The influence of the use of English in Dutch job advertisements: An experimental study into the effects on text evaluation, on attitudes towards the organisation and the job, and on comprehension

Abstract

Thirty-nine per cent of job advertisements in a Dutch national paper contain one or more English words (Korzilius, Van Meurs & Hermans, submitted). Several authors have claimed that the use of English in advertising in non-English-speaking countries is associated with prestige (e.g. Friedrich 2002; Haarmann 1989). The present study aims to test the effects of the use of English in Dutch job ads. In a between-subjects experimental design, three manipulated versions of a job ad were presented to potential applicants. One version was completely in English, one version contained 11 different English words, and the third version was completely in Dutch. The respondents answered questions on the intelligibility and appreciation of the advertisement as a whole, on the image of the organisation and of the job offered, and on their motivation to respond to the ad. In addition, they indicated the degree to which they understood the meaning of the manipulated Dutch and English items as they occurred in their version of the ad, and paraphrased the meaning of these manipulated terms. Results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the scores of the completely Dutch and partly English versions on the attractiveness and intelligibility of the ad as a whole, on the image of the company and of the position on offer, and on motivation to respond. As for comprehension, the manipulated Dutch items scored better on respondents' own estimation of their understanding of the items and on the number of correct paraphrases. The results for the completely English version will be available shortly. On the basis of the two versions analysed, it may be concluded that English words and phrases are less well understood than their native equivalents, but, contrary to claims in the literature, the use of English instead of Dutch words does not affect potential applicants' attitudes towards various aspects of the ad, the job and the organisation, at least not in the case of young and highly educated respondents.