Home | About Inter Alia 1 | SALSPT

Slovene page

Inter Alia 1

ISBN: 978-961-91069-2-1

Vita Kilar

German Business Correspondence: German as a Language of communication in the Slovenian Business Environment

Abstract

This paper addresses business correspondence in the realm of foreign trade. It investigates the trend of increasing Anglicization (or Americanization) in written business communication. An overview of research to date into Anglicization in Germany serves as an introduction to the discussion of the current situation in Slovenian territory. A questionnaire administered at Slovenian subsidiaries of German companies forms an initial view into the situation in Slovenia in terms of the language choices in business correspondence between German and Slovenian companies. The questionnaire shows that the choice of language is strongly regionally determined. Presumably the cause of this regional differentiation can be explained by several factors: the historical background, the shared border with Austria and the resulting long-term, traditional, and well-established business connections, and the regional demographic structure and infrastructure. These regional influences are also often tied up with the particular branch of industry and the size of the company.

Keywords: business correspondence, English as a lingua franca, Anglicism, language choice.

(CC) SALSPT 2008. Inter Alia is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Slovenia License.