“Lunch Keeps People Apart”: The Role of English for Social Interaction in a Multilingual Academic Workplace

摘要: Research on the role of language in multilingual workplaces, where English is often adopted as a lingua franca (ELF), shows that practices influence socialization and interpersonal communication, frequently creating issues such asymmetrical sharing information, clusters, or thin communication. Similarly to other organizations, academic workplaces are undergoing process internationalization. However, academia workplace has been largely ignored, particularly terms social situations. We address this gap by investigating multilingualism an workplace; departing from concepts clustering we focus how affect interaction establishment rapport. report experiences five academics with various backgrounds status science university department Sweden. In-depth interviews grand/mini tour elicitation techniques reveal – languages experienced different points view. identify lunch primary activity associated exchange information: people places connected seem determine practices. In final section discuss presence communication workplace.