Communicative language in the virtual world

Abstract

Emerging communication practices in digitally mediated professional settings have changed the paradigm of current workforce requirements. This paper presents the results of a survey on the way people communicate virtually in the workplace and the specific needs that have been detected concerning virtual communication practices. The survey itself was carried out within the context of CoMoViWo, a European Erasmus Project which involves the participation of five European countries. Specifically, the current study carries out a contrastive analysis of the results of the needs analysis of Spanish and Finnish users of digital communication tools. The data obtained from the study highlights the differences found with regard to the communicative strategies preferred by the virtual workers of both countries. Although they all need to communicate formally on most online tools, Spanish workers prefer more informal registers in emails and social networking than Finnish
virtual workers. Also, Spanish speakers manifest a greater need than the Finnish interviewees for improving strategies involving greetings, virtual presentations and negotiating. On the other hand, Finnish speakers perceive they only need to develop strategies in managing and/or hosting virtual group interactions. The study has implications, and should contribute to the development of learning modules to train future employees to communicate successfully in an increasingly globalized world that is engaged daily in virtual communication.
Keywords: Workplace language, virtual communication, English, cross-cultural study.