Gerlinde Mautner – författare

In education, politics and religion, there are strong indications that discourse is becoming marketized. Around the world, government ministries have re-defined themselves as "service providers," universities draw up "market-driven" curricula, job seekers are asked to "package themselves" more effectively, and there are advertising agencies specializing in "the Christian marketplace." And it is not only word choice that is effected; higher-level linguistic patterns, such as genres and discursive practices (such as the text and talk connected with performance measurement and public relations), are also drawn into the orbit of market forces. Through an intricate dialectic, such patterns of linguistic choices, in turn, reinforce the social structures that shape them, further consolidating the marketization process. In a related development, language within the business domain itself is increasingly shaped by strategic planning and control, for example in branding, message design, and the promulgation of management buzzwords. Marketization thus emerges as a globally unfolding process in which language holds a key position as both cause and effect, and as both subject and object. The book examines these phenomena from a linguistic and critical perspective, drawing on critical discourse analysis, sociological treatises of market society, and critical management studies.

In education, politics and religion, there are strong indications that discourse is becoming marketized. Around the world, government ministries have re-defined themselves as "service providers," universities draw up "market-driven" curricula, job seekers are asked to "package themselves" more effectively, and there are advertising agencies specializing in "the Christian marketplace." And it is not only word choice that is effected; higher-level linguistic patterns, such as genres and discursive practices (such as the text and talk connected with performance measurement and public relations), are also drawn into the orbit of market forces. Through an intricate dialectic, such patterns of linguistic choices, in turn, reinforce the social structures that shape them, further consolidating the marketization process. In a related development, language within the business domain itself is increasingly shaped by strategic planning and control, for example in branding, message design, and the promulgation of management buzzwords. Marketization thus emerges as a globally unfolding process in which language holds a key position as both cause and effect, and as both subject and object. The book examines these phenomena from a linguistic and critical perspective, drawing on critical discourse analysis, sociological treatises of market society, and critical management studies.

The book takes a specifically linguistic approach to business communication, drawing together perspectives from various research traditions. These include genre analysis, LSP research, and language teaching. There are 30 chapters organized into five parts: (1) Introduction; (2) genres and media (e.g., presentations, negotiations, meetings, sales talk, e-mail, websites, advertising, annual reports; (3) Foreign languages and culture (e.g., intercultural business communication, language needs and policies, multilingualism and English as a lingua franca in international business contexts, teaching and learning foreign business languages), (4) Lexical phenomena (e.g., structure and semantics of business terms, metaphor, metonymy and euphemism, language planning, the language of marketing and accounting, proper names in business, lexicography, corpora and corpus linguistics), (5) Building bridges across disciplines (e.g., organizational discourse, corporate language and design, standardized text modules).

The book takes a specifically linguistic approach to business communication, drawing together perspectives from various research traditions. These include genre analysis, LSP research, and language teaching. There are 30 chapters organized into five parts: (1) Introduction; (2) genres and media (e.g., presentations, negotiations, meetings, sales talk, e-mail, websites, advertising, annual reports; (3) Foreign languages and culture (e.g., intercultural business communication, language needs and policies, multilingualism and English as a lingua franca in international business contexts, teaching and learning foreign business languages), (4) Lexical phenomena (e.g., structure and semantics of business terms, metaphor, metonymy and euphemism, language planning, the language of marketing and accounting, proper names in business, lexicography, corpora and corpus linguistics), (5) Building bridges across disciplines (e.g., organizational discourse, corporate language and design, standardized text modules).