1. 1
Sarah de Castro
Multilingual online communication for public relations practitioners: strategies and reasoning
Abstract
How are multilingual expectations conceived and managed by public relations
practitioners in online communications? This literature review examines the
following domains, as applicable to this aforementioned line of questioning:
public relations theory; global lingua franca patterns; socio-linguistic
philosophical thought; and the European community as a multi-language zone
example, within the context of the Internet. The potential to provide a concise
outline of the intersection of these fields is limited by the abstract nature of the
idea of language; and the constant evolution of, and relationship between, the
public relations discipline and the Internet.
The continual and previously unthinkable leaps and bounds by which the Internet is
evolving, presents new possibilities and a shift in expectations for Public relations (PR)
audiences. These new developments have reconstructed the role of the consumer and their
place in the information flows, within this virtual space. There is a collective fantasy, which
imagines global communication as the norm; with no physical barriers to limit this worldwide
network and an expectation of an all-encompassing virtual global communication system.
With this ideal of an open, interactive communication system, language may be the first and
last barrier to the effective use of this channel for promotional communication flows. The
technology to translate effectively is available or will be in the near future, but it is the
management of these language flows, which must be guided by a strategy. Yet, more than the
simple objective of efficiency will govern the management and strategies of the multilingual
Internet. Protectionism, politics and power are engrained in language itself and it is only by
navigating these issues that one can begin to contend with the strategies, and influences which
will shape the newly forming multilingual internet.
The most complex and yet most fundamental question that arises from my proposed area of
study is: how to approach the definition of language ingrained in the term multilingual. If we
ask what are the priorities and values of the PR practitioner, in navigating the multilingual
Internet, we soon see the response lies in a sort of political, emotional power play.
The proposed area of study is a specific investigation that draws on the relationship between
several fields, as contextualised within the framework this question. The following literature
review will discuss the fields: public relations theory; global lingua franca patterns; socio-
linguistic philosophical thought; and the European community as a multi-language zone
example, within the context of the Internet. As it is too vast to contemplate reviewing a sum
of the literature on each of these areas (or even one), I will review the thinking around these
topics where it intersects with all the other fields, as it pertains to my proposed investigation.
Bringing them under the paradigm outlined in the following:
The investigation aims to identify the current linguistic strategies of French public relations
practitioners for communicating on the Internet. While examining current trends used in
practice and the strategies used for online languages of communication. Attention will be
paid to the disadvantages and roadblocks to the effective communication practices by public
relations practitioners in managing the expectations of the multilingual audience.
The questions I have in mind throughout this discussion are the following:
• How have public relations practitioners adapted to the multilingual expectations
inherent of the Internet?
• What are their priorities and values that shape this adaptation?

2. 2
• What is the strategy used by public relations practitioners for dealing with the
expectations of multilingual publics on the Internet?
• And what does he regard as these expectations?
• What is the current role of lingua fracas in managing the online multilingual
expectations, from the French practitioners perspective?
• What are and how are these lingua francas being assumed.
1) What is language?
Despite the temptation to analyse language choices and usage in a pragmatic
paradigm based on the idea of efficiency in line with the public relations framework under
which the study will be understood, this superficial approach would result in nearly
meaningless results, as the following section will indicate, because language is loaded with
politics, emotion and power. To further emphasize the importance of this socio-linguistic
aspect, the planned environment of the study is France; known for its protectionist stance
towards its language. The French language is managed with the full force of the Académie
française, an organization whose role it is to watch over the French language and perform
acts of philanthropy, the academy awards around 60 literature prizes each year. “The
Academy works to regulate and define the French language, to make it a common heritage for
all French citizens and Francophones.” –my translation- (Francaise, 2011) This organisation
and its supporters mirror a more general French attitude which discourages the modification
and evolution of the French language, and the use of other languages within the French
territory. Dutch thinker Abram de Swaan notes the discouragement in France of publishing
‘international’ documents such as scientific papers in the usual lingua franca of the discipline,
English.
