Language Policy in business and industry: between local and global developments

Abstract

[EN] Globalisation reaches to all corners of the world, although not to the same degree everywhere. The daily lives of people get affected in the products they can buy (consumer goods from abroad), the way they dress (clothes produced far away), the food they eat (exotic food from other countries), the culture they consume (eg. Hollywood movies), the news they watch and even the way they speak. One of the consequences of globalisation is that many people are found to adopt more urban lifestyles including those living in rural areas. As Castells (1996) pointed out, in our “networked world” we experience interconnectedness with people from around the globe. In the Basque Country in Spain, over the past 40 years a strong policy has been developed to support and strengthen the use of the minority language, Basque, in all domains of society, including private business and industry. The policy to promote the minority language has led to several initiatives to encourage the use of the minority language in companies. During about the same period of time, the global language English has gradually obtained a more prominent position in society. In a region like the Basque Country in Spain, globalisation is clearly noticeable. A large variety of international products are available to consumers, because the region is well-connected by road, by rail and by sea to Europe and other countries around the globe. Furthermore, the improvement in technology has an important influence on the daily lives of people, such as their language habits, which is of special relevance in an area where a local language has been spoken since “time immemorial”. Over the centuries, through foreign contacts the Basque language has been influenced by several languages, such as French, Latin and Spanish. During the 19th and 20th centuries, an important shift took place. Many indigenous Basque people switched from speaking Basque to Spanish, and fewer people transmitted the language to the next generation. During the period of the Franco dictatorship (1939- 1975), the Basque language was suppressed and this further accelerated language shift toward Spanish. Only in the last quarter of the 20th century a relatively strong language policy was implemented to revitalise Basque; the main aim is to extend the use of Basque to all domains of society. Notwithstanding these revitalisation efforts, Spanish has remained the dominant language in the Basque society, and due to global developments English has gradually obtained a larger presence, although compared to some Northern European countries its presence is still modest. This chapter looks at the efforts of Basque language planning and policy, in particular in the private sector, against the background of globalisation. On the one hand, the Basque regional government has developed an important programme of measures to revitalise the use of the Basque language, not only in the fields of education, culture and media (Gorter, Zenotz, Etxague & Cenoz, 2014), but also for private companies. On the other hand, the same government has also developed plans for internationalisation of companies; efforts which recently were intensified after the beginning of the economic crisis. The governmental policy and planning to promote the local language Basque go in parallel with campaigns to make Basque companies operate on a global market, where the use of English is often seen as obligatory. The chapter discusses how the local companies mediate between the local and global demands, and how this has affected the region.