Interdisciplinary Elective Subject, topic 6: Cultures and Languages at Transnational Workplaces

In this course students explore why and how languages and cultures matter in real-life work situations and through what means transnational competences can be improved in workplace organization and practices. The course is divided into an introduction to theories and concepts, simulation exercises and training of methods, and a student-led team project to examine a self-chosen real-world case (with the written assignment as outcome). Typically, the examined cases are related to a) questions of external/internal communication, mediation and language policies; or b) diversity management, intercultural/plurilingual competence building. The cases should relate to the students’ studied languages and include an empirical dimension (fieldwork). The course builds on current investigations done within the EGR/CBS research group “Languages, Cultures, Workplaces” (LCW) and possibly offers the students the opportunity to contribute with data collection and/or analysis to ongoing research activities.

The course is structured as follows:

1) Introduction to theoretical frameworks on Intercultural Communication and Competence Building; Plurilingual Competences, Mediation, Language Diversity and Policies; Organizational Interaction, Management and Corporate sense-making;

2) Interactive training of empirical qualitative methods of data collection through curated cases, such as questionnaires, interviewing and observation, including an introduction into GDPR requirements;

3) Teamwork design of an explorative study on a self-chosen real-world case in partnership with external actors, with focus on the studied language;

4) Supervised empirical data collection (fieldwork);

5) Training in qualitative data analysis, applying methods such as critical discourse analysis and the use of digital tools such as NVivo;

6) Preparation on scientific assignment writing and supervision of the writing process, with special focus on the studied language.