The Definition and Background
Although Language is a common experience of human beings, it is difficult to have an agreement in the definition. Language is considered as providing and invoking context. It provides the context for our thoughts, interactions and social identities; but it stimulates other social forces (Welch & Piekkari, 2006; Goodwin & Duranti, 1992). Dhir and Abildun (2002) stated that language not only allows us to acquire, but also to transmit knowledge from one generation to the other. Besides, language is a symbolic resource that individuals use in order to achieve and express cultural and social notions of behavior. Other researchers indicated that language users’ choice of a specific linguistic medium to socio-cultural concerns such as the focus of a conversation (e.g. ingroup/outgroup, formal/informal), setting (e.g. place, time, participants), function (e.g. task/relationship), and social identity (e.g. national, professional, gender). Similar criteria can be used to distinguish national from corporate languages (Welch
& Piekkari, 2006). In this research, Language is defined as a symbolic resource that individuals use to achieve and express cultural and social notions of behavior, in which the process includes conversation, setting, function and social identity, including English and other rare languages.
The process of learning any language is also a process of acquiring the culture that is included by the language. Recent trend emphasizes that language is more than a medium for communication; instead, it’s a “culture resource” that (re)produces the social world (Duranti, 1997; Welch & Piekkari, 2006). Language plays a role that operate globally, bringing people from various cultures and traditions together, who were educated through different learning processes (Dhir, 2005). Individuals interact and make interpretations within their cultural and linguistic context (Von Glinow, Shapiro, & Brett, 2004) with language serving as a cultural
10
system of signification (Brannen, 2004; Luo & Shenkar, 2006). Consequently, this research will enquire more on the dimensions of culture. Later the literature of intercultural communication will be discussed.
Language plays a critical role in various dimensions. It is important in knowledge creation and application, flow of information, and functioning of organizations (Dhir, 2005).
Management theories also indicate that language is like a facilitator providing for the acquisition and transmission of information through social interaction with others (Feely &
Harzing, 2003). Language not only communicates information, but facilitates the creation of value through exchange of ideas within the context (Dhir & Abildun, 2002). The idea of exchange is similar to the concept of currency. There are three functions of language which correspond to the three functions of currency. The three functions of currency are (1) a unit of exchange (2) a unit of account (3) a store of value (Dhir, 2005). The three corresponding functions of language are (1) exchanging information and knowledge (2) accounting through narratives; and (3) storing value of knowledge and know-how. Language is not value in itself, but rather it creates value in its use of exchange (Dhir & Abildun, 2002). In the process of exchange, many decisions of choice and usage are created. For business, the choices and usages of language have influences on information circulation, presentation and interpretation, which in turn allow corporate headquarters to control global planning and inter-unit coordination. Language also affects the process of enactment in which organizational members internalize environmental information (Luo & Shenkar, 2006; Phillips, Lawrence,
& Hardy, 2004). Furthermore, for business there are two kinds of missions of the working language. First from the points of view of the corporate planners, the mission is to maximize the organization’s competitive advantage within the strategic environment in which it operates. Second, from the perspectives of sociolinguists, the mission is to maximize the quality and quantity of the social interactions (Dhir & Abildun, 2002). As for the international events, the language choices and usages are not as complicated as the corporates;
11
nevertheless, the language setting could make a big difference to the events, especially for the communication between volunteers and the international participants. Consequently, this research not only explored the language issues from the angle of organizations, but also emphasized on the communication contents of the volunteers.
Language management is a new issue in recent decades; however, it is difficult to have an agreement in the definition. Blommaert (2003) defined language management as the following: new speech varieties and repertoires are adopted to fulfill certain ”Lingua franca functions”. Spolsky (2004) defined language management as “the formulation and
proclamation of an explicit plan or policy, usually but not necessarily written in a formal document, about language use.” Luo and Shenkar (2006) perceived language management as
“a variable mechanism that needs to balance global integration with local adaptation in line with corporate strategy and an evolving global environment (P.322)”, which limited language management in enterprises. In this research, language is defined as a system and application which develop human resources of volunteers, including recruiting, selecting and training in short-term events.
The Language Option and Policy
Facing the globalized environment, organizations adopt different means and tools to deal with the language issues. The solutions depend on different situations of each organization.
