Employee discourse: tensions between the use of English and multilingual exchanges in daily work activities.

A number of European projects – ELAN (2006), Dylan (2006-2011), CELAN (2011-2013) – have confirmed the importance of multilingualism in the workplace. They provide evidence that a multilingual environment increases the diversity and the quality of projects, while monolingualism can mean a loss of markets. Since the ‘80s, English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been accepted as the international business language. Although English is not considered a threat to multilingualism (House, 2002, 2003), tensions exist between these two forms of communication: ELF and multilingualism. In this paper, I present an analysis of Airbus employee interviews using argument formulas (Anscombre, Ducrot, 1983). The initial analysis of what is said before and after the connector “but/pero/aber/mais” within interviews in four languages indicates tensions between the use of English and multilingual exchanges in daily work activities. The combination of “enunciation frames” (Charolles, 1997) and the role of personal pronouns (Benveniste, 1974) shows that the employees adapt their communication according to workplace structures: they tend to use English at an executive or a departmental level, while at team and face-to-face levels their communication benefits from multilingual skills.

The renewed death of contract? Post-crisis financial product conduct reforms

Post-crisis financial re-regulation in place or underway in Hong Kong and elsewhere includes restrictions on forms of contracting and new rules governing business and financial product conduct. Measures of this kind may dampen activity but do little to protect investors or other users, nor mitigate against future instability. They resemble a swing towards state incursion on contracting of a kind regularly identified by legal scholars. To the extent that the state wishes to protect the interests of retail investors or speculative users of complex financial instruments there may be more merit in requiring “intelligent disclosure” specific to each class of instrument, and extending the doctrine of unconscionability to include financial instruments, as in certain circumstances in Australia. Outright contractual bans are an unreasonable and costly extension of state policy, the underlying purpose of which is to divert popular attention from regulatory failure, while highly prescriptive point of sale rules may make it less likely for legitimate complaints of mis-selling to succeed.postprin

Cover Up! Hong Kong's Regulation of Exchange-Traded Warrants

Regulatory interest in financial derivatives centres on how unforeseen shocks might affect their value. Current concerns arise from prolific growth in the use of derivatives by financial institutions for credit risk transfer, the scale of which some national authorities find disquieting. However, attention in Hong Kong applies to a wholly different setting, springing from its prominent market in listed covered warrants. The regulatory regime for these instruments is fractured, porous, and conflicts with precepts of international practice to which the territory nonetheless subscribes. Primary oversight is entrusted to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, a body neither equipped nor inclined to perform the function authoritatively. Slender, variable disclosure requirements do little to inform participants as to the balance of risk and reward inherent in these products, and since most warrant buyers are non-professional individuals, a pronounced market correction would create a significant moral hazard for Hong Kong's government.published_or_final_versio

Investment banks

Investment banking is a generic term for transactional activities involving financial intermediation conducted through open markets. It was long associated with a legal demarcation in the US and Japan that separated banks that made loans and took deposits from those that traded in securities, but now denotes risk-based activities in banks of any kind. This paper explains investment banking practices in terms of reputational capital, and contrasts the transactional skills and innovation found in successful investment banks with concerns as to the societal value of their activities that have developed since the 2007-09 global crisis.postprin

Securitization in East Asia

Securitization offers a range of benefits for Asiaâs financial systems and economies as a mechanism to assist funding and investment. As a form of structured finance, reliable and efficient securitization can assist development by enabling financial systems to deepen and strengthenâthus contributing to overall economic growth and stability. It must be recognized, however, that there are both overt and more subtle risks in certain uses of securitization. The credit and liquidity crisis that began in the United States and spread to other developed financial systems in mid-2007 exposed the danger associated with securitization: excessive risk-taking or regulatory capital arbitrage rather than a tool to assist more conventional or conservative approaches to funding, risk management, or investment. Securitization has also been criticized for rendering financial markets opaque, while contributing to a growing emphasis in the global economy of credit intermediation conducted in capital markets rather than through banks. This study examines the institutional basis of these concerns by investigating the use of securitization in East Asia, questioning both the growth in regional activity since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, and the reasons for it remaining constrained. The paper concludes with a discussion of proposals to support proper development of securitization in the region, including institutional mechanisms that could better allow securitization to enhance development and financial stability. If East Asia begins to make fuller use of securitization, its motive will be to meet funding or investment needs in the real economy rather than balance sheet arbitrage of the kind that peaked elsewhere in 2007.Securitization; East Asia; debt markets; risk transfer

The global credit crisis and securitization in East Asia

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Textual Coherence and Sentence Grammar in Material Written by Doctoral Students