“A strong purist current still runs against the adoption of English loan
words of the use of English instead of French in domestic settings, but it
finds little support among experts” (de Swaan, The European Union: the
more languages, the more English, 2001, p. 153)
Yet this protectionist attitude is not excusive to France and the general feeling behind a
nationalistic attitude towards language, is mirrored in the language policy of the European
union and its governing body the European parliament. See section 3 for a discussion.
This loyalty illustrates the larger point, that language is loaded with social, political and even
emotional concerns. Languages have an implicit, intangible value, unrelated to their
efficiency as an international means of communication. (Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic
Power, 1991) (Bourdieu, The field of cultural production, or the economic world reversed,
1983) (Boutet, 2006) (Deneire, 2008) (Kelly-Holmes, 2006) (Rose, 2008) (de Swaan, The
political economy of language of language constellations, 2001).
As a grounding resource to this study it was suggested I read French thinker Pierre Bourdieu,
his ideas bring one into the realm of ‘how to consider language’ and ‘what is language’.
These ideas cannot be taken for granted as universal. It is helpful to read Bourdieu as a
French thinker; his work underlines the protectionist stance explained above and also helps
the reader to understand this attitude. He says, “All linguistic practices are measured against
the legitimate practices, i.e. the practices of those who are dominant” (Bourdieu, Language
and Symbolic Power, 1991, p. 53)
Another contextual point is the fact that French was the border crossing diplomatic lingua
franca of the 18th century. This has now unofficially been replaced with English, which has a
much wider scope, as the agreed lingua franca of International business (Deneire, 2008)
(Rose, 2008). Bourdieu presents his readers with the ideas that can be brutishly summarised
as follows: language is loaded with power; language is dependent on, and illustrative of the
situation and the persons, respectively, where and by whom it is pronounced. (Bourdieu,
Language and Symbolic Power, 1991) He assets “if one fails to perceive both the special
value objectively accorded to the legitimate use of language and the social foundations of this
privilege […] Either one unconsciously absolutizes that which is objectively relative […],

3. 3
namely the dominant usage, failing to look beyond the properties of language itself”
(Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 1991, p. 52) His overriding concern seems to be
dominance, whereby the users of language are somehow fooled when using language. As if
they are not conscious of the real implications of what is being communicated, created or
enforced by their utterances. (Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 1991)
An example of a criticism of Bourdieu work and approach, is illustrated in the following
remark by current English thinker Wendy Bottero “Bourdieu draws back from the substance
of interpersonal relations, limiting any consideration of the implications of differential
association for the intersubjective dimensions of practise.” (Bottero, 2009, p. 18) This points
out the gap between Bourdieu’s ideas about language and real world communication
influences. This is illustrated in the following passage, where Bourdieu, considers the
positions from which persons enter into dialogue, but does not consider the interpersonal
relationships, which could out weight in terms of influence on the communication, the social
positions of communicators.
“Every position-taking is defined in relation to the space of possibles
which is objectively realized as problematic in the form of the actual or
potential position-taking corresponding to the different positions; and it
receives its distinctive value from its negative relationship with the
coexistent position-taking to which it is objectively related and which
determine it by delimiting it. […] a prise de position changes, even when
it remains identical, whenever there is a change in the universe of options
that are simultaneously offered for producers and consumers to choose
from.”(Bourdieu, The field of cultural production, or the economic world
reversed, 1983, p. 113)
To end this section I wish to precise that I will not be dealing with the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis, what is often dubbed linguistic relativism. The idea that there is a systematic
relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that
person both understands the world and behaves in it. “An intellectual system embodied in
each language system shapes the thought of its speakers in quite a general way” (Kay, 1984).
This explanation is a simplistic summary, yet still an accurate picture of the essence of the
idea. The idea entails that if a language system is to be compared to another and judged as
inferior (and lets remember certain languages such as certain found in Aboriginal Australia
consist of a around 100 words) then the worldview and thinking can be, by logical inference
judged as inferior. I assert that this line of thinking; the debate it provoked; and the attempted
reasoning to quell the debate (an over explanation which made the original hypothesis
redundant) was, in my opinion, not helpful to linguistics, sociolinguists or humanity. I believe
it fosters a discriminatory way of thinking. Further it underestimates the ways of abstract
thinking, and expression of such available to ‘other’ cultures.
