lapuente,1998).

3The AATG (http://www.aatg.org/) volumes areHandbook on Business German: A Practical Guide to Busi-ness German as an Academic Discipline (Keck, 1990) andHandbook for German and Technology (Cothran, 1994).The AATF (http://www.frenchteachers.org/) volumesare Making Business French Work: Modes, Materials,Methodologies (Loughrin-Sacco & Abrate, 1998) and


Issues and Methods in French for Business and EconomicPurposes (Cummins, 1995).

4The topics covered in Part II, Chapters 18–24, in-clude business Portuguese, medical Spanish, Spanish forsocial work, legal interpreting, law enforcement, trans-lation and international business, and science and tech-nology.

5Grosse and Voght (1991) assessed the research basefor LSP in more than 200 publications, which theygrouped into the following seven categories: “vocabular-ies and glossaries, career education, curriculum devel-opment, integration of language and culture, the profi-ciency movement, methods and materials, and discourseanalysis” (p. 185). The authors explained that “manyof the articles covered are predominantly descriptiverather than analytical, a tendency which reflects the rel-ative youth of the field and the widespread search forLSP course and program models” (p. 185). Toward theend of the article, they proposed a research agenda forLSP that contained 13 areas of inquiry, but no mentionof theory or theoretical considerations per se (p. 188).

6Vega Carney (2004) raised the troubling concernabout the lack of an articulated intellectual foundationfor business Spanish but did not develop a response.

7Grosse and Voght (1991) indicated that in the for-eign language curriculum, “eight professional journals(six American, one French, and one Canadian) had pub-lished the majority of research (134 articles) on LSP-related subjects” (p. 185).

8Today there are 33 CIBERs housed at major U.S.research universities (http://ciberweb.msu.edu/).

9The CIBER mandate reads as follows: “interdisci-plinary programs which incorporate foreign languageand international studies training into business, finance,management, communications systems, and other pro-fessional training for foreign language and internationalstudies training into business, finance, management,communications systems, and other professional curric-ula” (CIBERWEB, Michigan State University, Legislativesection, 2009).

10For example, session topics at the 2008 CIBER Busi-ness Language Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida(April 9–11, 2008), whose overall theme was “PreparingGlobal Business Leaders,” ranged from “Teaching Cul-ture in Business Spanish Classes” to “Exploring FrenchCulture Through Advertising,” “The Business of Lan-guage and the Language of Business Across the Cur-riculum,” “The Use of Podcasts and Video-on-Demandin Business German Courses,” to “A Corpus-Based Inves-tigation of Business Chinese Textbooks and Pedagogy inUse,” and sessions on Business Arabic, Business Hindi,and Business Japanese. A single session, “Theory andMethod in Teaching Business Spanish: Successful Ped-agogical Techniques,” explicitly addressed theoreticalconcerns. The Plenary Panel at the 2011 CIBER Busi-ness Language Conference in Charleston, South Car-olina (March 24–26, 2011) featured a “Prolegomenonto a General Theory of Business Language Studies (BLS)and a Call for Additional Research in Intrinsic Theory”(Doyle, 2011).

11See http://moorecms.graysail.com/moore/dmc/focused/fdib-spanish.html and https://umdrive.memphis.edu/g-wangcenter/www/pages/for_lang_wksp.htm.

12Grosse (2002) presented “an overview of past andcurrent research priorities in languages for specific pur-poses (LSP)” (p. 11) from 1960 to 1990 and 1997 to2001. In that article, the comprehensive “Bibliographyof LSP-Related Articles Published from 1997–2001” in-cluded “172 articles that were published between 1997–2001 in six journals and two dedicated volumes,” which“almost equals the 200 publications from the thirtyyears between 1960–1990” (p. 13). The author identi-fied trends that “show a need for research into areassuch as educational program effectiveness, cultural andFL needs of business people, actual language and cul-tural knowledge use by professionals, and defining busi-ness culture” (p. 23), but there was no mention of theoryor theoretical considerations per se.

13Friedman (2005) wrote that “from the first stirringsof capitalism, people have imagined the possibility of theworld as a perfect market . . . But this vision has alwaysbumped up against the world as it actually is—full ofsources of friction and inefficiency . . . habits, cultures,and traditions that people cherish precisely because theyreflect nonmarket values like social cohesion, religiousfaith, and national pride” (p. 204).

14Pym (1998) used the work of Holmes (in Venuti,2000) as a constructive point of departure for refiningthe cartography of Translation Studies.

15AC is the Andean Community; CARICOM, theCaribbean Common Market; DR–CAFTA, the Domini-can Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement;EU, the European Union; LAIA, the Latin AmericanIntegration Association; Mercosur, the Southern ConeCommon Market; and NAFTA is the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement.

16Back-translation is a retranslation of the translationitself (the target language text) back into the sourcelanguage from which it was first translated for purposesof quality assurance. For example, an English-languageannual report is translated into Spanish, and thenthat same Spanish translation is translated by anothertranslator back into English so that the two English-language texts can be compared for accuracy of content(the American Translators Association [www.atanet.org]rubric for standard error marking, such as additions,omissions, etc.) and consistency of style.

17An earlier, more primitive version of this table ap-peared in “Evaluating Learner Outcomes in BusinessSpanish: An Inventory of Testing Exercise Typologies”(Doyle, 1998, p. 183).

