Language Policy and Practise. The Case of Danske Bank's IT Group

Abstract

Nowadays organisations become more international due to globalised business. Globalisation has an influence on different levels: recruitment strategies, training processes or language policies within organisations. Additionally, language policy is a significant aspect of globalised business and plays an important role in the workplace where official and unofficial settings take place. Previous studies showed that in most cases international organisations use a common language for internal communication, which is usually English; and the local language. This research aims to look at the case of Danske Bank’s IT Group where three languages are used. This thesis aims to understand processes within Danske Bank IT Service Desk. To be exact, the thesis focuses on the following research questions: What is the language policy of Danske Bank and how is it implemented? What are the linguistic practises among the employees and how do they relate to the language policy? Questionnaires handed out and a total of 12 employees were interviewed from Danske Bank’s IT Service Desk. It was important to gather a group of people who use three languages: Lithuanian, English and a Nordic language (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish) at their workplace. From the semi-structured interviews multiple patterns were extracted by using qualitative content analysis in order to answer the research questions. The results of the research indicate that language policy can be easily modified by management in the international institution. However, the study shows that in DGITL Service Desk management is not influential in the process of language policy implementation. Instead, language performance is seen as a natural phenomenon which is influenced by every individual’s free choice. Also, based on results, the choice of the language is always influenced by the context. English is the main choice for collaboration with foreign colleagues in formal and informal settings; Lithuanian is used only with Lithuanian colleagues in informal settings. Nordic is the most formal among these three languages and is used only when communicating with customers.