2) Global language patterns
International patterns of multilingualism, monolingualism and the systems that link
the two, namely lingua franca. If with the help of Bourdieu one can begin to contemplate
what language is; Abram de Swaan a colleague and contemporary of Bourdieu, can help one
begin to contemplate how language is organised on a global scale. de Swaan in his book
Words of the World, point out the importance of the multilingual speaker within a language
group, and their multilingual interactions which mean they can communicate across more
than one language group and hence become a point of mutual language comprehension for
two mutually unintelligible groups, previously incommunicado. “Mutually unintelligible
languages are connected by multilingual speakers, but not at all in a random fashion. In fact,
the scheme of all the worlds languages and of the multilingual that connect them, displays a
strongly ordered, hierarchical pattern.” (de Swaan, The global language system, 2001, p. 4) It
is in this fashion that de Swaan explains the idea of Lingua francas; he creates an image of
lingua francas being cords that join linguistically isolated groups.

4. 4
He also says lingua francs are the languages of a group that had or have some kind of
dominance over the other language groups. The lingua franc will often continue to be spoken
even if the dominant group leaves an area or is no longer dominant within geographic
linguistic stronghold, because language is also a tangible experience and the time and
investment of learning a new language are factors in its role and existence. (de Swaan, The
global language system, 2001) For example French in North Africa.
de Swaan provides a useful tool in the thinking about language patterns, with an model he
dubs, ‘Galaxy of Languages’ a metaphor which positions “Arabic, Chinese, French, English,
German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili’ as what he calls
“super central” languages, each with their own system of “central languages which in turn,
are encircled by their respective satellites, the peripheral languages” (de Swaan, The global
language system, 2001, p. 5); these are small language communities which rely on
multilingual (or at least bilingual persons) speaking the lingua franca of the super central
language to communicate with their mutually unintelligible peripheral language neighbour.
The super central are in turn, pivoting around “hyper central” English, the language in which
a Japanese and a Russian will communicate. “In the present world English is the language of
Global communication” (de Swaan, The global language system, 2001, p. 6) In his metaphor
we can imagine, English as the sun, Earth as Russian and our moons (if we had more than
one) as Czech and Slovak.
A key element in understanding how this dynamic pattern of languages can be measured, is
what de Swaan dubs the communication value or Q-value, a value which can position
languages in terms of their scope of communication. This is the multiplication of a language’s
centrality by its prevalence a calculation which allows de Swaan to rate languages on a
nominative scale, Daniel Dor who bases much of his thinking on de Swaan’s model gives a
most concise explanation “ A language ranks high on the prevalence scale if it is spoken, as a
native or non-native language, by a larger number of people. A language ranks high on the
centrality scale if it is used by a large percentage of multilingual in its region and is thus used
for communication between speakers whose native languages are mutually unintelligible.”
(Dor, 2004, p. 106) Thus we can easily see how English found its position as the global hyper
central language.
