ENGLISHES IN THE WORKPLACE: THE ROLE OF ENGLISH AS THE MEDIUM TO FACILITATE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN PROMOTING LOCAL CULTURES

Taking a few minutes to go ‘surfing’ on the internet and try to type ‘the most spoken language in the world’ what do you find? Obviously, you will find the same thing  that there will be a hundred web pages saying that English is the most spoken language with its outnumber of native and non-native speakers in the world. Therefore, it is not silly to say that we are now living in the world which is occupied by the ‘lingua franca’ of the world. In this respect, English is no longer the language of its native speakers, because it has been widespread as the global language which brings people from different parts of the world, different tongues, and different cultural backgrounds, into the common voice in order to bridge the language barriers. It is a language which anyone can use as a means of facilitating ‘intercultural’ communications.  To define what it is, Novinger (2001) underlines that the term intercultural indicates several differences between communicators. It may include language, national origin, race, or ethnicity rather than put its concept into a ‘micro’ definition such as the diverse intranational sub-cultures. Therefore, the term intercultural communication refers to the international transactional, symbolic process which involves the attribution of meaning between people from different cultures (P 9).

            In addition, Kachru and his co-writers (2006) present the growth of English within 3 concentric circles namely; inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle country.  The concept of inner circle country refers to the countries where English is spoken as the native language. Meanwhile, the outer circle consists of the countries which have the strong influence of English through political and economic areas. Presumably, English in outer circle is spoken as the ‘second’ language where it is used as the official language. The last one is expanding circle country by which English is learned and spoken as a ‘foreign’ language. In Indonesia, the use of English belongs to the last category, expanding circle country where English is spoken as a foreign language. Even so, English in Indonesia is spread rapidly as the result of its  global economic development.

            One of the rapid growths in Indonesian economic sector is a tourism industry. Tourism sector offers the uniqueness of Indonesia to the global world and attracts foreigners to explore its beauty. Successfully, more and more people from different parts of the world come to visit Indonesia for it has so many tourist destinations which are spread in the different islands which each has its own uniqueness. Concerning this reason, the need for English as a tool of global communication is very essential to facilitate the intercultural communications and to prevent communication breakdowns. Tourism industries are those who are very concerned about the ability of their personnel on English as the expansion of globalization requires them to be able to communicate well in order to succeed in facilitating communication because it is very important for us to function efficiently in global environment, and it is important to cultivate a range of competencies which are amenable to different intercultural contexts. In this stand point, English is one of many important competencies that one should master in order to participate and engage meaningfully within the members of the wider global community by which Patel and his co-writers (2011) refer the term  as the global community engagement (P 5).  

Presented in National English Language Teacher and Lecturer  Conference (NELTAL) at UNM, March 31st 2012 with the main theme "Englishes for Communication and Interaction"