The importance of English

In this section, the importance of English is discussed from the perspectives of its official status and perceived importance in the company, frequency of use, significance in hiring, and status in comparison with other foreign languages. The aim of this section is to establish a linguistic background for the target companies, so the background of the companies can be taken into account in the results concerning the primary research questions. As the overall use and importance of English was an overarching theme throughout the interviews, the quotations in this section are drawn from varying points of the interviews in addition to the specific questions that cover the importance of English (Appendix 2, questions 2–4).

The official status of English in the company was observed through the concept of language policies. As Table 4 illustrates, two of the target companies had specified Finnish as the official language and three of the target companies had no recorded official language. Of the three

32

companies with no official language, one company stated that the working language was Finnish, and English was only used in certain situations:

(1) Interviewee: We have no official language, as in it has not been recorded anywhere. In a Finnish company it is principally Finnish.

Interviewer: What is the daily working language then?

Interviewee: Well Finnish, but then we have some foreign employees in the production, which brings in English and then if someone could speak Russian, that would be a plus. (Company 3)

In another company with no official language, English had a slightly more relevant status.

Although English had no official status, there were some positions in which English was used as the working language. In addition, being a part of a multinational corporate group required the use of English in internal communication, cementing its status as an important working language in the company:

(2) Well, if we talk on a national level, there is no official language recorded

anywhere, so if we are in Finland, the most common working language is Finnish.

However, we do have some employees who work exclusively in English, so their working language is English. And then of course we belong to the corporate group, so in there the working language is English.(Company 4)

The third company with no official language policy had English as their working language, making it the only company where the English language held a stronger position than Finnish.

The reasoning behind the language choice was the number of non-Finnish speaking employees:

(3) Well, during the last few years we have been trying to make the switch to English, so there is no official documentation, but meetings are primarily held in English and all email exchange is in English. . . . The internal communication is in

33

English, since we have people here in our Finnish office, who don’t speak English, so we have switched to English.(Company 5)

As illustrated by the quotations, English has no official status in any of the companies. It is, however, utilized as a working language in various situations and positions, or even used as the standard working language. When it comes to language policies, a similar approach is echoed in previous research as well: according to Sanden and Kankaanranta (2018), using English in certain situations is an unwritten rule that is quite common among companies and corporations in which English is needed. This type of established yet unofficial language use can be described as a non-formalized language policy. These covert, non-formalized language policies do not enforce or mandate a single language as the standard, but rather rely on the practical need and ever-present importance of the language. (ibid.) In the case of the target companies of this study, the non-formalized language policies regarding English language were mostly situational, usually established due to interaction with either non-Finnish speaking personnel or customers.

However, even non-formalized language policies can cause the proficiency in a certain language to become a requirement. This was noticeable in the target companies, when reviewing their practices in considering language skills when hiring new personnel. When discussing the positions in which a higher education was required, proficiency in English was usually a requirement or a meaningful factor as well:

(4) When we talk about applicants with a higher education or officials, it does matter. We have English as a requirement, in addition to Finnish. (Company 4)

(5) We of course ask about English skills in job interviews, and it has had a negative effect, if the answer has been that the applicant is not fluent in English.

(Company 1)

However, some answers related to English skills in recruiting followed the same message of variability between different positions and situations:

34

(6) It depends on the department, I think. If we think about the roles in the factory, I could imagine it’s not that important, but if we think about sales and services, English is basically the starting requirement, you really can’t really get along without it. (Company 2)

(7) Depending on the position, English might be a requirement, but for the most part there are no special [language] requirements. (Company 3)

(8) Well, if we think about operations and production, English is not necessarily a requirement. If we talk about officials, then you must be able to use English both in speech and writing. (Company 5)

Furthermore, the importance of English can be assessed by examining the frequency of English use in the target companies. This was done by asking the interviewees to estimate how often the employees in their company use English with the help of a six-point scale (Appendix 2, question 3). The options were daily, multiple times a week, once a week, multiple times a month, once a month, and rarer than once a month. In the target companies, the frequency of English use among the employees was somewhat variable between companies, and in some cases between different positions inside a company as well. Therefore, a linear comparison between the companies could not be made. Two of the companies selected the option of daily, and one of the companies selected the option of multiple times a week. ^The two remaining companies were unable to provide a single answer, as the use of English varied considerably between employees. The variability was explained with different positions and different duties between employees:

(9) If I thought about everyone, it would be the multiple times a week. However, we do have a lot of positions in which English is needed daily, but not necessarily in all positions. (Company 4)

35

(10) In production management positions English is needed daily. [In office duties] the next most common task is reading documentation, which is largely in English. This kind of need emerges maybe weekly. (Company 3)

However, all companies placed their estimates on the more frequent end of the spectrum, with at least a portion of the employees needing English daily or multiple times a week, indicating that based on frequency, English is indeed an important and needed language in the target companies. Compared to the results of the national survey by Leppänen et al.

(2009: 105), according to which only 46% of the respondents used English at least weekly, the English use in the target companies seems to be much more frequent. Even when compared to the national survey’s respondents with higher education, 60% of whom use English on a weekly basis (Leppänen et al. 2009: 105), the English use in the target companies seems to be more frequent based on the interviews. This might be caused, for example, by the increased use and importance of English over the last decade. However, it should be noted that in the national survey by Leppänen et al. (2009), the target group was employees from all different fields of Finnish working life, whereas in the present study the target group consisted of only export industry companies. Additionally, the national survey had employees as respondents, while the present study gathered data from employer interviews.

