ABSTRACT
With intensification of globalisation of the business world comes the need to appreciate the significance of languages and cultures in communication, a point well illustrated through the REFLECT project which carried out a survey of foreign language and cultural training needs in small to mediumsized businesses in the UK, Ireland, Poland and Portugal between 2000 and 2002. This chapter looks at language and cultural issues in business communication. It shows two core business activities in which language serves as a major link and means, that is, advertising and negotiation, before the authors review language and communication matters in other business contexts. There has been a growing awareness of ethical issues in advertising. The cultural, linguistic and gender stereotypes in advertising are often under scrutiny. The chapter discusses cross-cultural differences exist in many aspects of advertising, as a number of empirical studies in the multi-disciplinary fields of international marketing, business communication, intercultural communication and discourse-based studies.