Cet article a pour objet de créer un pont entre la grammaire de la phrase et la cohérence textuelle dans le processus d’écriture des doctorants. Il s’appuie sur une étude de cas menée auprès de deux groupes : les doctorants de sciences humaines d’un côté et ceux de droit de l’autre. Le corpus de cette recherche se compose de paragraphes écrits et retravaillés par les doctorants eux-mêmes dans le cadre d’un atelier d’écriture. La question-clé qui oriente la recherche est de savoir si l’approche par la grammaire de la phrase a une répercussion sur la qualité des écrits des doctorants. Les résultats de réécriture de paragraphes font apparaitre trois types de modifications. La principale modification se fait au sein même de l’énoncé et non du paragraphe. La seconde modification consiste en la réorganisation des énoncés au sein du paragraphe. Enfin, la troisième modification réalisée par les doctorants sur leur paragraphe est l’ajout d’un commentaire méta-réflexif indiquant leurs démarches. Par ailleurs, les deux versions du paragraphe sont grammaticalement correctes, la correction grammaticale n’est donc pas directement en cause, mais une bonne maîtrise de celle-ci aide à la construction de la pensée

Post-Crisis Financial Integration in East Asia

organized by HKSAR Central Policy Unit / Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong KongFinancial integration is less pronounced in East Asia than among states in Europe and North America, or compared to economic integration within the region. Cross-border trade flows, direct investment and investment in capital goods have long been greater and faster growing than other investment flows, while regional institutional and legal structures are scarce and frequently insubstantive. This dichotomy persists despite suggestions since the early 1990s that Asian financial integration would accelerate, most especially following the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, including the growth of regional representative organizations and in national enthusiasm for the World Trade Organization. In particular, it defies post-crisis expectations that greater financial integration might prevent or lessen the impact of future financial shocks. This article suggests explanations in legal, governance and institutional frameworks for the paradox of modest financial integration accompanying robust economic growth and trade integration. First, cultural norms militate against regional innovation in financial markets and systems. Second, other economic institutions have tended to resist market-orientated regional reform. Above all, states failed to collaborate effectively in solutions to regional contagion during and following the 1997-98 financial crisis. Without improving financial integration, Asia will maintain a reliance on risk averse portfolio selection and excessive international reserve accumulation, all to the detriment of its financial markets.published_or_final_versio

Textual Coherence and Sentence Grammar in Material Written by Doctoral Students

Cet article a pour objet de créer un pont entre la grammaire de la phrase et la cohérence textuelle dans le processus d’écriture des doctorants. Il s’appuie sur une étude de cas menée auprès de deux groupes : les doctorants de sciences humaines d’un côté et ceux de droit de l’autre. Le corpus de cette recherche se compose de paragraphes écrits et retravaillés par les doctorants eux-mêmes dans le cadre d’un atelier d’écriture. La question-clé qui oriente la recherche est de savoir si l’approche par la grammaire de la phrase a une répercussion sur la qualité des écrits des doctorants. Les résultats de réécriture de paragraphes font apparaitre trois types de modifications. La principale modification se fait au sein même de l’énoncé et non du paragraphe. La seconde modification consiste en la réorganisation des énoncés au sein du paragraphe. Enfin, la troisième modification réalisée par les doctorants sur leur paragraphe est l’ajout d’un commentaire méta-réflexif indiquant leurs démarches. Par ailleurs, les deux versions du paragraphe sont grammaticalement correctes, la correction grammaticale n’est donc pas directement en cause, mais une bonne maîtrise de celle-ci aide à la construction de la pensée

La relecture entre pairs en formation doctorale : de l’analyse des commentaires à l’élaboration d’une grille d’accompagnement

L’écrit produit dans le contexte universitaire implique un accompagnement pour les étudiants et les doctorants. La relecture entre pairs, inscrite dans les littéracies universitaires, apporte des atouts essentiels de prise de conscience de construction du savoir et de métaréflexion à la familiarisation des normes académiques. Par conséquent, la relecture entre pairs fait partie du programme d’un atelier d’écriture en français proposé semestriellement aux doctorants de l’université du Luxembourg. En appui sur un corpus de commentaires des participants entre eux et sur des questionnaires, ce travail d’analyse débouche sur l’élaboration d’une grille d’évaluation ainsi que sur une réflexion sur l’impact de la relecture entre pairs dans le processus d’écriture des doctorants.Writing produced in a university context calls for a support framework for students and doctoral candidates. Peerfeedback when included in university literacy brings essential assets, such as awareness, knowledge building and meta-reflection, to the familiarisation of academic standards. Therefore peerfeedback is part of the program of a French-language writing workshop provided for University of Luxembourg doctoral candidates. Drawing on comments made by participants among themselves or gleaned from questionnaires, the analysis leads to the development of an evaluation rubric as well as a reflection on the impact of peerfeedback on the writing process of doctoral students