POWER, CONFUSION AND OFFENCE: A SMALL-SCALE SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF EMAIL COMMUNICATION IN ENGLISH WITH SELECTED GERMAN COMPANIES

Abstract

The advent of increasing job mobility and globalisation, along with pragmatic group language policy, has created a situation in which many German multinational companies now regularly employ English-speaking teams of mixed nationality. This has serious ramifications for the efficiency of internal communicationas intercultural difficulties relating to hierarchy, appropriacy and directness compound the existing language problems. Common complaints in the corporate environment include an inability to 'read between the lines', confusion about project stage timings, responsiblities and urgency of requests, as well as bilateral accusations of rudeness and inappropriacy of tone. Email communication is a key element of corporate communication and it is also an area that is often overlooked in the ESL classroom as students favour speaking practice exercises as a better use of time. This small-scale piece of action research was aimed at exploring the complexity of the skills involved in effective email writing. By conducting Systemic Functional Linguistics analysis of a series of responses to a prompt email, I was able to illustrate the fact that competent email communication in English requires far more than grammatical accuracy and a wide range of vocabulary. In fact, some of the skills required for sensitive communication are at times better developed in students at a lower level of language proficiency.