Finally, the importance of English can be explored by comparing it to other foreign languages needed in the target companies. All of the interviewees confirmed English to be the most important foreign language, but the importance compared to other languages varied based on the field, clientele, personnel or functions of the company. In many of the cases, the language following English was Russian:

(11) Well, English is a kind of basic language, with which we manage quite well. Of course the close proximity to the border and having some trade with Russia would make Russian another language we could need. (Company 1)

36

(12) In our business it would surely be… well Russian of course, then others like German, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are important languages in our company. (Company 2)

(13) Well, we have had some foreign employees from Russia or the Baltic states, so Russian would be really useful, so I would encourage schools to invest in Russian and I regret not having studied it myself back in the day, it’s really important. (Company 3)

Additionally, there was some situational deviation, as one of the companies stated the second most needed language was Chinese:

(14) Chinese is necessary in some positions, and in relation to English, well, it’s possibly the second most important at the moment. . . . We have had a few cases of recruiting, in which we have required proficiency in Chinese, because we have clients that come mainly from Asia. (Company 5)

Overall, other languages and their relationship to English was described mainly as auxiliary.

Other languages are seen as an asset, but not as a requirement in the same way as English.

This was explained by the status of English as a lingua franca: other rarely used languages are more easily replaceable with English, and knowledge of those languages is not expected:

(15) Well, possibly German could be needed at some point. We have had some work sites in Germany, but you can get by in English there. And then we have a few larger suppliers from Denmark. So Danish could one useful language to know, but English works great on either side. (Company 1)

(16) Well, those [other languages] are related to isolated situations, possibly in customer service… Well, I could say that you are allowed to use other languages, for example in export customer services, you can use Spanish, English, Russian, but as I said, English is the main language, as main functions and

37

correspondence are in English. So the general language is English, other languages are an asset. (Company 4)

This highlights and confirms the status of English as the most important foreign language in the target companies and in the field of export industry. Furthermore, the results reinforce the conclusions of previous studies, in which English has been identified as the most

important and frequently used foreign language, such as the national survey by Leppänen et al. (2009: 42), the language needs analysis by Huhta (1999: 61), and the regional analysis by Airola (2004). The qualitative results of this study are thus clearly supported by the

conclusions of previous quantitative studies as well. Although the status of English seems to be undisputed in the context of work, it does not mean that other languages should be ignored or overlooked. This was strongly expressed in the interviews, by not only mentioning that the other languages are an asset or a plus, but by expressing concern over the narrowing language repertoire of employees and direct recommendations to study other foreign

languages as well:

(17) But how I see it is that of course in Finland there is a danger that the language skills are getting narrower, as English is basically ‘it’ nowadays. So should we then, like for real study and have people, who would study longer, languages like German or Spanish or some other language. I know for a fact that our customers want, of course they would like to use their own language. It could bring additional value to the company, to have language skills like that.

(Company 4)

(18) English is surely starting to be the so normal for the youth and students that I believe it starting to come, like, naturally, but then really all the others, again I want to highlight the Russian here… So, it could pay off to learn other languages, besides English, as well. (Company 3)

The auxiliary yet advantageous role of other languages besides English in the working life has been similar in previous studies. Räisänen and Karjalainen (2018) have studied the language

38

use of young engineers and discovered that English is definitely the most used language, but that other languages are not only seen as useful, but they are additionally used to some extent. The additional languages that were mentioned in their study were Swedish, German, French and Chinese. German and Chinese were seen as important languages in the present study as well, whereas Swedish and French were not explicitly mentioned by the target companies, and instead the importance of Russian was highlighted.

In previous quantitative studies, the importance of languages was quite similar: Leppänen et al. (2009: 42) present that 18.1% of respondents needed Swedish at work, and 4.7% needed German at work, while the role of French and Russian was marginal, with 1.6% and 1.8%

needing them at work. Similarly, according to Huhta (1999: 61–62), employers mentioned Swedish as one of three most important languages in the company in 86% of the companies, while German was placed among the three most important languages in 68% of companies:

Russian was needed as one of the three most import languages in 17% of companies and French in 13% of companies. However, in the regional survey of Airola (2004), the importance of Russian is much more prevalent. It was named as the most important foreign language by 9.9% of companies and the second most important language by 31.9% of the companies in North Karelia (Airola 2004: 27). This regional importance of Russian in Eastern Finland can possibly be contributed to the proximity with the Russian border, increasing the amount of trade with Russian companies and customers. As the importance of Russian was highlighted by the interviewees of this study as well, it can be concluded that the regional importance of Russian is still relevant.

In addition, in his study on plurilingual proficiency in Finnish businesses, Schlabach (2016) states that English is the most common language utilized in multilingual situations as a part of plurilingual competences, usually accompanied by the local language or L1, meaning Finnish or Swedish in Finland. After that, the most common languages used in multilingual situations were German, French and Spanish. This indicates that although English is the dominant language, other languages can also be utilized to some extent in multilingual situations, meaning that the need for multiple languages does not necessarily mean complete

conversations in a certain language, but using the language to some extent in combination

39

with other more dominant languages, such as English or Finnish. In the present study, multilingual situations were not explicitly mentioned by the target companies, but the

answers highlighting the added value or opportunity that additional languages bring indicate that additional languages could be useful even in smaller roles, if the company had

employees with the language skills in question.