Key findings

The research questions of the study aimed to chart the English language needs of export industry companies in Eastern Finland. This was done by focusing on two major aspects of language needs and use: by exploring in what kind of situations and tasks English is used in the companies, and what aspects of English language skills are needed in those situations.

The results of this study reveal that the situations in which English is needed the most are, in the order of importance, emails, customer service, meetings and negotiations, telephone situations, visits, problem solving or fault analysis, and reading English documents. When compared with previous studies, the most needed situations are quite similar, but the emphasis is somewhat different. For instance, in the present study, emails were the single most important situation, whereas earlier studies, such as the national report on English use (Leppänen et al. 2009: 104), Prolang report on language needs in business and industrial companies (Huhta 1999: 90) or a regional corporate language needs analysis in North Karelia (Airola 2004: 38) place considerably less emphasis on emails, deeming it important, but not placing it among the most important situations. Other clear differences were in the situations of small talk and social situations, as well as travel or business trips. In the earlier studies of Airola (2004: 38) and Huhta (1999: 90) the situations of small talk or social situations and travel or business trips were placed among the most important situations, whereas in the present study, these situations were hardly mentioned.

78

The aims of the study were mainly explorative in nature, intending to create a realistic and detailed picture of the language needs and use in the target companies for the Karelia UAS to utilize and draw on in planning and developing their English teaching and materials. The results present an extensive array of examples and descriptions, which offer a broad overall picture of the language needs in the area. To summarize the examples and descriptions into the main findings, some of the different examples, categories and descriptions of the most important situations of English use are listed and discussed below. In the context of emails, the results indicate that email situations are the basic form of non-urgent communication, usually related either to customer communication or internal communication. With

customers, email situations can range from inquiries to sales, placing orders, contacting suppliers, providing technical information on products, providing technical support related to machinery, and reclamations. In internal communications, emails were explained to involve contexts, such as exchanging information, projects, notices of meetings, inquiries, questions, and tasks related to one’s own position. In comparison to earlier studies which offer some insight into the details of English use in email communication, such as Huhta (1999: 133–134) or Kankaanranta (2005), the use of English in internal emails next to customer

communications is significantly emphasized in the present study.

Another one of the most important situations according to the interviewees was customer service. These were particularly interesting, since they were the only situations which the interviewees could not specifically describe or narrow down, but rather saw them as a

broader concept involving many of the other situations discussed in the study, such as emails, telephone situations, visits, or social situations. The primary previous studies that have been used as a theoretical framework of reference for this study (Huhta 1999; Airola 2004;

Leppänen et al. 2009) relied on quantitative questionnaire data, which explains why the difference in defining the situation had not been observed before, although the language use situation of customer service was included in all of the previous studies. However, Louhiala-Salminen (2002: 224–227) studies the English use of Finnish managers in multinational companies and notes that the situations involving English are often intertwined and multimodal and include both written and spoken English. This supports the findings of the present study, highlighting that the situations of English use at work contexts are often not

79

separate instances that can be compared without acknowledging their interconnected nature.

Thus, the results of this study highlight not only the significance and importance of customer service situations, but the possible interconnectedness of the different situations and the incentive to qualitatively analyze them as well.

Other important situations of English use in the study included meetings and negotiations.

The English meetings and negotiations included situations and topics, such as contracts, technical aspects, sales, projects, shipping, problem solving and other needs. Meetings and negotiations were usually conducted with three different types of groups: client meetings, supplier meetings and internal meetings. Additionally, internal meetings included different contexts, such as meetings with the employees’ own department or company, meetings with local branches or selling organizations in different countries, and meetings with companies that belong to the same conglomerate. The contents and the topics of the meetings were pretty similar to previous studies (see Huhta 1999: 118–143), but the contexts varied, as the use of English in internal meetings in addition to customer meetings and negotiations was much more prominent in the present study. Furthermore, in the context of meetings and negotiations, multiple interviewees mentioned the use of virtual and digital meeting tools, such as Microsoft Teams of Skype as important assets and options in the contexts of

contemporary meetings. Many interviewees agreed that virtual meetings have become way more prominent, especially during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, when physical contacts have been restricted. This development in the context of meetings can be considered quite recent, as the previous study of Huhta (1999: 118–143), which describes the contents and details of different English language situations at work, has no mention of it. Other situations that were selected as the most important, such as visits, reading documents, telephone situations and problem solving, yielded mainly descriptive and explorative results (see sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2), which can be used in planning and developing language education and materials, but offer no significant findings in comparison to previous research or the theoretical framework.

