Harmonization of Communication in Professional Setting

Abstract

The 21st century has introduced many changes in modern workplaces which have become multilingual and multicultural. The present paper sheds light on selected aspects of workplace discourse, revealing that backstage communication in a professional setting plays a very significant role in establishing and maintaining effective subject-bound transaction and/or interaction between the partners involved in communication. The theoretical framework of the paper is designed to consider recent contributions in professional communication research supported by some seminal theoretical writings on linguistic ecology that explore the role of language in natural interactions that occur among people working for multinational companies. The linguistic politeness theories are taken into account when cases of communication harmonization in a professional setting are examined. The empirical part of the paper deals with a qualitative discourse analysis of authentic electronic data collected in a multilingual company in Riga, Latvia. The study concludes that a present-time multilingual workplace exhibits a direct relationship between the use of language and power equilibrium, which vividly characterises contemporary communication in a professional setting. Pragmatic strategies employed can enhance the harmonization of communication in order to avoid the risk of miscommunication.

Keywords

• harmonization of communication
• professional setting
• linguistic ecology
• pragmatic strategies