Stimmen zu Mehrsprachigkeit in finnischen Unternehmen: Ausgewählte Ergebnisse der LangBuCom-Studie

Abstract

This paper addresses multilingualism in Finnish companies. It presents the selected results of a survey, which was carried out within the project Languages in international business communication (LangBuCom). The questionnaire was answered by 272 employees, who have business contacts with German-speaking partners. The paper focuses on the respondents' language skills, on their attitude towards multilingualism, on the use of multiple languages in the work context and on problems when using multiple languages. The study shows that the respondents have diverse language skills and a majority has language skills in five or more languages. The respondents' attitudes towards multilingualism are (very) positive and they often experience situations where they use two or more languages in one and the same situation. However, they mention different challenges when using multiple languages, but they also provide solutions how to overcome the problems.