ABSTRACT
With intensifi cation of globalisation of the business world comes the need to appreciate the signifi cance of languages and cultures in communication, a point well illustrated through the REFLECT project (reviewed in Bargiela-Chiappini et al., 2007) which carried out a survey of foreign language and cultural training needs in small to medium-sized businesses in the UK, Ireland, Poland and Portugal between 2000 and 2002. Their fi ndings include the following:
a) Almost all the companies in the sample had experienced language and cultural barriers when they were working with companies from areas where languages other than their own languages were spoken.
