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Individuals possess unique personal cultures.
Organizations experience the impact
of cultural diversity through individuals identifying
with different sets of cultural groups,
based on some set of shared characteristics.
They may identify with more than one cultural
group, with different degrees of affinity
(Cox, 1993). Language is one of the important
factors defining an individual’s personal culture.
It is a factor contributing to both human
capital and ethnicity (Pendakur and Pendakur,
2002). However, none of the studies discussed
above included language as a factor
contributing to diversity, or explored the role
of language in management of diversity. It is
noteworthy that workforce diversity studies
have mostly focused on personal characteristics
that usually cannot be changed, such as
age, gender, race, sexual orientation, physical
disability and ethnic heritage. Language, on
the other hand, can be changed to the extent
that it can be learned.
The value of the language used by an
organization is rooted in its organizational culture.
According to Zeddies (2002), ‘language
is the primary and fundamental medium
through which culture, tradition, and custom
are transmitted down through history’.
Nevertheless, the complexity of managing the
language asset of a corporation is apparent in
the definition of culture and the nature of
workforce diversity. The term culture can have
several meanings within the context of social
research.
After defining symbol, idea and other
necessary terms of the definition, Blumenthal
(1940) defines culture as
the world stream of ideas that are communicable
by means of symbols from the
first of such ideas in the cosmos to the
present. Culture includes also the causal
relationships between such ideas, all phenomena
that are affected by such ideas,
and all relationships between ideas and
other phenomena that have or have not
been identifiably affected by such ideas.
The definition is applied to such terms as
culture trait, culture complex, culture pattern,
etc.
Definitions of culture focus on development
of intellectual and moral faculties, often
through education; intellectual, artistic, or
otherwise creative activity; the process of
acquiring knowledge of these areas; accumulated
and shared beliefs, social forms, attitudes,
values, goals, practices and traits of a
group, including company and corporation
(Dhir and Savage, 2002). Attention to the
strategic need for developing the appropriate
culture throughout an organization, in turn,
brings attention to the choice of language.
Language, after all, is the essential skill giving
man the capacity for learning and transmitting
knowledge. The choice is complicated in
the light of workforce diversity. As described
by Zeddies (2002):
Language is much more than a mere
assemblage of words structured by syntax
and grammar; it represents the evolving
varieties of human life and living over the
vast expanse of time. The values, beliefs,
victories, defeats, joys, sorrows, hopes, and
visions of generations of human communities
are bound up in and preserved by the
language of a culture . . . Through language
a world is disclosed to us.
(Zeddies, 2002)
According to Gadamer, all aspects of human
experience are informed and affected by language
(Gadamer, 1975; Zeddies, 2002).
Taylor argues that language manifests a way
of being in the world (Taylor, 1985). Language
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors