Language Management in the Katangan Mining Sector

The book investigates the language management strategies employed by international mining companies in Katanga for efficient communication in multilingual environments in order to enhance safety, productivity, and operational success. While Anglophone and Sinophone firms often impose English and Chinese as corporate languages, local workers primarily use French and indigenous languages such as Kiswahili. To bridge the communication gaps, companies deploy various strategies, including the establishment of a corporate lingua franca, the use of multilingual intermediaries, and the provision of language training and translation services. The book concludes that operational success is contingent on companies' ability to harmonize corporate language policies with local linguistic realities. To this end, it proposes the adoption of a trilingual policy integrating English, French, and Kiswahili across the Katangan mining sector.