Volume 34, Issue 1 -

Research on the routines of doctor–patient consultations has been conducted in language and culture concordant dyads and in dyads where either doctor or patient uses a foreign language; yet there is an absence of scholarly engagement with consultations where both participants are using a foreign language. In seeking to address this gap, this article reports on four doctor–patient consultations involving the use of English as a lingua franca. The data form part of a larger empirical study of communication in an Irish diabetes clinic. Microanalysis, informed by Interactional Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics and Conversation Analysis, reveals a range of interactive challenges rooted in language and cultural assumptions which impact on the management of the consultation routines. The findings emphasize the strength of the doctors’ professional socialization and the challenges this poses for non-native-speaker patients.

This is a study of two Australian learners of Indonesian during a short stay abroad. It examines their contrasting success in acquiring L2 address terms, in tandem with their contrasting experiences of the L2 culture setting. It thereby helps explain the persistent finding of great individual variation in L2 gains – and in particular pragmatic gains – during study abroad. The study shows that the contrasting success of these two learners is linked to their L2 identity development. At the same time, it dispels a simplistic view of the relationship between identity development and pragmatic development, by showing that their language outcomes emerge through a highly contingent process. The study also helps us understand how certain specific factors can influence learning of L2 pragmatics during study abroad, such as low initial proficiency, prior foreign language learning experience, timing of formal instruction, and the presence of peer L2 learners during naturalistic interactions.

This article examines aspects of linguistic behaviour, attitudes and professional practices amongst a group of 47 “expert users” who are translators or interpreters for one, two or three of the following languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. The official terms for these languages in the respective successor states of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and elsewhere reflect not only historic but also popular designations. Incumbent on translators and interpreters are the professional regulatory norms that require practitioners to follow these designations. An overview of the re-codification of the three languages is provided, followed by a discussion of models that account for how speakers and text-producers negotiate verbal and written interactions with speakers or text of different language varieties. Data are elicited on the following: informants’ reported behaviour in professional and non-professional situations; unanticipated differences in the language for which an assignment was accepted and its actual form; attitudes on assignments with unofficial or unclear language designations; others’ assumptions of informants’ native speaker competency and ethnicity; and attitudes towards the distinctness of the three languages. Accommodation to clients’ language varieties is reported by half of all informants, and those with multiple accreditations report converging to others’ language varieties more so than those with accreditation in one language only. Metalinguistic talk, with or without accommodation, is also a common practice in the initial stages of interpreted interactions or the negotiation of translation assignments. The reported behaviour and practices of translators and interpreters are likely to be indicative of “lay speakers’” and marketplace requirements, and therefore reflective of actual language use amongst users of these three languages when interacting with one another.

Research on the role of language in multilingual workplaces, where English is often adopted as a lingua franca (ELF), shows that language practices influence socialization and interpersonal communication, frequently creating issues such as asymmetrical sharing of information, language clusters, or thin communication. Similarly to other organizations, academic workplaces are undergoing a process of internationalization. However, academia as a workplace has been largely ignored, particularly in terms of language practices in social situations. We address this gap by investigating multilingualism in an academic workplace; departing from the concepts of language clustering and thin communication, we focus on how language practices affect social interaction and the establishment of rapport. We report the experiences of five academics with various backgrounds and status in a science university department in Sweden. In-depth interviews and grand/mini tour elicitation techniques reveal how language practices – English and other languages – are experienced from different points of view. We identify lunch as the primary activity associated with social interaction and exchange of information: people and places connected with this activity seem to determine language practices. In the final section we discuss the presence of language clustering and thin communication in this academic workplace.

Commercials regularly feature foreign accents. This paper aims to investigate whether the use of foreign accents in radio commercials is more effective for congruent than incongruent products, and whether foreign-accented commercials are evaluated differently than non-accented commercials. In an experiment, a group of 228 Dutch participants rated non-accented and accented commercials for four different products in a between-subject design. The products were either congruent or incongruent with the foreign accent in the commercial (e.g. a German-accented commercial for sausage vs. olive oil). Foreign-accented commercials for congruent products were assessed more positively on a number of variables than foreign-accented commercials for incongruent products. Foreign-accented commercials were rated more negatively than commercials without a foreign accent.