Language Management: What It Is and Why It’s Important

Language management is not some abstract term that affects just global businesses or organizations. Language management is part of our everyday lives, and, without realizing it, we employ it dozens, if not hundreds of times every day. When we speak to our spouse, we do so differently than when we speak to our boss. We communicate differently with our insurance agent than we do with our friends, and when we write an email to a client it sounds different than it would if we spoke to them over the phone.

Language management is the way in which we express ourselves, and that includes the words we use, our tone of voice and style, the medium we choose, even body language. Subconsciously, we adjust these factors to every interaction we find ourselves in, for better or for worse. Has it ever happened to you that you adapted a weird accent and spoke in a grammatically incorrect way in your own language because you spoke to someone who didn’t speak that language well? That’s bad language management. Or did you ever transmit a request from your partner to, say, your mother but slightly change the wording because you know how to get what you want from mom? That’s good language management.

There are two main things we can immediately infer from these two examples: (1) The way we communicate changes depending on who we speak to, and (2) the way we communicate changes depending on what our aim is. Are we speaking to a confidante about our vulnerabilities? We’ll be more soft-spoken, include more emotional inflection and less thought-through and fancy vocabulary, and we’ll divert our eyes frequently. Are we trying to close an important business deal? We’ll likely speak with a lower tone of voice and use eloquent and specialized terminology to appear more authoritative, knowledgeable, and capable. We’ll also fill our chest and position it forward as a sign of confidence. These are just the tip of the iceberg though. For the many conscious decisions we make when choosing how to communicate, there are countless subconscious ones influencing us, and sometimes our interlocutor can spot these better than we can ourselves, understanding our true intent or weaknesses despite our best efforts to hide them.

This adds a layer of complexity. If we were the sole arbiter over our faculties and we would decide exactly what and how we transmit our message, the world would be a very different place. But since we aren’t, every interaction creates a complex exchange of signals, the majority of which we are unaware of but impact the outcome immensely. In essence, language management is the aim of taking control of as many of these signals as we can, because the more we control them, the more we control the outcome.

How so?

As mentioned, any interaction – whether written, spoken, or even just a short moment of eye contact – is not a straightforward exchange. We approach it with a large set of preconceptions – about ourselves, the world and our counterpart – on top of which sits our capability of reading or misreading a situation, our IQ and our EQ, our skills of adjusting ourselves to those situations, and of course there are our intentions for this specific interaction. And the same goes for our interlocutor. The result is a messy web of emotions, conscious and unconscious brain signals, personal considerations, and more that lead us to a decision on how to respond and react. But we have the power to influence at least some of these factors, be it by choosing the right wording and tone of voice, by adjusting our body language and by taking into account the other’s situation. Behavioral economics and psychology have come a long way explaining how individuals and groups function, and by understanding and taking charge of these influences, we “take control of the conversation,” thereby actively changing (some of) the outcomes.

Language Management in Business

So how does all this tie into business and what is language management for organizations?

Marketing in the form of branding is an ancient practice. Its original purpose, however, was simply to identify ownership and later to push direct sales.  This remained the purpose for millennia, evolving as humanity evolved. The printing press and growing literacy expanded the possibilities for disseminating brand messaging through leaflets and adverts. Then came industrialization, and with it mass-production which led to mass-consumption. Now competition grew and businesses had to find ways to differentiate themselves and to communicate the quality of their product. Packaging became more attractive, slogans came into usage, and creative avenues for marketing grew. From banners and billboards, radio and later television, advertisement became a part of everyday life.

Over the last century, abundance and mass media brought marketing to the forefront, and to reach and convince a consumerist population of their products, businesses now had to go even further. They began mirroring humans. A brand now had to have a look, a feel, a voice – in short, a personality. Certain products evoke certain emotions, and businesses became increasingly adept at utilizing psychology to imprint themselves in consumers’ minds. Branding today is essentially the practice of fostering and promoting the personality of a brand. 

The advent of the internet revolutionized this industry once more, and it is hard nowadays to imagine a successful brand that doesn’t have a vast digital presence, that invests significant resources and time into perfecting its branding guidelines, messaging and visibility. In the same way that individuals practice language management in their everyday interactions, businesses must practice language management to maintain their brand and resonate with consumers’ needs and desires. The internet also significantly lowered the threshold for global competition, as there is no real obstacle to selling any product or service in almost any part of the world. If a business can figure out how to communicate with consumers from a different culture and language, it can multiply its client base manyfold. Language management has therefore become an integral part of any business’ livelihood.

One basic aspect of this latter point is that businesses must become multilingual. Many studies have shown that an overwhelming majority of the world’s population prefers being addressed in their own language. This means that the translation of documentation – whether it’s the translation of a website, marketing materials, or corporate language management – gives a brand an immediate advantage, and, with all the resources invested in marketing nowadays, it would be mind-boggling not to employ this tool. Of course translation is not as simple as rendering words from one language into another. Cultural and lingual norms, style, and nuance must be considered, just as they were considered when penning the original branding content, and direct translation usually doesn’t satisfy these conditions. This is also why even the most sophisticated technological tools are not (yet) capable of matching multilingual and -cultural human understanding of different societies, despite being very useful assistants in the process.

But just any human translator will not do either. Except for a deep understanding of linguistics, psychology and the cultures of the source and target language they work in, a good translator must be educated and specialized in the field they translate in. A good legal translator does not make for a good marketing translator. A good creative writing translator will pull their hair out over a technical document translation. One error many companies still make is to think that any employee speaking a target language will be good enough to translate their material. This leads to counter-effective content that will alienate customers instead of winning them over.

The challenges in the language management industry are great, and the relatively low cost of quality translations today should lead marketing teams, medical manufacturers, legal practices and businesses in many other industries to proactively consider the best way to communicate with their target audience. Contemplating the evolution and trajectory of language management in business can only lead to the conclusion that its importance and effectiveness will continue to grow, and the sooner businesses begin communicating globally, the more of a head start they will gain.