世界500强企业官方网站语言使用情况

An Investigation into the Language Use in Webpages for the 500 Global Top Companies

本文以世界500强企业中100个外国企业的环球网站及其中国官方网站为调查对象,重点考察其网站语言的语种构成及汉语使用情况。揭示汉语在国际经济贸易活动中的地位,并探讨影响汉语在国际商业交往中地位的因素。本文的研究可以为评估和认识汉语在国际商业领域的地位与价值、制定提升汉语国际商业语言地位的战略提供参考。

This article attempts to assess languages used on 100 offi cial webpages randomly sampled from the 2013 list of Fortune 500 Companies and focuses on Chinese language use on these webpages that specially target at Chinese readers.The main purpose is to fi nd out the status and functions of the Chinese language in multinational company's business activities and to explore the factors accounting for Chinese language status in international business communication.The initial fi ndings show that the Chinese language not only lags far behind English in term of communicative importance,but also falls behind French,Spanish and German.The fi ndings signify that Chinese has limited use in these global corporations,which is a stark contrast to China's status as the world second largest economy.On the other hand,the fact that the Chinese language is closely following the other three international languages is also encouraging for China's Chinese language promotion.This study may informs China's language policy makers and professionals in their endeavours in upgrading the status of the Chinese language in the arena of international business.