With the help of the second primary research question, the study aims to discover which aspects of English language skills are needed in export industry companies in Eastern Finland.

80

The current need for different aspects of language skills is illustrated by the perceived importance of the language skills in the target companies. In the present study, the

interviewees estimated that the most important aspects of English skills in their companies are conversation skills, followed by reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and writing. Occupational vocabulary and cultural competence were rated among the most

important language skills by a minority of the interviewees, while pronunciation and grammar skills were not mentioned among the most important aspects of language skills at all. Thus, the interviewees rated the basic aspects of language skills as the most important, while the more advanced skills received less attention. Furthermore, the interviewees emphasized the communicative aspect of language skills: the produced language does not need to be perfect grammatically or phonetically, as long as the message is understood, and goals are achieved.

These results are well in line with the current goals of language teaching in Finland, which aims for communicative competence instead of faultless production (Finnish National Board of Education 2014: 348–349; Finnish National Board of Education 2019a: 180–184).

Furthermore, previous research on the English lingua franca use in the context work, BELF, Kankaanranta and Louhiala Salminen (2010) have coined the term communicative success, as a way to emphasize that in business contexts, achieving a goal related to the work or business task is far more important than using the language perfectly. The results of the present study clearly support this perspective, when it comes to the proficiency needed in the different aspects of language skills.

Moreover, the need for different skills was assessed by asking the interviewees to evaluate and elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. According to the interviewees, oral skills were perceived as the general weakness, whereas reading

comprehension was perceived as the general strength. This was in line with the previous studies (Huhta 1999; Airola 2004) which showed quite similar strengths and weaknesses in among the companies in their studies. Overall, the results regarding the English language skills underline the need for conversation skills: they are perceived as the most important aspect of language skills (see Figure 2) and in the current situation, employers see them as the greatest weakness of their employees (see excerpts 88–91), hoping for improvement. Another significant finding regarding the different aspects of language skills was the moderate need

81

for occupational vocabulary, but the impression that it is a skill learned in the context of work, as opposed to a skill one is expected to learn in formal education and possess as a new employee. Similar notes on language leaning via socialization have been presented in

previous studies by Räisänen (2014) and Pitzl (2019) (see pages 64–67), which help understand the possibility that occupational vocabulary can indeed be learned during employment as well.

In addition to the descriptive and explorative main results of the study presented above, which promptly answer the primary research questions, some recurring and summarizing key themes and findings related to the main results are discussed in this section. These

underlying themes were discussed on multiple occasions by one or more interviewees, and they explain the trends and phenomena that affect the different results of the study, and the landscape of English language needs in the target companies. The different recurring and significant themes that could be summarized from the results were the high variation in language needs based on company or position, digitalization, globalization, and the rise of internal use of English.

The high variation in language needs was apparent in the results, as almost all of the

companies highlighted different situations or aspects of language skills that are needed in the companies, aside from the unanimous mentions regarding emails as a situation of language use, and conversation skills as an aspect of language skills, which were described in the main results. The companies highlighted different aspects of language use or different types of situations based on the functions, field, and size of the company. For instance, the smallest company, company 1, emphasized the role of documentation and emails, and most often mentioned communicating with international suppliers as the reason for using English. On the other end of the spectrum, the largest companies in the study, company 2 and company 4, highlighted customer service and contacts as the most prominent situation and source of English use. Additionally, the larger, multinational companies mentioned communications with local branches abroad as one of the main sources of English language situations in the companies. Some companies mentioned internal communication as a defining factor in the English use of the company. This was an element, which was mentioned by the largest

82

companies, company 2 and company 4 as well, but emphasized by company 5 and company 3. In their case, the main motivation for using English was communicating with immigrant employees, who do not speak Finnish. In the case of company 3, the communication was supervising and instructing factory workers, whereas in company 5 it was communicating with expert-level employees, who had immigrated to work on the very specific technology of the company. Furthermore, some of the companies had unique language needs due to a very specific field of operation, or a specific clientele or market. For instance, in company 5, the need for Chinese speakers was considerably high and unique, as Asia was the company’s primary market. Moreover, this effected the needed language skills as well, as company 5 highlighted the need for cultural competence and listening comprehension in heavily accented speech.

