Communicative Effectiveness in BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) Meetings: ‘Explaining’ as a Pragmatic Strategy

Abstract

The study investigates business professionals of different language backgrounds using English as a business lingua franca (BELF) in formal internal meetings. In particular, it examines how these participants deploy ‘explaining’ as a pragmatic strategy to increase communicative effectiveness. The data comprise 6 internal business meetings, totaling 293 minutes of video recordings. A discourse analysis of the meeting data reveals that the participants move to explain even in the absence of a request for an explanation or following an implicit request for further information. The strategy of explaining allows the speaker to provide additional information or background details that contribute to increasing communicative clarity and enhancing shared knowledge. The findings offer insights into the pragmatic competence of BELF users that is crucial in the accomplishment of communicative goals in the business setting. The findings also have pedagogical implications in that they point to the relevance of incorporating the teaching of pragmatic strategies such as explaining in business communication courses to address the needs of future business practitioners in a globalized world.

The sociocultural ontogenesis of international students’ use of pragmatic strategies in ELF academic communication: Two contrasting case studies

“…In retrospect, Rakin's moves in line 11 and 12 may seem unnecessary and even off-target, since Bruce already confirmed his understanding in line 10. Nevertheless, these redundant moves feature a major characteristic of ELF speakers' use of PSs in achieving communicative clarity through verbal redundancy and unsolicited explanation during complex and unpredictable lingua franca encounters (Matsumoto, 2015;Kaur & Birlik, 2021). "When faced with recipient nonunderstanding, speakers may opt to rephrase prior talk…or replace nonunderstood lexical items with what may be perceived as more easily understood ones as a way of increasing explicitness and communicative clarity" (Kaur & Birlik, 2021, p. 625), and they may also provide additional explanations (including unsolicited ones) to convey "more detailed information that can contribute to increasing communicative clarity and enhancing shared knowledge" (p. 630).…”

“…"When faced with recipient nonunderstanding, speakers may opt to rephrase prior talk…or replace nonunderstood lexical items with what may be perceived as more easily understood ones as a way of increasing explicitness and communicative clarity" (Kaur & Birlik, 2021, p. 625), and they may also provide additional explanations (including unsolicited ones) to convey "more detailed information that can contribute to increasing communicative clarity and enhancing shared knowledge" (p. 630). The quotes from Kaur and Birlik (2021) aptly picture Rakin's communicative moves in lines 7, 9, 11, 12. In real-time negotiation, it may be impossible to precisely evaluate the contextual appropriateness of the PSs used, and skillful ELF speakers tend to display their proactive disposition to make the message overly explicit in order to minimize the possibility of miscommunication.…”

“…Moreover, the term pragmatic strategies invites less confusion than communication strategies, as the latter is a widely researched concept in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) with deficit-oriented premises "that are different from those of ELF" research (Vettorel, 2019, p. 188). Building on definitions and descriptions outlined in prior ELF pragmatics research (Björkman, 2014;Vettorel, 2017Vettorel, , 2018Vettorel, , 2019Kaur & Birlik, 2021), PSs are defined in this paper as "strategic moves" (Vettorel, 2019, p. 181) initiated by speakers to fulfill their pragmatic aims and purposes to achieve successful communication. Particularly, in ELF interactions, these strategic moves usually consist of speakers' adaptation and employment of various verbal and nonverbal communicative resources as well as interactional practices to achieve their pragmatic ends in preempting and resolving mis/non-understandings, facilitating communicative effectiveness, and managing smooth and collaborative interactions.…”

A Review of Pragmatic Competence in BELF Interactions

“…Based on the general trend of English development, English has become the language of "others", which calls for attention to contextual variables of non-linguistic dimensions such as interpersonal rapport and intercultural mediation that BELF users dynamically develop pragmatic ability to adjust concerning cultural differences and specific contexts (Pennycook, 2010;Baker, 2011) while focusing on the transmission of linguistic information and developing interpersonal relationship management skills (Spencer-Oatey, 2008;Seidlhofer, 2009). Pragmatic competence in BELF interactions involves the capacity to use a variety of resources, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, to conjointly construct meaning (Kaur & Birlik, 2021). BELF research accounts for the change of pragmatic research in the communicative context and communicative process.…”

“…In the presence of considerable variability in language form and use (Firth, 2009;Seidlhofer, 2011), it is critical for the speaker's ability to use a range of pragmatic strategies to convey and interpret meaning successfully. Skillful use of pragmatic strategies constitutes an essential part of one's pragmatic competence (Kaur & Birlik, 2021). The diversity of BELF interactions enables participants to choose proper pragmatic strategies by identifying pragmatic clues with information from the context.…”