The use of English in job advertisements on the German job site Monster.de and factors on which it depends
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2018-06-08
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en
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Abstract
Although English as a lingua franca has grown exponentially in Germany over the past two decades, limited quantitative research is available on the presence of English in the German language. This present study will be drawing on the reasons suggested in previous studies on the factors that determine the use of English in job advertisements in other non-English-speaking countries, analysing the presence and quantity of English in job advertisements on Monster.de, as well as relevant extra-linguistic factors on which the use of English might depend.
An analysis of a random sample of 152 job advertisements revealed that 1% was completely in English, and 92% contained one or more English words. In terms of job advertisement elements, job titles and logos were most frequently completely English in the German job advertisements. When we considered the number of English words as a proportion of the total number of words, significant difference was found between the job advertisements for ‘Technical oriented activities’ and ‘Complex specialist activities’ and the concentration of English, the first containing significantly less English than the latter. Furthermore, significant differences was found in the concentration of English among the three categories of organization, with ‘International’ organizations containing significantly more English than the advertisements placed by ‘Domestic’ and ‘Unknown’ organizations. Finally, although there were no significant differences between sectors in the concentration of English, the economic sector ‘Science, geography and computer science’ contained the highest mean number in concentration of English in the total job advertisement.
The results indicate that, although in which elements the concentration of English was significantly higher could not be ascertained and no significant differences were found between sectors in the concentration of English, most of the factors mentioned in the literature were indeed relevant determinants of the extent to which English was used in the sample of Monster.de job advertisements.
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