Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 290

Part of Session 181: Folk linguistics and society (Other abstracts in this session)

Language problems in the industry and public institutions

Authors: Janicki, Karol
Submitted by: Janicki, Karol (University of Bergen, Norway)

Language problems in the industry and public institutions

This paper discusses an empirical study which aimed at disclosing what language-related problems lay people have in a selection of professional contexts. The study also measures the level of concern about the problems mentioned. The following companies/institutions were approached in their Bergen (Norway) offices: StatoilHydro (oil company) Telenor (telephone company), Posten Norge (post office), Helse Bergen (health institution), Rieber AS (business company), Friele (coffee producer), Gjensidige Nor (insurance company), Nordea Bergen (bank), and Møller Bil (car dealer).

The motivation for the study was the claim that the lay public find much research completely incomprehensible and/or irrelevant to their daily lives and that much research is trivial, esoteric, jargon-ridden, obscure and/or remote from the interests and concerns of non-academic people (see e.g., Maxwell 1984, Brooks 2008)

The present study is an attempt at improving this allegedly unfortunate state of affairs and pointing to ways of strengthening the connection between what professional linguists believe and do on the one hand and what the lay language user feels we should do to help solve real-life language problems.

The theoretical position adopted in this study is that of folk linguistics (Niedzielski and Preston 2003). According to them, ‘Folk linguistics will include accounts of what people say about reactions to language’ (p. 29).

This study has used ‘structured interview’ as the method. A research assistant has carried out interviews with two representatives of the management and two lower level employees of the same company. The research assistant had received guidance in the form of oral and written instructions as to how the interview should be conducted. The interviews have been conducted in Norwegian. A pilot interview test had been carried out before the actual interviews.

The main finding was that understanding customers and being understood by them is the main problem for most of the institutions addressed in the study.

References:

Brooks, Michael. 2008. “Entertain, or else” New Scientist 20/27. December 2008.
Niedzielski, Nancy, and Dennis Preston (2003) Folk linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maxwell, Nicholas. 1984. From knowledge to wisdom. A revolution in the aims and methods of science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Language problems in the industry and public institutions