Furthermore, the differences in language use and language needs varied inside the

companies as well. Many of the interviewees reported that the need for English was extremely dependent on the employee’s position in the company. This was affected by the level of

education or a managerial position, the department, the job description and even the expertise of the employee. (see excerpts 2, 6-9, 33) Moreover, the interviewees mentioned that some of the English language situations, such as updating or communicating through social media were reserved for specialized employees in the larger companies. This high variation and uniqueness of the language needs and use validate the need for qualitative research on the topic, as qualitative methods can provide insight on language use in these highly unique, variable and case-oriented situations, as the previous, mainly quantitative research (i.e. Leppänen et al. 2009; Airola 2004) has not been able to examine the variability inside companies or the unique themes and motivations behind language needs.

Another key theme that defines the findings is the rise of internal use of English in the target companies. Nearly all of the target companies mentioned the internal use of English as one the main avenues for English use among the employees. Furthermore, a majority of the interviewees reported that the need for internal use of English has emerged rather recently, and some even expected it to increase in the future. This can be observed in comparison with the previous study of Huhta (1999: 118–142), in which qualitative examples of English use at

83

work are presented. The examples of Huhta (1999: 118–142) focus considerably more on situations with potential clients, customers or other foreign contacts. The different contexts of using English in internal communication ranged from using English with local branches or other companies abroad that are part of the same multinational conglomerate, to using English inside one’s own department, either with communicating and instructing some

employees, or using English as the standard language for all communication in the company.

Some previous studies, such as Louhiala-Salminen (2002: 211, 224), have observed similar results in relation to the internal status and use of English, as English is often regarded as the

‘native corporate language’, and can sometimes even be used between Finnish-speaking employees. In the present study, company 5 exemplified this type of situation, as all communication was primarily in English and the language held an official position as the company language (see Table 4 and excerpts 3 and 25). As excerpt (3) describes, one of the reasons for this is immigration, as the company has employees who do not speak Finnish.

Company 3 has a similar situation, as the rise of internal use of English is attributed almost completely to the increase in immigrant workers who do not speak Finnish (see excerpts 22, 42, 64, 65, 104). According to the Finnish Immigration Service (2021: 8–9), the number of residence permits for immigrants on the grounds of employment has increased significantly over the last five years, and the number of immigrants per year has nearly doubled from 5770 in 2016 to 8508 in 2020. This trend of increasing immigration is visible in the target companies as well, which in turn translates into increased need for English in internal communication, as the companies in the present study reported that the language of communication used with immigrant employees is primarily English. Company mergers, that resulted in multinational corporate groups, were also a reason for the increased English use in some companies (see excerpts 2, 33, 52 and 97). These types of situations have been observed in previous studies as well, as Louhiala-Salminen et al. (2005) examine two mergers between Finnish and Swedish companies, both of which resulted in the newly-formed corporate group using English as their working language.

One of the themes that was repeatedly alluded to by the interviewees was globalization or internationalization. In many of the target companies, the need for English language had

84

increased due to the company’s expansion into the global markets, or the increased amount of cooperation with foreign companies. In some cases, a target company had made the transformation from a regional company to a global company, including different local branches abroad. Furthermore, some interviewees even mentioned that the increased demand for international regulation and documentation, for instance due to the European Union, was a cause for the increased use of English. Overall, the increased international contacts, markets, expansion, mergers, and regulation were seen as reasons behind the current English language needs in the companies.

In a similar manner, digitalization was one the global phenomena shaping the English language needs of the target companies. This was visible in the situations, as emails were ranked as the most important situation by a fair margin, and other situations, such as using the internet in searching for information were also mentioned among the most important situations. Pyykkö (2017: 114) names digitalization as one of the megatrends defining the directions of language use, and the theme was clearly visible in the present study as well.

Additionally, the interviewees highlighted the role of electronic communication in the contexts of meetings and negotiations. The rapid rise of virtual communication and meeting tools, such as Microsoft Teams, has enabled the transition from traditional meetings to virtual ones. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic and the social restrictions which followed, forced the companies to adapt and increase their use of electronic and virtual workspaces and

communication avenues. These observations, regarding both globalization and digitalization, are in line with the sociolinguist theoretical framework, as Leppänen and Nikula (2008: 16–17) name globalization, trade, and the internet as the primary reasons for the rising popularity and status of English in Finland. It seems, that according to this study, the direction seems to be the same in work-centered language use and needs as well.