In a multilingual environment, language is not a cost but a valuable corporate resource. This was heard at the webinar held by the Indigenous Languages Action Forum (ILAF) in partnership with the Pendoring Awards and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB).
The webinar under the topic, Language: A strategic resource, brought linguists and the business sector together to discuss the links between language, business relations and competitiveness.
The panellists included Dutch philologist, linguist and neurolinguist, Professor Frieda Steurs, Group CEO of Ogilvy, Enver Groenewald, Trustee of the Hollard Foundation Trust, Ntjantja Ned, and PanSALB’s executive head of languages, Julius Dantile.
Mr Dantile stated that indigenous languages need to be used as an economic resource and allow each indigenous language to provide public value for the speakers of that particular language. “In South Africa, we’re battling to understand that strategic thinking to use indigenous languages to provide economic empowerment,” he said.
Prof Steurs spoke about the power of language. She stated: “In a multilingual environment, language is not a cost but a valuable corporate resource. The strategic deployment of language inside and outside the company adds value and provides competitive edge.”
According to her, big cities compete to attract multilingual young people into the knowledge economy. “If we want economic activity and expansion, we need to focus on languages,” she said.
She referenced an Elan study that was done in recent years on the impact of monolingualism on business vitality. “11% of a test group of 2000 small-medium companies admitted they had lost contracts due to a lack of language skills and almost half of them wanted to explore new markets for which they would need new language strategies and skills,” she said.
Companies need to recruit multilingual employees and offer languages courses to advance multilingualism as a corporate resource, Prof Steurs said. The intranet of the company can be made multilingual and the company website could be written in clear and simple language, using also the language of the customer. “Every public service organisation and company should develop a language strategy that reflects the needs of a multilingual society,” she concluded.
Mr Groenewald said the generally accepted approach is that English is the language of business. . “I disagree with this simplistic way of looking at language. I think English is the language between businesses, which does not mean it should be the primary language between businesses, individuals, and employees.”
He said if advertising companies wanted to reach the consumer and clients and the society at large, they have to appeal to their emotions, intellect and their need to feel respected. This must be communicated in manner that respects their identity and sense of culture. “We have to promote and celebrate the value of multilingualism within organisations,” he said.
Language can provide companies with sustainable competitive advantage, he added. “Language should not be seen as a cost but a as vital social and business investment,” said Mr Groenewald.
Closing the webinar, Ms Ned, touched on life experiences to demonstrate the impact of language on social inclusion and exclusion. She stated that people are left behind if they are expected to understand a language they cannot speak, in this case, English. “Language is not just me speaking to you, it’s me expressing who I am, my culture; it’s me being an equal citizen, speaking a language that is official in this country,” she said.
A participant in the webinar, Patience Onowode said that ”Multilingualism is the way forward in all spheres of life, be it education or business.”