Lester (1994, P.43) (as cited in Dhir, 2005) notes: “the easiest and cheapest way to approach the language problem is to hire people already possessing the required skills.” It seems work;
however, the nature of language is abstract and talents are not always easy to obtain. Many organizations choose to set the common language (standardized language) but some problems still exist. Using a language that members of a given constituency do not master, or one that limits their ability to converse, lowers their information access and hence power within the organization. Global English is important to corporate performance; however, we should notice that language choice, like other strategic decisions, is not made in a vacuum. With the
12
streams of immigration, trade and investment, creating new jargons and dialects that represent mixtures of diverse languages, languages are continually evolving, infused with new vocabularies and language usages (Luo & Shenkar, 2006).
It seems that how language workers manage the language issues depends on how the organizations handle with language management. It comes with the term, language policy.
Traditionally, language policy issue is about how the languages or its varieties in a nation’s speech repertoire function and the attitudes of the populace to these languages, in order to provide a rational basis for allocating functional roles to these languages; however, language policy can be defined as “the only activity in which a language community takes action actively and intentionally in order to obtain a linguistic change” (Dhir & Abildun, 2002).
There are two key ideas which should be considered during developing a language policy. First, linguistic expressions are the product of the relationship between a linguistic and linguistic habitus. Second, individual choices are conditioned by the demands of the target social or economic fields or market (Dhir & Abildun, 2002).
As for the options for language issues, scholars indicated many concepts and tools.
Cobarrubias (1983) indicated four typical ideologies that motivate decision-making in language planning. These are linguistic assimilation, linguistic pluralism, vernacularzation and internationalism (Dhir & Abildun, 2002). Feely and Harzing (2003) presented several options: lingua franca, functional multilingualism, external language resources, training, corporate languages, language nodes, selective recruitment, expatriate management, impartation, machine translation and control language. Such means offered by the scholars provide the researcher dimensions to examine the implementation of language management in international sport events in Taiwan.
The Dimension of Language Issue
Many studies have discussed the factors in language issues. In business, during the language planning stage, there are two kinds of planning: status planning and corpus planning.
13
Status planning is related to the status of the target language(s) or varieties of a language about other(s); corpus planning is about the internal constitution of the target variety with the goal of changing it (Dhir & Abildun, 2002).
Other than the methods of planning, there are other factors which company could take into consideration. Facing the globalized environment, companies have to evaluate the magnitude of the language barrier which they encounter. There are three dimensions helping them to examine the magnitude. The first dimension is language diversity, which means the number of various languages the company has to manage. The second one is language penetration, the number of functions and the number of levels within those functions that are involved in cross-lingual communication. The third dimension is language sophistication, which means the complexity and refinement of the language skills required (Feely & Harzing, 2003). Luo and Shenker (2006) indicated the similar concepts. For MNC, in headquarters, language breadth means how widespread is the use of the parent functional language across geographically dispersed units. In a foreign subunit, breadth refers to how widespread the subunit’s functional language is in communications with other corporate members. In cases of this study, it is closed to the situation in foreign subunit; this dimension is similar to the language penetration. Language intensity means how frequent and intense is the use of a functional language by organizational members. This dimension is related to the language sophistication. Transnationality is the extent to which an MNC has internationalized its major businesses and diversified globally. This dimension is similar to the language diversity. The above dimensions can be applied to the international sport events. The international events include diversity cultures and languages, several subunits and tasks which need different levels of language skills. During the process of planning of the sport events, the dimensions could be considered in the language issues.
Over all, for MNCs, language system can be determined by international strategy, organization structure, and level of internationalization (Luo & Shenkar, 2006).
14
Correspondingly, in an international sport event, the orientation of the event, the structures of the event and its language diversity have influences on the language policy of the
international sport event. Tange and Lauring (2009) also indicated factors which influence the form and nature of multilingualism, the organizational level, setting and unit. These make a sociolinguistic analysis of organizational communication a very complex undertaking. In international sport events, these factors can also be applied. The significance of the events to the organization, the setting in the events and the involved units are the dimensions which the organizers can take into account. Therefore, this study explored the dimensions in language planning, the factors in the language policy and other related issues.
Intercultural Communication The Definition and Background
Other than discussing the language issues, there is an important factor should be discussed. Communication also plays a critical role in sport events. From becoming the bidding city to the closing ceremony, no matter the organizations or volunteers, the great amount of communication is needed in a sport event. In international sport events, there are people from different countries and cultures which we emphasized in previous chapters.
