Multicultural business meetings and the role of languages other than English

This paper explores the role of languages other than English at an Italian company's meetings of its international distributors, from 12-14 countries. It aims to shed light on the factors that can influence language choice in such settings and to consider the effect of selecting and switching between different languages. In exploring language choice at the meetings, conducted mainly in English, the article takes into consideration participant roles (Goffman 1981), evaluation (Thompson and Hunston 2000), and the business context. Selected data extracts are analyzed, showing how the use of different languages by participants can serve immediate practical purposes and more generally help increase common ground and build relations, and how the main company speaker initiates strategic shifts in language and participant roles.