Business communication: Mapping a road for the future

Abstract

This is a state-of-the-art paper which explores the challenges that the rapidly developing business world presents to language and communication researchers and teachers. It suggests a way forward in cooperation with international business management researchers in particular, arguing that linguists should increasingly link up their world – research questions, methodologies, data collection, and research paradigms − with that of business. It does this by revisiting a framework useful for seeing how certain areas of linguistic research can reveal business developments, and vice versa: how awareness of current globalization trends can reveal new areas for research, and new and relevant teaching needs and approaches for linguists. In doing this, the paper casts a glance into recent trends in language and communication research and teaching, arguing that constant reconceptualisation of traditionally used concepts like „context‟ and „culture‟ is necessary, as also are new kinds of data that reflect the current globalized state of business, together with new perspectives on that data.