CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

As  the  wind  of  globalization  is  stirring  up  an  English  mania  around  the  world,  now  an increasing  number  of people  can  speak  English  to  some  level  of  competence.  Specifically, there is such a  shift in the use of English that non-native  speakers (NNSs), those  who  have another  native  tongue  than  English,  using  English  for  international communication  have come to outnumber its native speakers (NSs) during the last two decades. Crystal (2003) even estimates  that  by  2060  NNSs  will  outnumber  NSs  by  50%.  This  has  prompted non-native/non-native (NN/NN) English interactions‘  turning into a  major topical  field  of research. With an increasing number of multinationals making English their corporate official language, NNSs need a  full understanding  of the  communicative strategies used in NN/NN interactions if they want to be successful in doing international business—first and foremost, the communication accommodation.

For a long time NNSs have been ―belittled‖ as imitators of NSs (Flege, Bohn, and Jang, 1997).  However,  with  the development  of  an  interactional  approach  with  regard  to  NN/NN interactions,  it  has  been  proved  that  NNSs focus  more  on  successful  communication  with other  NNSs  from  different  backgrounds  through  various communicative  strategies.  Among these  strategies  an  important  one  is  communication  accommodation.  By accommodative strategies,  people  change  their  communicative  behavior  towards  or  away  from  their interlocutors. Previous  studies,  within  a  bigger  picture  of  ELF  research,  touched  upon NN/NN communication accommodation but were only restricted to approximation strategies, or more narrowly, convergence. Besides, none of them focused on NN/NN accommodation in business interactions. Thereby, the present study will break such restrictions by probing into all the  accommodative  strategies  utilized  in  the  specific  context—NN/NN  business interactions.

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1.2 Rationale of the present study

This  study,  from  a  pragmatic  perspective,  is  conducted  to  sort  out  the  accommodative strategies employed by NNSs in business communication. On this basis, the paper intends to figure out how these strategies can affect NN/NN business interactions and how NNSs differ in  the  adoption  of  these  strategies.  The  selection  of  the  present  study is  triggered  by  the following three major reasons: 

First,  international  business  practice  calls  for  such  research.  For  one  thing,  NN/NN interactions are playing increasingly important part in the international business world. More and  more  non-English  businessmen  are  doing business  with  each  other  in  their  special communicative  ways, in other  words,  in  ways  different  from those used by native  speakers. For another, accommodation skills are one of the important skills in successful international business interactions (Gerritsen and Nickerson, 2009; Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen, 2010, 2013).

Second, though accommodation in NN/NN communication has received some attention, it  is  still  in  its  infancy. Relevant  literature  has  shown  that  researches  concerning  NN/NN interactions are mostly ―hidden‖ in researches of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). On the one hand, some scholars define ELF to be English used among NNSs in their studies (Firth, 1990; Meierkord, 2000; Sweeney and Zhu , 2010); on the other, much of the data used in ELF researches is from NN/NN interactions. In those researches, some scholars have related their findings to  communication accommodation  but was restricted to  convergence—few  of them systematically  elaborated  on  the  reasons, processes  and  effects  of  communication accommodation between NNSs.

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

Due  to  the  scarcity  of  independent  research  on  NN/NN  English  interactions  in  business contexts on the one hand, and the frequent inclusion of NNS studies in ELF researches on the other,  this  paper  could  only  refer  to  ELF studies  for  the  most  relevant  literature  review. However,  instead  of  ELF  interactions,  the  term  ―NN/NN interactions‖  is  used  hereafter, because only the discussions in ELF studies that are relevant to NN/NN interactions will be reviewed.  This  part  is  divided  into  two  major  sections:  section  2.2  focuses  on  the  previous studies  of NN/NN  interactions  with  different  approaches;  section  2.3  concentrates  on  the relevant  studies  associated  with communication  accommodation  in  NN/NN  interactions specifically.  At  the  end  of  each  section,  a  critical evaluation is  offered  for  explicating  the necessity of the present study.

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2.2 Approaches to non-native/non-native communication

2.2.1 Introduction

NN/NN  communication  has  been  studied  mainly  with  two  approaches:  ―deficit‖  and interactional  approach.  The terms  were  put  forward  by  Firth  (1990),  based  on  whether NN/NN interactions are studied in a static or dynamic/interactive way. The former studies the static  linguistic  features  of  NN/NN  interactions  while  the  latter studies  the  dynamic interactive processes of NN/NN communication.

