Description
Book SynopsisThis volume aims to explore what the field of business communication has accomplished so far and where it is heading. In addition to presenting new research, a number of the contributions included address the question of how business communication scholarship may be relevant to education and practice. While the multidimensional nature of the field does not allow a single answer to that question, the contributors generally agree that the ‘language factor’ in international business is an intriguing mix of communicative skills that are receiving increased attention across disciplines. The contributions deal with a wide spectrum of business settings, including leadership and management situations, gatekeeping encounters in a variety of organizations and through a range of media and cultures, oral interaction in the workplace, marketing and PR discourse, on-line communication, management, organizational and corporate communication, and, finally, global aspects of integrated marketing communications. Methodologically, it includes a broad range of approaches, including work in discourse analysis and ethno-methodology, rhetoric and document design, intercultural pragmatics and writing studies, genre analysis, e-semantics and sociolinguistics.
Table of ContentsContents: Priscilla Heynderickx/Sylvain Dieltjens/Geert Jacobs/Paul Gillaerts/Elizabeth de Groot: The Language Factor in International Business: New Perspectives on Research, Teaching and Practice – Brigitte Planken: The Changing Landscape of Business Communication: Developments and Directions in Research – Giuliana Garzone: Text Genres and Text Types in Business Communication: Theoretical Issues and Pedagogical Applications – Jo Mackiewicz: Strategies for Connecting Research Findings to Business Practice – Judith Ainsworth: The Competitive Advantage of Learning Languages for Specific Business Purposes – Carmela Briguglio: Promoting the Development of Intercultural Communication Skills for Multinational Work Settings – Jolanta Aritz/Robyn C. Walker: The Effects of Leadership Style on Intercultural Group Communication in Decision-Making Meetings – Jantien van Berkel/Marinel Gerritsen: Patient Information Leaflets in Flanders and the Netherlands: Unnecessary Differences? – Andreu van Hooft/Tuyet P. Truong: Language Choice and Persuasiveness: The Effects of the Use of English in Product Advertisements in Hong Kong – Gilian Neessen/Jos Hornikx: The Effect of Communication Modality on the Persuasiveness of Hedges and Pledges in Advertising Claims – Paola Catenaccio: The ‘Value-Orientation’ of Business Discourse: The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Business Communication: A Case Study – Donatella Malavasi: ‘The Necessary Balance between Sustainability and Economic Success’: An Analysis of Fiat’s and Toyota’s Corporate Social Responsibility Reports – Diane Goossens/Sylvie De Cock: Around Numbers: Combinations of Approximators and Numbers in Business News Reporting and in Academic Business English – Paul Sambre: Blurring Boundaries of the EU (Nano)Future in Italian: Cognitive Grammar as Discourse Analysis.