These bring out another important issue, cross-cultural communication, or intercultural communication.For cross-cultural, it general refers to comparing phenomena across cultures.
For intercultural communication, it generally refers to face-to-face interaction among people of diverse cultures (Jandt, 2004); therefore, in this research, the researcher will use
“intercultural communication”. Edward T. Hall first used the term intercultural communication in 1959; he defined it as communication between persons of different cultures. There are thousands of definitions of culture. Edward Hall (1966) defined culture as deep, common and unstated experience which members of a given culture share. They communicate without knowing. Individuals have a culture, but often are not aware of their behaviors, habits and customs that are culturally based. Beamer and Varner (2001) defined
15
culture as the coherent, learned and shared view of people about life’s concern which decide what is important, appropriate attitude and behavior (Beamer & Varner, 2001). Culture seems a common, learned and unstated experience shared by members of a given culture share without knowing. The way we think and behavior are all related to culture.
As for communication, the study of communication in western culture has been 2500 years in history. Greece described the process of communication as involving a speaker, the speech act, an audience and a purpose. There are many theories about intercultural communication. Edward Hall (1966) indicated the high-context and low-context cultures.
High-context cultures in which the context of the message is well understood by both sender and receiver, use the context to communicate the message. Members in low-context cultures put their thoughts into words (Beamer & Varner, 2001; Edward, 1966). About the Schemata Model, among the schemata are those that categorize what we know about cultures about our own; when facing the unfamiliar culture, the new schemata should be created. In the Unites States, communication was studied as the means of transmitting ideas. Western transmission models emphasized the instrumental function of communication. David Berlo’s (1960) indicated that communication is a dynamic process. The transmission models clear defined the components in the process: source, encoding, message, channel, noise, receiver, decoding, receiver response, feedback and context (Jandt, 2004).
Communication is a process, culture is the structure through which the communication is formulated and interpreted (Jandt, 2004). Because communication is an element of culture, it can’t be separated with culture. Jandt (2004, p.22) cited the words of Godwin C. Chu (1977) Saying,
“Every cultural pattern and every single act of social behavior involve communication to be understood, the two must be studied together. Culture cannot be known without a study of communication, and communication can only be understood with an understanding of the culture it supports.”
16
The relationship between language, culture and communication is presented more clearly in figure 2.1. To communicate effectively in the intercultural environment, understanding the factors that affect the situation is necessary.
Figure 2.1. Dimension of c adapted from “Cultural orientation: An approach to
understanding intercultural communication.” by Borden, G.A.,1991. P. 171. Upper Salle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Language is related to thought processes and mental learning process; researchers suggest that language and culture can be used interchangeably, while some think they are indeed separate phenomenon because language is clearly inadequate to help us understand culture, especially our own. Intercultural communication continually involves misunderstanding caused by misperception, misinterpretation and misevaluation (Beamer &
Varner, 2001). These may lead to more problems such as mistrust, quarrels and conflicts, etc.
More seriously these may affect the process of an international event. For successful intercultural communication, the cultural intelligence is mentioned. Chen (1989, 1990) identifies four skill areas: personal strength, communication skills, psychological adjustment, and cultural awareness. Besides, according to Peterson (2004), cultural competence involves the areas of linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. As for communication skills, individual must be competent in
17
verbal and nonverbal behaviors. These require message skills, behavioral flexibility, interaction management, and social skills (Jandt, 2004). Not only in the international events the intercultural intelligence is needed and implemented, but also in many occasions we have to face different cultures. Therefore, the issue about intercultural communication can’t be ignored.
Verbal and Nonverbal Language
Communication is the perception of verbal (words) and nonverbal (without words) behaviors and the assignment of meaning to them. Generally we agree with the words;
however, sometimes we may feel there is more to the message than the words. The truth is that we may base the judgment on nonverbal signal or the ”silent language” (Beamer &
Varner, 2001). The scholars Judee Burgoon and her colleagues (1988) define nonverbal communication as the actions and attributes of human that have socially shared meaning, are intentionally sent or interpreted, are consciously send or received, and have potential for feedback from the receiver. Nonverbal communication refers to a source’s actions or attributes that are not verbal (Jandt, 2004).
