Linguistic Auditing (Topics in Translation, 8)

One of the most neglected areas of management is the management of communication with customers and markets that use a foreign language. Yet faulty or non-existent command of appropriate foreign languages impairs business relations, makes for inefficiency and loss of business. This book provides a set of analytical tools for establishing the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation's entire system of foreign language communication from the strategic and planning level, to that of the proficiency of individual postholders. The tools can be used by managers or training officers as well as professional language trainers, in industry, commerce or government. The information can help in decisions on recruitment and equally provide a sound basis for the design of targeted, needs-specific language training, avoiding wasteful expenditure on 'general' language learning that neither motivates nor results in applicable knowledge. The proficiency testing methods are designed for use by language experts and are related to the National Vocational Qualifications language standards.