This paper explores a life history of 40-year career told by one Japanese professional who has worked extensively all over the world and examines how he has used English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF). His motivation for pursuing his global career and construction and transformation of his identity will be discussed.
Globalisation has increased demand for “Global Human Resources” in business, and research tends to focus narrowly on how such Human Resources can be developed and under what circumstances they can perform effectively within a short term. This paper makes a case for understating a global professional from a longer viewpoint by exploring a life history of 40-year career as told by one Japanese professional. His narratives reflect how he has worked extensively all over the world as a civil engineer, later as a project manager. In his field, engineers with different cultural and linguistic background work together as a team, sharing the same goal of carrying out a project successfully. English is used as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) in his industry worldwide and is used as a pragmatic container to share engineering knowledge and information necessary for executing the projects. Simultaneously, languages are used to perform emotions to develop trust among the global teams and he values using other languages in addition to English. Throughout his career, he has learned languages as he needs, motivated by his desire to change his life, to learn and develop his professional skills, and to establish and maintain the network with people worldwide. By listening to his narratives of his life, the paper discusses how his identity has been constructed and transformed over time and space, shifting among the multiple identities as a global professional and as a Japanese business person working for a large “domestic centred” company.