The content of the communications is very important. The use of non-verbal communications works a lot (Luo & Shenkar, 2006). Language put limits on expressing certain qualities or concepts with a single word (Beamer & Varner, 2001), nonverbal communication does make communication more comprehensive. There are many functions of nonverbal communication, it can replace spoken language, send uncomfortable messages, form impressions that guide communication, make relationships clear, regulate interaction, reinforce and modify verbal messages (Jandt, 2004). In intercultural environment, nonverbal communication has different issues. Cultures where non-verbal communications are paramount, intense interpersonal interaction is required even if all subunits share the same language (e.g., Singapore, Taiwan, and mainland China). Judee Burgoon (1986) mentioned that some nonverbal communication in the same culture is so ambiguous that its
18
interpretation is settled by the context (Jandt, 2004). Language choice, like other strategic decisions, is made in the context of bounded rationality, influenced by traditions, heritages, experience and stereotypes. It can be said that not only is language one of the key differences, but also the choice of language, especially the nonverbal language, can affect inter-member trust, which the authors pinpoint as a key adhesive among members (Luo & Shenkar, 2006).
Many scholars have discussed the categories of nonverbal communication. For example, Burgoon (1986) identified two perspectives of nonverbal communication. She indicated that much nonverbal communication indeed has recognized meanings and consistent usage within a culture and these form a vocabulary of nonverbal symbols. Nonverbal communication can be divided by such categories, proxemics, kinesics, chronemics, paralanguage, silence, haptic, clothing and physical appearance, territoriality, olfactics and oculesics (Jandt, 2004).
Other researchers divided nonverbal communication into two major categories: (1) nonverbal or nonworded communication beyond the spoken or written word (2) nonverbal communication only includes nonverbal language using the body, including paralanguage. In paralanguage, vocal qualifiers and vocalizations are consisted. As for nonverbal convention in face-to-face communication, eye contact, facial expression, gestures, timing in spoken exchanges, touching, the language of space, appearance and silence are emphasized (Beamer
& Varner, 2001). In this study, because the researcher addressed the content of communication, the dimensions of culture, processes of communication and the categories of nonverbal communication were explored.
The Volunteer Management of International Sport Events The Definition and Background of Volunteering
Through longtime of efforts; with 123 members of the United Nations confirming, the United Nations General Assembly 52nd Session finally announced that the year 2001 is
“International Year of Volunteer, IYV.” In Taiwan, The Legislative Yuan also approved of
“the Law of Volunteer Services” in Third Reading on January 4th, 2001. In the following
19
years, the governments of Taiwan announced policies about volunteer services. Many signs indicate that the application of human resource of volunteers is one of the focal policies for current government, especially the sport affairs (Wu, 2005). Volunteering is important to every civilization and society. Volunteers have contributed to creating cohesive societies and adding value to the services that government provide around the world (Chen, 2010; United Nations Volunteers). Nowadays, many people devote themselves into the volunteering services.
People have general concepts of volunteering, but it’s difficult to define it. There are two main themes about volunteering, the reward for the service provided and the freewill of the participants (Chen, 2010). Volunteering Center of England in their annual report indicated volunteer services is that without rewards, people devote to the activities which can help others and be beneficial to the environment (Bills & Harris, 1996). UN defined volunteer service as in an organized, goal-directed and method-directed way, adjusting and increasing the adaption of individuals to the environment, the kinds of work are called social service.
The definition given by American Social worker Association is a group that people gather under freewill and freedom and pursuit public profit is voluntary group, people who participate the group are volunteers. The Law of Volunteer Service (2001) define it as people improve public affairs efficiency and raise social benefit with sincerity, knowledge, physical ability, experience, technique, time with freewill and none rewards, not individual duty and legal obligation (Kan, 2008). It is also divided into four components: free choice, remuneration, structure and intend beneficiaries. This definition contains the comprehensive factors; will be adopted in this study. If we would like to define volunteer service in Taiwan,
The definition given by American Social worker Association is a group that people gather under freewill and freedom and pursuit public profit is voluntary group, people who participate the group are volunteers. The Law of Volunteer Service (2001) define it as people improve public affairs efficiency and raise social benefit with sincerity, knowledge, physical ability, experience, technique, time with freewill and none rewards, not individual duty and legal obligation (Kan, 2008). It is also divided into four components: free choice, remuneration, structure and intend beneficiaries. This definition contains the comprehensive factors; will be adopted in this study. If we would like to define volunteer service in Taiwan,