Challenges for Internationalization. The Role of English as a Lingua Franca in the Corporate Environment

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 2,0, University of Applied Sciences Südwestfalen; Meschede, language: English, abstract: This bachelor thesis aims to evaluate the opportunities and risks that the use of English as a common language within an enterprise poses. It addresses the resulting challenges and offers possible ways to approach these. In particular, the need to assess employees’ language proficiency will be examined more in depth: two popular language tests, the TOEIC and the BULATS test, will be introduced and compared in order to appraise their value to company that plans to intensify the corporate use of English. Also, the specific challenges that arise regarding the training of employees will be explained in detail, as well as those in establishing the use of English in the enterprise. Furthermore, this thesis intends to give insight on the definition of the term “Lingua Franca” in former times as well as its modern usage. To enhance the understandability of why it is English that is chosen as the universal language, the history of the language is briefly described. Finally, from the entirety of investigations, conclusions on the choice of English as company language shall be drawn, and an outlook on the possible future of English as the World Language shall be given.