The making of corporate identities through a plural corporate language. A comparative study on French and Italian Food companies

Abstract

The present study analyzes the linguistic and cultural dimensions which emerge from international companies working in those economic and social contexts, which are, at present, more cash-like and uncertain. The multilingual communication adopted by such companies is the result of their position on the market and of their own identity and culture. It also reveals an ongoing process of negotiation between several elements: a language identity source, which highlights the origins, history, geographic, social and cultural affiliation (national, regional, and professional), a target otherness, which may be more or less defined (by country or in relation to a universal extent) and which is increasingly multicultural, and a ‘source otherness’, which arises from considering “soi-meme comme un autre” to communicate extensively. The present study will shed light on some communicative choices at both language and culture levels in the corporate sites of some Italian and French food companies (Lavazza, Ferrero, Barilla, Lactalis, Fleury-Michon, Bonduelle, Bomgrain). The aim is to identify specific (“connotative”) items that in some way denote cultural permeability, a layer between convention and “hybridization”.