Communication strategies in ELF interactions in the hospitality and tourism industry in Thailand / Aonrumpa Thongphut

Aonrumpa , Thongphut (2023) Communication strategies in ELF interactions in the hospitality and tourism industry in Thailand / Aonrumpa Thongphut. PhD thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

English is used as a lingua franca (ELF) in many highly heterogenous hospitality and tourism (HT) settings worldwide. Hybridity and fluidity of the language, multiculturalism, and speakers’ varied language proficiency levels might make international HT communication challenging. This study investigated the use of communication strategies (CSs) in ELF interactions in the hospitality and tourism (HT) setting in Thailand. Specifically, CSs which the participants used to preempt and resolve communicative problems were the focus of this study. The frequency and the use of CSs, the functions that CSs served in relation to enhancing communicative effectiveness, and the participants’ awareness level of CSs were investigated. The data comprised authentic ELF HT conversations, which were audio recorded, and interviews conducted with selected ELF HT speakers. The data were collected from 3 HT sites, namely, an airport information counter, a tour service counter, and a hotel front office. The data was analyzed using Descriptive Statistics, Conversation Analysis, and Thematic Analysis. The findings of this study reveal that 1) the participants frequently used preemptive strategies to prevent possible communicative problems and resolving strategies when faced with difficulties in communication 2) the CSs were used in a number of ways in the ELF HT interactions. The participants employed preemptive strategies in various ways to avoid possible misunderstanding, mishearing, nonunderstanding, or HT misinformation. In addition, they used resolving strategies differently depending on the communicative problems that the speakers were facing 3) overall, the CSs functioned to enhance communicative effectiveness in international HT communication. Preemptive strategies served several functions such as to highlight the prominence of the key word, explain meaning, increase clarity, add detail, simplify a word or utterance, narrow the scope, ensure accurate information, and make misunderstanding or non-comprehension obvious. The preemptive strategies made positive contributions to the interactions by enhancing understanding, and preventing nonunderstanding, ambiguity, misunderstanding, HT trouble, and mistakes in HT service. Resolving strategies also served several functions, namely, to help the ELF speakers express non-comprehension, overcome difficulty in producing a word or utterance, and resolve listeners’ problems of comprehension 4) the participants had varying levels of CS awareness and were categorized as follows: speakers who were aware of the need to use CSs, speakers who were aware of the need to use CSs to some degree, and speakers who were unaware of the need to use CSs and considered using reduction strategies, or giving up on the communication, and were ignorant of the ways to deal with communicative problems generally. The findings confirm that the ELF speakers’ ability to use CSs takes precedence over their language accuracy in the HT setting. Local HT human resource departments should underscore the importance of CSs to their staff and ELF speakers in HT settings are encouraged to use CSs to enhance their communicative effectiveness. The findings also highlight the need for both preemptive and resolving strategies to be taught in language classes and HT training programs to help learners develop their communication ability when using ELF in the HT setting.

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