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8 - Critical Language Awareness and Business Communication

from Part III - Language Awareness in Education and Training

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

By
Almut Koester
Edited by
Erika Darics
Erika Darics
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

This chapter argues for a ‘humanistic’ approach to teaching Business Communication which aims to develop students’ critical language awareness (CLA). The chapter begins by establishing a rationale for the importance of CLA for business students. This is followed by a review of relevant literature which finds that, unlike in other areas of Languages for Specific Purposes, there is still a deficit in the acceptance and implementation of critical language pedagogy within Business Communication. I identify two types of critical language awareness: ‘metapragmatic’ and ‘socio-cultural’, which are not seen as binary, but on a continuum or cline. The remainder of the chapter demonstrates how these two types of CLA could be developed with Business students by providing a range of examples from my own teaching practice in a university setting. The activities are based on real-life written and spoken texts and aim to develop critical awareness in areas such as metapragmatic knowledge of different workplace genres, the interpersonal dimension of language or the values and ideology of a professional community of practice.

Keywords

critical language awarenessmetapragmatic awarenesssocio-cultural awarenessbusiness communicationlanguages for specific purposeshumanistic language teaching
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Awareness in Business and the Professions , pp. 139 - 159
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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