Yet, Dor who uses de Swaan’s model in his insightful 2004 paper “From Englishization to
Imposed Multilingualism: Globalization, the Internet, and the Political Economy of the
Linguistic Code” does not use this pragmatic approach as contrary to or at odds with the more
symbolic aspects of language. He identifies one of the symbolic properties of English “the
spread of English as the lingua franca of the information age is viewed as the linguistic
counterpart to the process of economic globalisation.” (p. 97)
3) The European Example
The European Union is a common site of exploration into the workings of a
multilingual environment. Richard Rose illustrates de Swaan’s classification system with a
real world example in the context of the Internet, he referees here to the European situation
“The impetus to seek a foreign-language site is particularly strong in countries with a
population of a few million people” (Rose, 2008, p. 463) This shows Europeans inherently
looking to a wider breath of information available in a language further up the language
hierarchy. Europe is a multilingual space; it is the protectionist and symbolic aspects of
language, which are fostered within this continent rather than successful cross-cultural
communication value. The language policy of the European Union encourages language
diversity [1]. This is problematic because it is a physical rather than a virtual space, so despite
technological advancements in translation software, this does not entail (yet) much help in
physical face-to-face encounters. Yet the power implications discussed in section 1, mean the
implementation of an official lingua franca for either the European union or the European
parliament, a controversial notion, would be too much of a symbol of dominance, out
weighing the practicalities. “Apparently, it has been easier for the EU to settle upon a current
currency than a common language” (de Swaan, The European Union: the more languages, the
more English, 2001, p. 144) Richard Rose, notes that English is the unofficial lingua franca of

5. 5
the European parliament, yet the unofficial aspect of this role gives an unfair advantage to
certain groups, in ‘corridor negotiations’ and the like. “The European Union’s language
diversity policy is a barrier to greater popular participation in a European public space”.
(Rose, 2008) de Swaan asserts English is the unofficial modern day lingua franca of Europe,
giving also a clue as to how English in Europe could work, with minimised power
implications. Due to the fact it is not the language of a dominant group within the
community. “English has become the predominant medium of international communication in
the European Union. Although it is the first language nowhere on the European continent, it
has become the most widely spoken language everywhere.” (de Swaan, The European Union:
the more languages , the more English, 2001, p. 153)
As French thinker Marc Deneire notes, the information economy, relying on computer and
communication skills that has replaced the industrial economy “has been a mixed blessing for
those who do not master the right language.” (Deneire, 2008, p. 181) He declares this ‘right
language’ to be English. He identifies English as a “marketable commodity” (Deneire, 2008,
p. 182) This a new take on the French perspective of Bourdieu where a defensive French
mentality, degrades English language to the level of a consumer good, by putting a price on it.
This attitude is mirrored in Francophone thinkers Boutet and Heller who understand the value
or power of language by the Bourdieu-isque term “communicative capital”, emphasizing the
value of language on a political and economic front. (2006, p. 194) These French thinkers are
quick to express English as a consumer capitalist good, and attribute a monetary like value to
it, positioning it in opposition it to the aesthetic and literary qualities of their mother tongue.
These themes of globalisation, Americanisation and Englishization are often grouped
together, as an imposing and colonising force. (Dor, 2004)(Hong-Hee Lee, 2006)(Rose,
2008)(Kelly-Holmes, 2006)(Bowley, 2010) (Deneire, 2008) to which one can logically add
the Internet with its American military origins; each adding more aggressively to the other, to
create the illusion of a dominant force, in full snowball action. While Israel-based Dor,
explores the possibility of English as a neutral, market based commodity “We simply have no
idea what English stands for except the global market- itself a vague reference- which is to
say, we have not idea what it stands for culturally” (Dor, 2004, p. 101) Contesting with the
French stance that English is the symbol of the Americanisation of the world. This in itself
demonstrates how engrained thinking about language is, at a personal and common cultural
level. These explanations are culturally specific. Rose argues for the officialisation of English
lingua franca (ELF) for the European parliament, citing his real world examples of unequal
communication possibility because of the unofficial role of ELF within this organisation, yet
in a manner contrary to what one may assume “knowledge of ELF does not confer soft power
on Anglophones but on Europeans using it in interactions with monoglot American and
English speakers. (Rose, 2008, p. 451)
4) PR theory and scope
The dominant frame work of the proposed study is that of Public relations, because it
is the theories of this discipline which I will employ to judge and analysis my data, this is a
way to rate, scale and value data. My study calls for a ground level approach looking at public
relations practise. The interview process will call upon practitioners to assess their own work,
and judge it as effective, successful or not. The gage of success will be ascertained by
viewing practise, in a numeric, capitalist way, drawing on PR theory such as Grunig’s
Excellence theory (Grunig J. G., 2006). Which is the current dominant paradigm in the
current thinking and the practise of PR, a theory which encapsulates and summarizes the
many strands of PR theory:
“a dominant paradigm must emerge through research, conceptualisation
and broadening and integrating of many theories […] In the excellence
study we attempted to develop a broad, general theory of public relations
by integrating most of the prominent middle-level theories that were
available in the discipline at the time the study began”. (Grunig, Grunig, &
Dozier, 2006, p.22)

6. 6
The theory is not concerned with the resultant products of PR practise, but rather how
successful practise can be achieved. The theory outlines necessary criteria that will entail an
Excellent PR practise, and by extension produce excellent PR product. This approach that
concentrates on the makeup of the practise, rather than the product, underlines the long-term
objectives of PR, the importance of relationship building and gaining consumer loyalty and
trust. Also a marker of difference from, the typically short terms profit driven field of
advertising.
