Episode 29: Language in Business, Language at work

Words & Actions

In an episode on business (or is it corporate?) communication textbooks, we cannot help mention the one we wrote ourselves and are currently revising. The first edition of Language in Business, Language at Work is available here.

Other books that we mention in the introduction are:

• Cornelissen, J. P. (2020). Corporate Communication: A guide to theory and practice. (6th ed.) Sage.

• Forman, J. (Ed.). (2022). The Business Communication Profession: Essays on the journeys of leading teacher-scholars. Routledge.

• Mautner, G. (2017). Discourse and Management: Critical perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Here is how ChatGPT answered Bernard’s question “Is there a difference between business communication and corporate communication?”:

“Yes, there is a distinction between business communication and corporate communication, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The differences lie in their scope, focus, and the context in which they are applied:

Business Communication:

• Scope: Business communication is a broader term that encompasses all types of communication within a business environment. This includes communication between employees, between different departments, with customers, and with external stakeholders.
• Focus: Business communication focuses on the day-to-day exchange of information, ideas, and messages to facilitate the smooth functioning of a business. It includes various forms of communication, such as emails, memos, reports, meetings, and presentations.
• Audience: The audience for business communication can be internal (within the organization) or external (outside the organization), and the content can range from operational details to marketing messages.

Corporate Communication:

• Scope: Corporate communication is a subset of business communication that specifically deals with the communication strategies and activities of an organization as a whole. It involves managing and conveying a consistent corporate identity and message.
• Focus: Corporate communication is strategic and often focuses on shaping the public image of the organization, maintaining a positive reputation, and managing relationships with external stakeholders, such as investors, customers, the media, and the public.
• Audience: The primary audience for corporate communication is often external stakeholders, but it also includes internal stakeholders. It aims to create a favorable perception of the company and ensure that its values and messages align with its overall business goals.

We also searched for the phrases ‘business communication’, ‘corporate communication’ and ‘organizational communication’ in large corpora of American and British English in general. Here is part of concordance (see glossary) from the British National Corpus 2014:

Still in the introduction, we then look at a critique of economic textbooks, drawing on the work of our interview guest from episode 26 (the language of corporate social responsibility Part 2):

• Stibbe, A. (2020). Ecolinguistics and economics: The power of language to build worlds. WEA Commentaries, 10(3), 2-7.

In the interview, Jonathan Clifton challenges the idea that “in a court of law, or in a civil court, whosoever is right is going to win, and whosoever is wrong is going to lose”. Instead he says, success depends on “how successful lawyers or defendants or witnesses, expert witnesses can marshal resources to make a convincing argument”. This echoes a scene in the film Anatomy of a Fall (2023): when the suspect assures her lawyer that “I did not kill him”, her lawyer replies: “That is not the point.” The film is much recommended – courtroom dramas don’t get better than this!

Jonathan’s book is broad in scope, ranging from legal language to football punditry. As for the latter, he mentions the popular BBC programme Match of the Day, which is hosted by former player and outspoken commentator Gary Lineker.

In the final part of the episode, we first look at advice for email writing from this textbook:

• Hartley, P., Marriott, S., & Knapton, H. (2023). Professional and Business Communication: Personal strategies for the post-digital world. (3rd ed.) Routledge.

The authors of that textbook in turn quote:

• Kelly, S. (2019). Computer Mediated Communication for Business: From theory to practice. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

The AI-generated email is too long to reproduce here (and that’s part of the problem with it), but we can include the anonymised email that Veronika received from her former student:

From: [name and email address]
Sent: 22 September 2023 12:41
To: Koller, Veronika
Subject: Qualified documents for application

Dear Veronika,

Hope you had a wonderful summer break!

First of all, I would like to express my huge gratitude to you for providing substantial support during my postgraduate application season. I really appreciate that you agreed to write a reference letter and this means a lot to my application.

I’m writing to request your help in sending the official transcript to [university] for fulfilling the academic condition. I have been accepted to the [programme] at [university]. However, due to my health issues […] I have to defer my entry to 2024. [University] approved my deferral request and extended the deadline for submitting qualified academic evidence (i.e. my transcript and graduate certificate) to the end of September.

I sent an email a week ago to the department. However, [name of administrator] told me that the department cannot send the documents for me and I should send it by myself. I tried to download my documents from [the] dashboard, but it shows that I have no documents to be downloaded. The [University] require[s] that the documents should be sent by the department. So I am in a dilemma now. Since the deadline is approaching, would it be possible for you to give me some advice on it?

I know you must be very busy at the start of the academic year. Thank you so much for reading this email! I really appreciate your time!

With warmest wishes,

[first name]

That’s it for this episode – see you next time! In the meantime, have a look at Jonathan’s new book: Talking for success!

Listen to the episode here

Full transcription of the episode

Words and Actions transcript for episode 29Download