This paper focuses on a presentation of two business languages, English and Spanish, with the purpose of rendering similarities and differences between them, as perceived by Romanian students. Various principles have been analysed in order to emphasize thBusiness English, filter language, Business Spanish, cross cultural communication, three-dimensional linguistic perspective.

Lazarescu Adriana

English

Research Papers in Economics

552 
 
THE WORLD OF BUSINESS: A BILINGUAL APPROACH 
 
Lăzărescu Adriana 
221,  Imparatul  Traian,  M50/2/4,  Craiova,  Dolj,  Romania  University  of  Craiova  Faculty  of 
Letters,  Department  of  Applied  Foreign  Languages  13,  A.I.  Cuza,  Craiova,  Dolj,  Romania 
adriana_3003@yahoo.com, 0722750713 
 
This paper focuses on a presentation of two business languages, English and Spanish, with the purpose of 
rendering  similarities  and  differences  between  them,  as  perceived  by  Romanian  students.  Various 
principles have been analysed in order to emphasize the special attributes of each business vocabulary 
unit, such as: the independence of Business Spanish learning research, characteristics of the Business 
English-Spanish  course,  focusing  on  similar  English  and  Spanish  business  terms,  and  differences  of 
meaning regarding the specific business realities of the two cultures. 
 
Keywords:  Business  English,  filter  language,  Business  Spanish,  cross  cultural  communication,  three-
dimensional linguistic perspective.  
 
JEL code: Y90   
 
Introduction 
The problem of an association between Business English and Spanish by Romanian students has 
appeared  thanks  to  the  Master’s  Programme,  “International  Business  Administration”,  now 
offered at the University of Craiova, The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. All 
the courses which make the syllabus of the programme are taught in English, and, consequently, 
Business Spanish was another subject to be structured for delivery using English as the language 
of instruction.  
The students who attend this course have already completed a Business English course and wish 
to learn Business Spanish for particular reasons connected with their studies or jobs. The teacher 
of such a group is thus faced with learners, often adults, who, now, are well aware of their 
purpose in learning the language as they are business people who need to be able to handle deals 
and negotiations in English and Spanish. Such a language educator has to develop programmes, 
classes, and teaching methods to address these students’ needs, which are different from those of 
native-English-speaking students studying Spanish as a foreign language. Most of the materials 
and courses available for teaching Spanish to Romanian students are not appropriate for teaching 
Business Spanish at a Master’s programme where the language of instruction is English and the 
mother tongue is Romanian. As a result, a gap in materials had to be filled for these specific-
purpose learners, taking into consideration learners’ needs as central to the problem of deciding 
course content. 
Teaching a Business Spanish course using Business English as a filter language has always been 
both challenging and motivating. It has been challenging because it represented a new approach 
of business language which had to be seen through a three-dimensional linguistic perspective: 
English, Spanish and Romanian. Motivation came from the idea that, starting from the Romanian 
linguistic  background  on  business  knowledge,  both  teacher  and  students  had  to  focus  on  a 
Romance language, Spanish, and a Germanic language, English, almost at the same time during 
classes. 
 
The Independence of Business Spanish Learning Research  
High educated people of the world have fostered prestigious languages. Hundreds of years ago, 
Romans welcomed the study of Greek until Latin was widely considered “the sole safeguard of 
man’s store of culture, science and faith” (Lewis 1997:27). European high culture was dominated 
by French and most authors and poets used French as their preferred language. During the 19
th 553 
 
and early 20
th centuries, German dominated the world of science in Europe and North America. 
(Lewis  1997).  English  is  the  “international  language”  of  the  moment  and  a  key  in  global 
communication  in  many  fields  of  activity.    There  are  countries  where  bilingual  education 
programmes that include the national language and a language of prestige are very common. This 
trend towards globalization opens the perspective for the acquisition of bilingual abilities.  
In order for a bilingual programme to be successful, it must develop both languages and use them 
alternatively to promote academic achievement. If the language used denotes consistency and 
cross-grade  articulation,  it  is  of  great  help  for  students’  development  (Christian,  Montone, 
Lindholm, and Carranza 1997). Students’ progress is constantly monitored in both languages. For 
bilingual courses, assessment needs to include language and content. Evaluation of language 
proficiency and content knowledge need to be separated when carried out in the second language 
so that students might acknowledge their ability to use grammar patterns correctly when they 
actively participate in a Business English and Spanish environment.  
Vivian Cook (1994: 2) gives three examples of the contribution that second language learning has 
on language teaching: “understanding the students’ contribution to learning, understanding how 
teaching  techniques  and  methods  work,  and  understanding  the  overall  goals  of  language 
teaching”. In the case of the Business Spanish course, Spanish is not the second language for 
Romanian students, but actually the second foreign language they study, after English. Given a 
learner or a group of learners with a specific purpose in learning Business Spanish, it seemed 
logical in a learner-centred approach to base a course on that purpose and on the learners’ needs 
in this situation. Once a learner’s needs have been defined, in terms of why he wished to learn 
Spanish  through  English,  and  the  kind  of  English  and  Spanish  he  will  have  to  use,  this 
information can be used as guideline for the content of the course suited to his particular interests 
and needs. 
 
