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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 430

Part of Session 125: The legitimate speaker in a transforming political economy (Other abstracts in this session)

Language beliefs and ideologies in a London based multilingual outbound call centre

Authors: Woydack, Johanna
Submitted by: Woydack, Johanna (King's College London, United Kingdom)

In the past fifteen years, call centres have risen to prominence in many countries, as an important source of employment and a revolutionary model of efficient organisation. As a result, they have become widely associated as one of the workplaces of the new economy. Despite their prominent position in the debate on the new economy and often being quoted as an example of language work, increasing commodification of language and controversial language standardisation practices (e.g. scripting entire conversations) in the transforming political economy, there have been few sociolinguistic studies on call centres (Heller 2005). In fact, most of the few studies tend to be on inbound call centres (e.g. Cameron 2000; Duchêne 2009), while little is known about the outbound call centres that are commonly found in global cities like London (Buchanan & Schulte 2000).

Drawing on the unusual advantage of long-term ethnography, this research discusses a) the language workers of those types of call centres b) language practices and regimes that can be seen to govern them c) the language ideologies underpinning the organisation and d) how those get produced. Methodologically, participant observation was conducted over four years at an outbound call centre in London (that describes itself as speaking “300 + languages”), and fifty interviews were conducted with the staff.

The study finds the call centre workers to be highly educated employees, hired on a temporary basis and solely because of their language skills. The call centre is often the agent’s first job in London after having located there from another country or after having recently finished their higher education in London. The call centre job allows the agents to take advantage of their language skills e.g. as native speakers and the job’s flexibility while undergoing what agents refer to as “London socialisation” and finding a “real job”. The call centre is seen to rely on these new arrivals to the Londoner labour market, as clients choose London’s outbound call centres because of its constant supply of cheap multilingual workers. More generally, I will show the important role that language standardisation practices hold in allowing language commodification, flexibility and low labour costs. Although native speakers are considered to be the ideal employees, the use of language standardisation practices (such as scripts) allows the call centre to recruit new kinds of language speakers (non-native, not fluent but semi-multilingual) who are cheaper to employ and more flexible than native speakers. As a consequence, new language ideologies and labels for language speakers are seen to be created and commodified.

References:

Buchanan, R. & Koch-Schulte, S. (2000). Gender on the Line: Technology, Restructuring and the Reorganization of Work in the Call Centre Industry. Ottawa: Status of Women Canada

Cameron, D. (2000) Good to talk? London: Sage

Duchêne, A. (2009) “Marketing, Management and Performance: Multilingualism as Commodity in a Tourism Call Centre.” Language Policy 8: 27-50

Heller, M. (2005) “Language, Skill and Authenticity in the New Economy” Noves SL. hiver 2005