20 TheLinguistAPRIL/MAYwww.iol.org.ukFEATURESIs going multilingual in business avaluable asset or simply a necessity,asks Inkaliisa Vihonen in our recent EU study on multilingualism inbusiness it was revealed that the digital ageand globalisation have changed theEuropean business environment in a shortperiod of time, and that companies and theiremployees now deal with different languagesand cultures on a daily basis. in this context,it could be said that multilingualism shouldno longer be considered an asset forcompanies, but a mere fact of life. According to the 'Mapping Best MultilingualBusiness practices in the EU' report,1commissioned by the DGt (Directorate-General for translation of the Europeancommission), businesses have come up withmultiple solutions to deal with the challenge.these include localisation, and collaborativelanguage management and outsourcing.the 2011 study gathered case studies fromcompanies, both big and small, all withEuropean headquarters and many withoffices throughout the world. Faced with thismultilingual reality, they had adopted anumber of innovative business practices.these included intercomprehension (ie, the parallel use of different languages thathave similar structures and vocabularies);collaborative interpretation (expertcolleagues used as interpreters in meetings);and the use of language technology tools, such as machine translation andterminology management.the companies stressed that socialnetworks and collaborative methods had ledto increasingly complex and technicalcontent, as experts on the substance matterwere solely responsible for producing andfinalising texts, without help from languageexperts. An increased demand for qualitytranslation and other language services wasreported, as the company image was felt tobe at stake if its foreign language usage wasnot up to standard.As companies were interviewed in detailon their multilingual practices, it also becameclear that multilingualism is a sensitive issuein the business environment. it can beconsidered as a strategic issue, or even asconfidential. Some companies did not wantto make official statements about theirmultilingual business practices, although theycertainly had them in use. perhaps somefeared that disclosing their multilingualbusiness strategies would be detrimental tothem, decreasing their competitiveadvantage. in other companies, informationon multilingual practices is not disseminatedsufficiently and may not be well known orwell supervised, with the result thatexecutives prefer not to make officialstatements about them.A flexible workplacethe study covered everything from bigmultinationals operating on a Europe-widescale, such as GDF Suez, to small enterprises,including cafès Novell. GDF Suez has officesin 60 countries and uses its vast, multinationaland multilingual resources to operate allaround the world. With 130 employees inSpain and italy, cafès Novell uses multilingualwebsites to reach its customers. Despite the difference in size, both are opento multilingualism and stated that they hadBusinessessentialsthis, in turn, has led to a boom in thelanguage industry, which provides solutionsto the language barriers in business. With increasing globalisation, the businessenvironment has changed throughout theworld, but this is particularly striking in theEuropean Union, which accounts for about 25 percent of global imports and exports. in2007, the EU was responsible for 18 percentof world trade, making it the world's largesttrader, followed by the United States (16%),china (11%), Japan (7%) and canada (4%). itis the biggest exporter and the secondbiggest importer in the world, and since theexpansions of 2004 and 2007, its GDp hasbeen higher than that of the US. in 2009,approximately one-third of the top 500 globalcompanies had their headquarters in Europe.© iStockphoto

Vol/51 No/2 2012ApriL/MAYTheLinguist21FEATURESlabel for multilingual European companywebsites translated into more than fourlanguages, and support for the Europeancompany Statute. the writers of the studyfelt that measures and recommendations infavour of multilingualism in business shouldbe promoted both at the European level aswell as locally, as the repercussions ofmultilingualism in business are both local andstrategic, involving various operational levels.thus, multilingualism is a global as well as atransversal issue in the organisation, mainly asa result of borderless digital communication.in addition, the authors detected thatneeds and practices in multilingual businessare not centralised, and therefore thatmultilingual business practices are not fixed.the people involved are not dedicated tomultilingualism in the company; rather theyare in charge of one function in the companywhich has links with multilingual issues.Although there are no official multilingualstrategies, companies 'act multilingual' intheir management choices to integratecultural and linguistic diversity into theirbusiness development.on the language management side, thethreat of machine translation was alsoaddressed, with reassuring results. Even ifmachine translation and semi-automatictranslation tools continue to improve, humanresources will be needed to validatetranslations. Multilingualism implies themanagement of human relations in thebusiness area, and it is directly linked tomobility and business opportunities.As to the use of Business English, themessage was somewhat encouraging too.English may remain the language ofreference in many companies doing businessin Europe, but there are a number of linguafrancas in pan-European companies. inNestlé, for example, all documents from itsSwiss headquarters are published in fourlanguages: English, French, German anditalian. Documents distributed worldwide aretranslated and distributed locally in variouslanguages, according to local interests. this line of thinking is confirmed in one ofthe company logos -'think global, actlocal' -which sums up the main findings ofthe study. Multilingual business is here to stayand companies need to be versatile to beable to cope with it.Notes1'Mapping Best Multilingual Business practicesin the EU', 2011, European commission,Directorate-General for translation. Freedownload available at http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/mapping-best-multilingual-business-practices-in-the-eu-pbhc3111018/2 'Study on the Size of the Language industry inthe EU', 2009, European commission,Directorate-General for translation. Freedownload available at http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/study-on-the-size-of-the-language-industry-in-the-eu-pbhc8009985/several corporate languages. in meetings,they encourage employees to speak inwhichever language they feel comfortable,without the use of interpretation, andconsider this form of intercomprehension tobe beneficial for everybody, creating aflexible, multilingual atmosphere. the issue of outsourcing translation andother language services was raisedrepeatedly in the interviews, although somebigger companies, such as GDF Suez hadtheir own translation departments. thesedepartments often act as intermediariesbetween the experts and freelance translatorsor localisers. they are also in charge ofmultilingual terminology and informationmanagement, which help multilingualcommunication, both internal and external. insmaller companies, outsourcing is naturallymore common, as limited resources mean itis not possible to have staff covering all thelinguistic needs of the company.As a consequence of outsourcing andoperating in multilingual markets, thelanguage industry has been experiencing anupward trend in business opportunities.According to a study carried out by the DGtin 2009,2this emerging sector, producingtranslation, interpretation, localisation andother linguistic services, was one of the raresectors with positive growth prospectsdespite the economic downturn. this trendwas confirmed by the Multilingual Businesspractices study: every company interviewedstated that they did business in severallanguages and outsourced at least some oftheir language services needs. Recommendationsthe study contains a set of recommendationsto enhance multilingualism in business. theseinclude the development of cross-cuttingmultilingual business strategies, a qualityMultilingualism is asensitive issue in thebusiness environment.It can be consideredas confidentialThe language industrywas one of the raresectors with positivegrowth prospectsdespite the downturn© DrEAMStiME