The other defining factor as to how I will conceive of PR within the study, is one aspect of the
Excellence theory, which I see as more dominant than the other criteria of Excellence, that of
PR being two-way interactive information flow, where ideally there is constant feedback and
adjustment, creating a dynamic system. This is also a useful, although admittedly over
simplified, distinction to make within the often-confused overlapping areas of propaganda,
marketing and advertising, which have been traditionally defined as a one-way flow -brand to
consumer. Yet this new ‘open system’ is more than a simple criterion, it is a rethought way of
conceiving public relations.
“The open system approach radically changes how public relations is
widely practiced. Whereas the more common functionary version attempts to
exercise control over environmental forces, the open systems model views
adjustment and adaptation as the more realistic and appropriate responses.” (Broom,
2009, p.200)
Contextualised within the world of Internet enabled communication, the idea of an open
system becomes at once, logic, rather than an alternative strategy to take or leave. This is due
to the forum like function of the internet, the very imagery brought to mind by terms like the
“world wide web” entails a sort of exponentially expanding field of connections, enabled in
part because of the two way information flow. “The difference is not in tools of
communication, but in their connectivity.” (Phillips & Young, 2009, p. 8)
This is also an elemental aspect of how brands are encouraged to communicate with
consumers, to gain their trust and therefore their custom. The consumer is now aware of their
changed role in the market, and their power as a potential producer of media as integrated into
their consumer role (hence the newly coined term: prosumer). With the capacity to choose
what one is exposed to, for example, the click of the ‘like’ button choosing to follow one
Facebook feed rather than another; traditional methods of promotional information campaigns
will not fit the Internet medium. “Internet-mediated PR demands a dramatically different
approach at the level of strategy.”(Phillips & Young, 2009, p. 8) Companies are now forced
to rethink the way information is presented and interacted with.
If, as Averill Gordon tells it “Online public relations is the part of pubic relations which
empowers an organisation’s internal and external publics to use the Internet for optimum
benefit to the organisation.” And “Online public relations is utterly pervasive in PR practise.”
(Gordon, Online PR, 2011, p. 332) It seems language and cultural translation of content
would be one (not forgetting the digital divide) of the only barriers left to contend with.
Understanding PR on the terms laid out in this section, it is a long-term relationship building
expertise, being refined by the ingrained dynamic communication provided by the Internet.
It must be acknowledged in this section that PR theory and, until recently, practise, was a
Western concept. Thinkers, founders and innovators in this immerging discipline are Western.
PR is rooted in American culture and values (Sha, 2002).
PR is the product of a Western capitalist paradigm, this is apparent in its objectives and
values. This aspect of PR is a limitation from a global perspective. Yet, this global limitation
is not fixed, as Eastern peoples, notably Korean and Chinese, adapt and adjust the practise to
their cultural paradigms.