2.2.2 “Deficit” approach

A ―deficit‖ approach refers to analysis of NN/NN interactions as interactions between English learners whose English is perceived to be ―imperfect‖ or ―incompetent‖. Such an approach has  basically  focused  on  linguistic  description  of NN/NN  communication  at lexico-grammatical and pragmatic levels.

Lexico-grammar  is  an  important  area  that  deserves  exploration  in  NN/NN  interactions yet  where  least description has  taken  place.  Seidlhofer  (2004),  as  a  precursor  in  this  area, summarized a list of preliminary lexico-grammatical tendencies in NN/NN communication.The  list  helps  to  give  direction  to  subsequent  studies  concerning  NN/NN communication, such as Breiteneder (2005), Cogo and Dewey (2006), and more relevantly the present study. 

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CHAPTER THREE   THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................17

3.1 Introduction .................. 17

3.2 Communication Accommodation Theory .................. 17

CHAPTER  FOUR   ACCOMMODATIVE  STRATEGIES  IN  NN/NN  BUSINESS INTERACTIONS..............25

4.1 Introduction ................. 25

4.2 Verbal approximation ........................ 25

CHAPTER FIVE   FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ADOPTION OF ACCOMMODATIVE STRATEGIES .................43

5.1 Introduction .......... 43

5.2 Contextual information of the data selected ............... 43

CHAPTER SIX FUNCTIONS OF ACCOMMODATIVE STRATEGIES IN NN/NN BUSINESS INTERACTIONS

6.1 Introduction

Within  the  large  framework  of  CAT,  this  chapter  will  discuss  the  main  functions  of  the accommodative strategies  in  NN/NN  business  interactions  manifested  and  illustrated  in Chapter 4. Data will be used in order to reveal how these accommodative strategies, through various  linguistic  behaviors,  achieve  their  significant  functions  in certain  contexts. Furthermore, the contextual factors of business relational history, business group membership, job position or ethnicity will be integrated into the process of analysis.

According  to  previous  scholars  (Thakerar,  J.  N.,  Giles,  and  Cheshire,  1982;  Street  and Giles, 1982; Beebe and Giles, 1984), the functions of communication accommodation can be classified into two broad categories: (a) affective functions, i.e. evoking the addressee‘s social approval  and  maintaining  a  positive  social  identity;  (b)  cognitive functions,  i.e.  promoting communicative  efficiency  between  interlocutors.  And  in  previous  studies,  of  the  three functions,  gaining  social  approval  and  communicating  efficiently  relate  mainly  to convergence  while  maintaining  a positive  social  identity  to  divergence.  In  the  last  two chapters,  a  categorization  of  accommodative  strategies and  a  exploration  of  the  contexts where  they  are  used  have  been  conducted.  On  account  of  this  and  based on  the  previous research  findings  about  the  functions  of  accommodation,  this  chapter  goes  further  on  the functions  of  accommodative  strategies  in  NN/NN  business  interactions.  Analytical  results show that in international business interactions, NNSs‘ use of accommodative strategies can achieve  mainly  two  kinds  of  functions:  building business  relationship  and  enhancing intercultural business communication efficiency.

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CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION

7.1 Introduction

The present study aims to explore the exercise of communication accommodation in NN/NN business  interactions.  In the  previous  chapters,  an  elaborate  analysis  has  been  carried  out concerning  the  process,  variation  and functions  of  accommodation,  within  a  framework established  based  on  CAT  and  other  supplementary  theories. At  the  end  of  this  paper,  it  is necessary to summarize the major findings and their implications. This part will also reflect on the limitations and give suggestions for future research.

This research is carried out in light of the increasingly important role NN/NN interactions are playing  in  international business  and  the  lack  of  systematic  research  on  NNSs‘ accommodation. Attempts have been made to find the answers to the three research questions in  chapter  one:  (a)  What  accommodative  strategies  are  used  in  NN/NN business communication;  (b)  What  are  the  contextual  factors  influencing  the  adoption  of  these strategies; (c) How do these strategies influence NN/NN business interactions.

Firstly,  the  data  analysis  lends  support  to  the  applicability  of  the  categorization  of accommodation  strategies  in CAT  to  NN/NN  interactions.  In  business  contexts,  NNSs  are accommodative  by  using  mainly  three  categories of  strategies:  verbal  approximation, interpretability strategy and the strategy of discourse management, through various linguistic behaviors. No convincing evidence has been found to the adoption of Interpersonal Control. These accommodation strategies and  their representative behaviors are summarized in Table 6.

reference(omitted)