Characteristics of the Business English-Spanish Course 
Cultural aspects are very often present in business people’s lives and, quite frequently, they find 
it difficult to cope with all the requirements of such a problem. Students need to be aware of all 
the implications of the concept of “crossing borders”. They also need to know how to do their 
jobs by using as an advantage the partner’s culture so that they should have a profitable deal. This 
course  has  been  designed  to  help  students  maximise  their  potential  on  the  global  stage 
through  mind-opening  cross  cultural  communication  courses  and  it  offers  a  range  of 
flexible,  scrupulously  researched and  vibrant  cross  cultural communication  workshops. 
Implications  of  English  and  Spanish  upon  the  Romanian  business  life  have  been  taken  into 
consideration when establishing the linguistic and informational corpus of the course.  
As adaptation to students’ needs, the Business Spanish course looks at the following main areas: 
cross cultural communication; the impact of cultural values on norms and practices; investigating 
the way in which cultural aspects impact companies, personnel and team building; discussing 
ways  in  which  differences  can  be  solved,  and  establishing  strategies  for  dealing  with  future 
issues. Whereas business courses present the specific reality of economics in terms of theory and 
practice,  business  language  courses  attempt  to  adapt  students’  business  knowledge  to  either 
English or Spanish discourse. The course has the following learning objectives: to introduce 
students to the theoretical and practical grammatical structures, to practice through exercises in 
order to identify when culture impacts business, to develop students’ ability to recognize and 
handle  cross  cultural  issues  at  the  workplace,  to  make  students  understand  business  texts, 
economics materials, to make them communicate in Spanish and English and the most important 
of all, to make them be able to do their job both in English and in Spanish.  
International English has long been acknowledged as the main means of communication in the 
world of business. It has also been a source of inspiration for other languages especially in the 
field of business. Thus, the teaching method used in the first courses of Spanish was not that of 554 
 
introducing new vocabulary, but rather focus on those English words which could easily find 
their translation into Spanish by means of association. Thanks to the activity of brainstorming in 
English, Romanian students of Spanish came up with their own list of “new words”. Here is the 
list of similar terms, which was conceived by Romanian students during their very first Business 
Spanish course taught through English:  
 
English  Spanish 
bank  banco 
debate  debate 
group  grupo 
idea  idea 
hotel  hotel 
list  lista 
telephone  teléfono 
cheque  cheque 
secretary  secretario 
costs  costes 
economy  economía 
product  producto 
funds  fondos 
 
Such similarities of the two languages, associated mentally with their translation into Romanian, 
which is again almost the same, encouraged further research into the language and made students 
realise that finding similarities between the learned Spanish terms and the already known English 
words is a very effective way of expanding knowledge upon the new language.   
The Business Spanish course mainly concentrates upon real life situations exposed either in texts 
or dialogues. It is a genuine vocabulary builder that presents both formal and informal Business 
Spanish in context. Here is an example of a dialogue used in class and the translation into English 
provided by Romanian students. The equivalence in translation has been guided so that it might 
render the same informal style. It is focused on business language connected with work: 
 
Spanish  English 
Gloria:  No  puedo más,  Sofía.  Necesito  unas 
vacaciones. 
Sofía: Y yo… Esto de currar tanto no es sano. 
Gloria: ¡Ni que lo digas! Llevo una racha que 
no  paro.  Hoy  he  pasado  toda  la  mañana 
pegada al ordenador sin descansar.  
Sofía:  ¿Y  tus  compañeros  de  trabajo? 
¿También están agobiados? 
Gloria: ¡Qué va! Yo estoy a tope y ellos están 
allí charlando. No dan ni golpe. En fin. Estoy 
hasta el gorro del trabajo. Y no aguanto más 
a mi jefe.  
Sofía: ¿Qué dices? Siempre te has llevado bien 
con Arturo… 
Gloria: Sí, pero desde que le han ascendido y 
es un pez gordo en la empresa, se ha puesto 
insoportable. 
Gloria: I’ve had it, Sofía. I need a holiday.. 
Sofía: Working this hard isn’t good for your 
health. 
Gloria:  You  said  it!  I  haven’t  let  up  for  a 
while  now.  And  today  I’ve  spent  the  whole 
morning glued to my computer without taking 
a break.  
Sofía: What about your colleagues? Are they 
swamped too? 
Gloria: Are you kidding? I’m up to my ears 
and they are chatting away. They don’t lift a 
finger. Anyway, I’ve had it with my job. And 
I can’t take my boss anymore.  
Sofía: What are you saying? You’ve always got 
along well with Arturo… 
Gloria: Yeah, but ever since he got promoted 
and became a head honcho in the company, 555 
 