5) Language and PR on the Internet

7. 7
In the last 10 years the Internet has become an important platform for
communication, not just a platform for information diffusion, but with the advent of social
media a web of two-way communication. This fact has had impact beyond the scope of a
simple new communication channel and has changed the importance, capacity, and role of
these communicators. (Anderson, 2006) (Bhargava, 2010) (Bowley, 2010) (Brown, Myth of
Symmetry: Public relations as cultural styles, 2006) (Brown, The lunatics have taken over the
asylum, 2009) (Gordon, Online PR, 2011) (Mersham, Social media, 2009) The blurring of
lines around audiences is a major factor in the digitalisation of both PR and more generally
language. The relevant texts reviewed in this piece generally concur that it is the
empowerment of the audience that is a major influence of the Internet. “They are no longer
passive but active participants in a conversation.” (Brown, The lunatics have taken over the
asylum, 2009, p. 23). Internauts are both producers and consumers of information in the
digital universe, they are prosumers. It is around this reshaped audience that PR practitioners
will need to reshape their strategy. The Internet is an open system, as explained in the
preceding section. It is through openness and personalised honest communication that
prosumers will reciprocate. What my study will explore further is how language can be
managed successful to fulfil these new requirements of PR strategy.
Another point, along with the consumer to prosumer shift, which will impact on PR
practitioners, is the subtle change in the traditional supply and demand curve. American
journalist and business thinker Chris Anderson’s paper and subsequent book ‘The long tail’
(Anderson, 2006) explains the end of the supply and demand curve is extending almost
infinitely because of the (virtually) limitless space available in the digital world (for MP3s etc
but also any consumer goods can now be sold online meaning the battle for spare shelf space
in a brick and mortar store is no longer relevant). Most interestingly this very thin line, which
at points is literally a couple of consumers buying a couple of niche products is now
accounting for a large market share. This sees a shift away from mass-market goods and
towards the markets of niche. This shift can be equated with lingua franca versus local
language. With this new possibility of supplying niche products produced in ‘niche’
languages, the consumers and producers will gain confidence in this market.
Dor reiterates this concentration away from the ‘mass’ or universal product, with a focus on
local and niche, as mirroring a new linguistic strategy. “Global businesses are gradually
abandoning not only the attempt to “uncover the universal predictive laws of the market” but
also the utopia of an “international lingua franca” and are looking at ways to penetrate local
markets in their own languages.” (Dor, 2004, p. 102) Under Anderson’s long tail observation,
it seems local markets will be served with tailored products as the Internet enables and
endless supply of differing goods. The physical costs and constraints that meant, for example,
a book was only available in a few languages are now evaporating. “The very process of
economic globalisation has by now detached itself from the dynamics of Englishization and
has now adopted a much more sophisticated, multilingual strategy.” (Dor, 2004, p. 102)
These new market rules are encouraging multilingualism, as many niche products, previously
unavailable are competing with the few mainstream products. Marketing strategies now
require the fostering of personalised relationships with the prosumer, engaged through an
open two-way dialogue.
6) Gaps
The biggest problem of this literature review and the majority of the literature looked
at is the dominant western paradigm under which it has been conceived. I have attempted to
emphasis throughout that the key concepts of this study: the Internet and PR are rooted in an
American commercial space. (Sha, 2002) The connections that have been drawn and
suppositions, which have been created, are only accurate within the paradigm of this capitalist
space. Indeed a limitation, when considering language as a universal attribute. Therefore the
strategic linking of the areas of PR and the Internet with language is potentially at odds. The
limitations of the literature reviewed lies at its very foundations, firstly the very idea/term
language cannot be clearly defined and its meaning lies in the very debate which surrounds it.

8. 8
Second, Internet theory; and PR theory and practise; are emerging disciplines, where rules
and standards of practise outweigh posed philosophical thought. Therefore this review and the
literature used to write it, are a mirror of the theory of the featured fields; limited by the
difficulty of defining the core terms: language, and to a lesser extent PR and Internet, which
are at odds with a historical summary because of their constantly changing status.
7) My study
The research aspect of the study will be made up of a traditional quantitative survey
that will precede a qualitative interview process, the survey will inform the interview process.
It will be set in a French environment, looking at how the PR practitioners on multinational
private or listed companies function in terms of the challenges of a multilingual environment.