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APPENDIX AEight Most Common Types of Business Language Courses in U.S. Higher Education

+ ADVANTAGESTYPE DESCRIPTION − DISADVANTAGES

Generic Covers the waterfront: includesgeneral functional areas of business(e.g., economics, management,human resources, banking andaccounting, real estate, goods andservices, insurance, marketing,finance, import–export)

+ Broad coverage of relevant businessvocabulary

− Comparatively superficial bydefinition; no great depth in anyfunctional area

Regional or PrevailingIndustry-Specific

Matches business language contentand coverage to prevailing local,state, or regional needs in businessand trade (e.g., agriculture, textiles,banking, automotive, tourism)

+ Responds to reality of particular jobmarkets; local employability

− Job market specialization may notbe portable

FunctionalArea-Specific

Restricts business vocabulary coverageto allow for more in-depth study ofkey topics such as French, German,Japanese, or Spanish for marketing,finance, etc.

+ Greater depth in selected functionalbusiness vocabulary

− Does not cover all areas; neglectsimportant functional businessvocabulary

Secretarial Emphasizes correspondence and otherforms of written communication;may (should) include translation

+ Develops reading, writing,proofreading, editing, andtranslation skills

− Neglects development of otherlanguage skills

Examination(Teaching to a Test)

Prepares learner to take a specificbusiness language test, such as theParis or Madrid Chamber ofCommerce Examinations

+ Learner is well prepared to take andpass test

− Examination format and contentdictate curriculum

Special Topics Business in Literature; Spain (France,Germany) in the European Union;NAFTA; The Andean Region andthe Southern Cone; Prosperity andPoverty; Development andSustainability; The Many Faces ofTourism, etc.

+ Flexibility in responding toinstructor training and preferencesand to student interests or programemphases

− Does not cover a broad inventory ofbasic functional areas of business

Hybrid Combines elements of two or more ofthe course types above

+ Flexibility in responding to learnerneeds

− Course design requires morethought and preparation on part ofinstructor; insufficient pedagogicalmaterials available

Business and Culture(Taught in English)

Provides broad cultural overview(large and small C), to includegeographic literacy, demographics(ethnic groups, age distribution,religion, language varieties, generalattitudes), historical highlights,customs and courtesies, lifestyle,society, work environment (businesstravel, business customs, managerialprotocol and practice, negotiating,and the use of translators andinterpreters), etc.

+ Serves needs of broad range ofaffiliated programs and students

− The course is taught in English; doesnot develop foreign language skills


APPENDIX BEleven Types of Existing Curriculum Design: From Simple to More Complex

The foreign language course includes one or more business language modules—testing the waters.The foreign language curriculum includes a single business language course.The foreign language curriculum includes more than one business language course or an articulated

sequence of two or more courses (greater commitment, coverage, depth).The certificate in business language (coherence and articulation; attractive option for nondegree students;

highly flexible).The minor in business language (for degree-seeking students).The major in business language or in foreign language for the professions (which includes substantial

course work in business language).The major in a functional business area or in international business + the certificate in business language

or the minor in foreign language or in business language (the business core plus the add-on, which mayinclude business language courses).

The major in foreign language or in business language + a minor in a functional area or in internationalbusiness (the foreign language core plus the business add-on).

The double major in business (or international business) and foreign language (which may includebusiness language courses).

The integrated interdisciplinary major in international business, which includes substantial foreignlanguage (with business language courses) and cultural or area studies, or both.

The transnational degree program in which students earn international business degrees from two or moreinstitutions in two or more countries.

APPENDIX CSequencing in Business Language Instructional Methodology

1

6 2

3

5

4

BUSINESS LANGUAGE

COURSE

Yes

No

ENVISION DESIRED

LEARNING OUTCOMES

DESIGN SYLLABUS

TEACH COURSE

EVALUATE STUDENT

LEARNING

EVALUATE COURSE

REVISE AND IMPROVE COURSE


APPENDIX DBusiness Language AssessmentTable 1Master Grid or Menu for Comprehensive Business Language Examination

Language Skills:Testing forProficiency, Core Business (Functional Areas) and Business Language Culture ContentCompetency, orPerformative Ability Economics Accounting Management Marketing Finance Import–Export Culture

Speaking � � � � � � �

ListeningComprehension

� � � � � � �

Interpreting � � � � � � �

Reading � � � � � � �

Writing � � � � � � �

Translating � � � � � � �

ParalingualExpression(Kinesics andProxemics)

� � � � � � �

Cultural andCross-CulturalCompetency

� � � � � � �

Table 2Subtest Grid or Menu for Achievement Testing in All Functional Business Areas and Proficiency orCompetency Testing in Listening Comprehension, Reading, Writing, and Translation (the TraditionalWritten Examination Format)


SpeakingListening

Comprehension� � � � � � �

Interpreting � � � � � � �

Reading � � � � � � �

Writing � � � � � � �

Translating � � � � � � �

ParalingualExpression(Kinesics andProxemics)



Table 3Subtest Grid or Menu for Achievement Testing in Marketing with Proficiency or Competency Testing in AllLanguage Skills


Speaking �

ListeningComprehension

�

Interpreting �

Reading �

Writing �

Translating �

Paralingual Espression(Kinesics andProxemics)

�


�

business language studies in the united states: on nomenclature

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