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English in the International workplace in Russia
The study examines language practices in Russian offices of two international companies.
We surveyed and interviewed employees about corporate language policies, their rationale of language
choice in different contexts, and ideological underpinnings for the use of English in theworkplace. Following
Blommaert (2010), both offices are theorized as polycentric communicative spaceswhere English represents
the global interactive regime stemming from the global corporate center. The Russian language orients at
the local center and embodies the local interactive regime. Language mixing in the form of professional
jargon is linked to the workplace efficiency center. It facilitates communication between colleagues and
serves as a marker of the Russian professional identity in the English lingua franca workplace.