English language needs in the past and in the future

A part of the study is to also examine the development of language needs over time.

Therefore, the interviewees were asked about the language needs of the company in the past and in the future. The interviewees were quite unanimous that the need for English in their company had increased during their time in the company. Additionally, some interviewees reflected on the reasons why the need for English has increased over the years and

mentioned reasons, such as internationalization and globalization, the expansion of the company and its market, or the increase in internal communication due to being a part of a

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multinational corporate group or having non-Finnish-speaking staff. The change of the English language needs in the target companies was described with the following excerpts:

(94) The need for English has definitely increased, remarkably, very remarkably.

This is probably due to the overall internationalization, as more products and material are bought all over Europe and the commonly used language is English.

(Company 1)

(95) Interviewee: In all different situations that we have covered [in this interview], the need has increased.

Interviewer: So, could you say that in general, the need for using English has increased?

Interviewee: Yes, yes. (Company 3)

(96) The focus is shifting, we have changed from a local company to a global company. So that of course means that using foreign languages or the demand for speaking in a foreign language is increasing all the time. (Company 2)

(97) So we cooperate closely with the corporate group, so the significance of the English language has been increasing at a huge rate during the 2000s. (Company 4)

(98) Well, as I said, we have hired people who don’t speak Finnish, so the importance of English, be it in internal meetings or in writing emails, it has significantly increased, the use of English. (Company 5)

The perceived increase in the need for English language mirrors the directions set in previous studies. In some previous studies, informants have been asked to estimate the need for English language in the future, and the general direction of the estimates has been that the need for English will increase or remain the same. For instance, in the study of Huhta (1999:

67–69), both employers and employees estimated that the need for English will either

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increase or remain the same: 77% of employers predicted that the need for English will

increase, 20% of employers estimated the need to remain as it, and 1% estimated the need to decrease. On a very similar note, out of employees, 73% anticipated the need for English to increase, while 23% expected it to remain the same, and again only 1% predicted the need for English to decline. Other studies have yielded similar results: according to Airola (2004: 30–31) 66.4% of employers from North Karelian companies estimated that the need for English will increase in their company in the future, and the rest of the informants estimated that the need for English language will stay the same. The share of informants who estimated that the need for English will increase in the future was even higher among informants from industrial companies, with 87% predicting an increased need for English in the future. According to the present study, the interviewees from export industry companies had indeed experienced an increase in the need for English in their company and expressed it quite confidently and unanimously. Thus, the results of the present study may reinforce the estimates and results of the previous studies that the need for English in working life is increasing.

Additionally, when asked about the specific situations in which the need for English has changed, the interviewees were able to provide insight on the development of the situational language needs. One interviewee reported increase of trade situations overall, again

mentioning globalization in business but also among the clientele:

(99) Well, actually, I would say that international trade situations have clearly became more common. And well, due to that the everything else from deliveries to reclamations has become more common. So in a way, the whole chain of events becomes broader and the need for using languages increases all the time.

Additionally, the clientele becomes broader: even if the client company is

domestic, they might have an office in Germany or even in Japan, where we have had deliveries to. (Company 1)

Another example, which was mentioned was the increase in email situations. In addition to the obvious reason of digitalization, which increases the language use happening through electronic avenues, the interviewee explained that the shift to English in internal

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communication has expanded the use of English into the everyday work of more employees due to internal emails:

(100) Well, of course our officials have been using English, but now also in the operator center they have to use English, and well, internal emails, which have been in Finnish must now be written in English. (Company 5)

According to the interviewees, the change in the needs for different aspects for language skills was mainly focused on the increased need for writing skills and oral skills:

(101) I think that due to email, the writing skills have increased, the need for writing skills has increased, because emails are exchanged a lot. (Company 1)

(102) Hmm, I don’t know if any of the situations have become less important but spoken communication and conversation skills . . . if you think about that about 10-15 years back, it was not that strong, as there were no Teams or Skype, so that has clearly increased, and its meaning has become more significant.

(Company 4)

This was seen as the result of the increasing use and prevalence of the email as the standard form of international communication, as well as the emergence of virtual communication tools and applications. Overall, digitalization seems to play a major part in the development of language needs at the moment, as it was one of the reasons behind the most important emerging language situations, and now arises in the contexts of the development of the need for different aspects of language skills.

Lastly, concerning the development of English language needs, the interviewees were asked to predict how the language needs in their company will change in the near future. The interviewees were once again quite unanimous that the need for English will continue to increase in the future. Furthermore, some of the interviewees were able to provide insight into the different aspects of the language needs, for instance the future need in certain

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situations or the future need of a certain aspect of a language skill. These more detailed estimates for the future were quite varying, again highlighting the fact that many of the language needs of the target companies are quite different and unique regarding their own functions. According to one interviewee, the need for reading comprehension as a skill was mentioned, due to the increase in situations involving different documents. The perceived reason for this future projection was the increase in documentation in trade deals and

contracts. Additionally, the increasing presence of large multinational companies has an effect on the increase of English content in trade offers and documents:

(103) The reading [in English] will increase, that is for sure. There are more and more documents involving trade deals, deliveries, manuals, everything. . . . In relation to that, writing is increasing as well. . . . Because overall during the last 10 years, all kind of documentation has increased, but more and more when the big companies contact you, it is in English. Of course, if they send requests for offers to multiple companies within the EU, they are in English. (Company 1)

Additionally, one interviewee stated that the most pressing need for English in their company, instructing and supervising immigrant workers, will probably increase in the future.

Furthermore, the interviewee added that although the need for English in the mentioned situations will increase, it alone might not suffice, and the need for other languages, namely Russian, will increase as well:

(104) Well yes, the same trend will probably, probably continue that immigrants or work-related immigration is needed, and language skills are related to that, and therefore our personnel and supervisors and managers have to be proficient with their language skills. And it might be that English alone will not be enough, I again mention Russian as an example, it is a really important language.

(Company 3)

In addition, another interviewee mentioned the need for additional languages as well, in this case in the form of Chinese. They explained that the need for foreign languages will increase

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in the future due to the increasing number of customer communications, and accentuated the role of Chinese in the situations:

(105) Well yes the client meetings, whether they are face-to-face or email communications, or telephone meetings, and in these situations, for instance, the Chinese language. We can very well have meetings with Asians, so in there we have, of course the local team speaks English and communicates, but then the clients might have people who don’t speak English at all, so the meeting is then in Chinese and we need to have an interpreter. . . . This is why we are now seeking Chinese speakers in Finland as well, who can help with language on our end as well. (Company 5)

Thus, in addition to mentioning the specific situations, in which the use and significance of English is expected to increase, the interviewees mentioned that the need for other languages could possibly increase as well. This mirrors the other results of this study, in which the

companies reported that English was the most important language in their company, but other languages, namely Russian and Chinese, were in high demand at present as well (see section 5.1). As excerpts (104) and (105) demonstrate, the reasons for the projected increase in the need for Russian and Chinese can be attributed to the themes of increased internal communication due to immigration and the expanding of the companies to new markets, both of which have arisen in multiple contexts in the results of the present study. Overall, the predictions of the interviewees of the present study are in line with other projections for future language needs. In the report of language status and competences in Finland, Pyykkö (2017: 18–20) states that English is still projected to be the most influential language in the world in 2050, while Chinese and Russian remain as the second and the sixth most important languages respectively.

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