The Languages of Business: An International Perspective

This work explores how people in different parts of the world and speaking different languages accomplish business: that is, task-oriented verbal interactions, whether a simple book purchase or a complex bargaining session. The significance of cultural assumptions underlying the exchanges emerges from the analysis of naturally-occurring dyadic and multi-party interactions. The languages covered include varieties of English (British, American and Australian) employed in inter-cultural settings (for example, American and Japanese or Australian and Korean/Vietnamese Japanese) and other languages (German, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese) as used in intra-cultural situations.