I chose the specific environment of French beauty brands to be the subject of my
investigation because I have worked in this area for several years, so I am confident I can
gather information pertaining to my study effectively, secure that my ‘insider’ experience will
mean I will be able to deal with and recognise potential conflicts, of office politics or unstated
hierarchical rankings which could lead to participants underperforming in the information
gathering process.
The methodology of this project is ethnographic; I will gather information from interviews
and surveys. With the Ethnographic assumption that one can make assertions about a group
by gathering and analysing information from members of that group. The values with which I
will use in my analysis will come from Public relations ideals that of the Excellence and open
systems theories. This will be combined with the thinking around the Internet, considered as
an American born commercial space. The ideal is of capitalist efficiency rather than societal
values of equality. The aim of the investigation is to gather information for a ground level
overview of PR practitioners’ attitudes and constraints, with a French slant, most relevant
because French people traditionally have the reputation of being protectionist about their
language, and they are geographically and politically very much key in the multilingual
Europe discussed in section 3. The objective is that the proposed study can lay of first piece in
the groundwork of other investigations and studies to eventually produce best practices
guidelines for PR practise on the multilingual Internet.
There will be the necessity of translation, as I will interface in the French language, in the
form of interviews and questionnaires, yet I will write the thesis in English.
My personal paradigm must also be recognised as an influence on my rendering of these
texts. I am morally adverse to the loss of languages. As an exchange scholarship student at
Victoria University Melbourne I was taught by Nicolas Evans who carries out ongoing
fieldwork on various Aboriginal languages of Northern Australia. His devastating stories of
language loss, were undoubtedly an inadvertent motivation to explore the possibilities the
Internet presents in terms of language preservation.
I think the scope and importance of this study cannot be underestimated. “The language of the
media for example, plays and important role in the development of linguistic standards and
patterns of usage.” (Dor, 2004, p. 113) The “media” are as a general rule controlled by
commercial interests, the link between ‘news’ media and commercial interests is growing
more intertwined. (Marshall, 2006) Public relations is the field that links these two areas,
therefore it is the management of linguistic patterns by public relations practitioners that will
have influence beyond the scope of their markets.
Conclusion
In an attempt to examine the point of intersection of the fields of PR and
multilingualism in the context of the Internet, I have drawn on an array of literature, to

9. 9
explore the thinking around these topics. From the more general questions: what is language?
And how is it organised? I have examined Europe as example of a physical multilingual zone
and the Internet as a digital zone in constant flux. I have attempted to summarize general
attitudes and thinking in these fields relevant to their interplay; an interplay which is
increasingly looking like an interdependence, as PR practise is being reshaped and rethought
to fit an increasingly dynamic Internet which fosters an open system, two way communication
pattern. The Internet has been conceived as a Western commercial space, reshaping the
traditional supply and demand curve, and empowering the prosumer who responds in turn to
the two way communication, as personalised and relationship building based on trust.
What is the role of language in this reshaped domain of communication, while a definition of
language itself may be redundant due to self-reflexivity; symbolism, attitudes and patterns of
language show it is loaded with values that exist outside the scope of its communication
usefulness. Finally the key to understanding language as a global communication tool is
perhaps found most insightfully though the patterns of language spread though out the globe.
“The world language system now connects all known languages in a strongly ordered,
strongly connected, hierarchical, […] pattern. There are no isolated languages any more, since
there are not longer any isolated societies.” (de Swaan, Conclusions and Considerations,
2001, p. 177) The intersection is found in the connectedness and personalisation of
communication; a constantly increasing reality of the modern world. Yet what this means for
lingua fracas and multilingual management, expectation and fostering cannot be answered by
looking at literature, because of its organic constant evolution of all factors involved. This
review has pointed to ways of considering the concepts involved in the study, suitable for the
planned ground level review of current practise of a certain group.
-end-

10. 10
Bibliography
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York: Random House Business Books.
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[1] “EU language policies aim to protect linguistic diversity and promote knowledge of
languages– for reasons of cultural identity and social integration, but also because
multilingual citizens are better placed to take advantage of the educational, professional and
economic opportunities created by an integrated Europe.” (European Union, 2011)