Transfer project T3: OPTIMISINg texts in multilingual business communication

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Juliane House
Research Assistant : Dr. Claudia Böttger
Student Assistants: Roman Stachowicz, Ksenija Vozmiller

Transfer partners
Felizitas Peters (Managing Director), HGB Geschäftsberichte GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg
Jim Blake (Managing Director), World2World GmbH, Hamburg
John Purdy (Managing Director), World2World GmbH, Hamburg

External co-operation partner
Eike Katharina von Kleist (Translator), Latham & Watkins LLP, Hamburg
Christina Blake, Communications across cultures, Hamburg

University co-operation partners
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bolten, Interkulturelle Wirtschaftskommunikation, Jena, Germany
Dr. Christina Janik, School of Management, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, UK
Prof. Dr. Christopher Schmidt, Åbo Akademi, Turku, Finland
Prof. Dr. Jan Engberg, Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus, Denmark

In a globalised market, communication between companies and their customers, business partners, shareholders, and employees is crucial for establishing a company’s competitive edge. Therefore the way in which readers of business texts are addressed assumes a central role. The literature both on contrastive linguistics as well as on business communication shows Anglophone text conventions to be more reader-oriented than German text conventions.

OBJECTIVES

The transfer project sets out to answer the growing need for a more reader-friendly addressal in German business texts of internationally operating companies. In co-operation with its non-university transfer partners, HGB Geschäftsberichte and World2World, the project will develop, implement, and evaluate a consultancy and training module to optimise German business texts. Consisting of workshops, training seminars and lectures, the module will be offered to employees in Corporate Communication, Investor Relations and Public Relations as well as editors and translators of business texts. Based on the findings of the evaluation of the module, a handbook to optimise business writing will be devised.

METHOD

To analyse business texts, the Text and Translation Assessment Model developed by House (1977, 1997) will be tested and modified. Steeped in systemic functional linguistics, the foundation of the module are findings of the SFB project K4 “Verdecktes Übersetzen / Covert Translation”. The findings document linguistic changes in global business communication triggered through contact with the dominant lingua franca English. The effectiveness of the module is assessed in in-depth interviews and in pre- and post-tests.

SCHEDULE

The project consists of three phases. In the first phase the module was designed. In the current phase it is being implemented and evaluated, and in the third phase a handbook will be developed on the basis of the evaluation of the moduleBöttger, C. 2007:.

PRESS

DFG Press Release "Turning Scientific Findings into Practice"