World Englishes and international call centres

Call centres (or telephone ‘contact centres’) of various kinds have become an increasing fact of life for many people in Europe, North America and other developed economies. Although telephone contact centres may be dated back to the 1960s and 1970s in the US, their intrusion into the lives of Briti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bolton, Kingsley
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/93718
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/38383
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Call centres (or telephone ‘contact centres’) of various kinds have become an increasing fact of life for many people in Europe, North America and other developed economies. Although telephone contact centres may be dated back to the 1960s and 1970s in the US, their intrusion into the lives of British and US consumers has grown exponentially since the 1980s. Since the early 2000s, however, a significant number of call centre operations have been outsourced to such destinations as India and the Philippines, thereby raising a number of issues relating to language and globalisation and the politics of English as an international language.