ABSTRACT
In international business communication, English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) is a well-established tag name. While being interconnected with the other parts of the world, ready-made garments (RMG) business of Bangladesh has become a global business, a key query – ‘what linguistic competence is needed for this global business' – is relatively unexplored in ‘English as a lingua franca’ (ELF) contexts. Adopting a qualitative research approach and using BELF as a conceptual framework, this research explores the linguistic competence and its forms needed for effective communication in RMG global business. The data have been collected through in-depth interviews of three levels of RMG professionals from conveniently selected 43 RMG industries located in Bangladesh. The findings show that RMG global business is largely dominated by ELF paradigm in which clear mutual intelligibility rather than standard English usage (e.g. in terms of grammar, pronunciation) remains the major issue of the RMG business communication. In addition, a sound knowledge and skills in using appropriate garments specific lexis along with general vocabulary is considered as one of the key factors for effective communication. Unsurprisingly, fluency also matters, but it largely depends on whether interlocutors are native or non-native speakers of English.