Sofia: Vaya.. 
Gloria: Total, chica, estoy super quemada. A 
ver si consigo que me despidan. 
Sofía: Y si te echan, ¿que harías? ¿Vivirías del 
paro? 
Gloria: Pues claro, mientras que me organizo. 
Y  luego  a  lo  mejor  me  monto  un  negocio. 
Algo rentable, claro. 
Sofía:  ¡Estás  loca!  ¿Y  como  lo  harías?  No 
tienes capital… 
Gloria: Eso es lo de menos ... Ya verás, Sofía, 
¡Voy a triunfar!  
(adapted  from  Spanish  among  Amigos. 
Conversational  Spanish  Beyond  the 
Classroom, pp. 61) 
 
he’s been unbearable. 
Sofia: Oh dear.. 
Gloria: Anyway, I’m really burned out. With 
a little luck I’ll get myself fired. 
Sofía: And what would you do if they laid you 
off? Live off unemployment benefits? 
Gloria: Yeah, while I get myself together. And 
then I’d probably start up my own business. 
Something profitable, of course. 
Sofía: You’re nuts. How would you do it? You 
don’t have any capital… 
Gloria: Listen, that’s the least of it … You just 
wait, Sofía, I’m going to make it!  
 
 
As it can be seen, the Spanish-English equivalence has been done taking into consideration the 
business reality of working in an office both in the Spanish culture and in the English one. For 
such expressions as “estar hasta el gorro” or “montar un negocio” have been found English 
equivalents which are also quite similar to the Romanian ones. “Estar hasta el gorro” is “to have 
had it” or “to be fed up”, but literally it means “to be up to one’s cap”, which is “a fi sătul până 
peste cap” in Romanian. “Montar un negocio” is “to set up a business” in English and “a începe o 
nouă afacere” in Romanian. 
The Romanian students’ translation has been done directly from English into Spanish, without 
using  any  English-Romanian  or  Romanian-Spanish  dictionaries.  Nevertheless,  an  English-
Spanish/ Spanish-English dictionary has been used for a better accuracy of the text. Before the 
translation, students were asked to consider business terms such as: ascender, despedir, echar, 
organizar, rentable, capital, and expressions such as: estar a tope, estar agobiado/a, no dar ni 
golpe, montar un negocio.  The explanations for them have been provided both in Spanish and in 
English  with  the  purpose  of  expanding  knowledge  in  the  two  languages.  Thanks  to  such 
translations, students have been exposed to real life business situations in doors and out doors and 
they have learnt that Business Spanish and Business English have the same patterns in terms of 
terminology. 
If students consider language as a set of symbols for their thoughts and opinions connected to the 
business world, they might realize that as they converse normally, translation is constantly a flow 
of words. Their specific opinions are translated into symbols which are reprocessed into thought-
images again. When Romanian students begin to deal with Business Spanish and English, the 
confusion  may  be  doubled.  However,  the  advantage  that  translation  from  one  language  into 
another has over the translation of thoughts to symbols is that when they deal with the two 
languages, they actually deal with a more or less objective group of symbols. Consequently, in 
order for Romanian students to be able to translate correctly both concerning terminology and 
meaning,  they  must  think  and  feel  both  languages,  while  always  being  cognizant  of  the 
differences and similarities inherent in both languages.  
 
Conclusions 
Association of words, expressions and their meaning in the two languages has helped students 
abandon the sweet temptation to use Romanian and has given them an impetus to greater trust in 
speaking Spanish alongside with English at work. The results of a Business Spanish Course using 
English as a filter language have been impressive for the business environment in Craiova. After 556 
 
having  graduated  from  the  Master’s  Programme,  “International  Business  Administration”, 
students  were  able  to  better  communicate  in  the  two  languages,  improving  considerably  the 
business relationships between the companies they represented and the Spanish ones. In this case, 
International English has given space to Business Spanish and, students’ ability to speak both 
Business English and Business Spanish has contributed to the development of regional trade. 
 
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THE WORLD OF BUSINESS: A BILINGUAL APPROACH

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THE WORLD OF BUSINESS: A BILINGUAL APPROACH

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