Tracing the intersections of language and culture in Philippine-based transnational call centres

This article examines the cross-cultural communication challenges in Philippine-based transnational call centers (TCC), an expanding global outsourcing destination for a diverse range of Western business operations. Through interviews with workers of Philippine-based transnational call centers, I examined challenges in cross-cultural interaction experiences with their overseas clients in telephonic spaces. The findings indicate that distinctive spoken language features of overseas clients and questioning of physical location are of most challenge to the interviewed Filipino call center workers, despite the intercultural and language trainings they had undergone in their respective workplace. The participants also spoke of their perceptions of their overseas clients that are in play in their day-to-day experience at TCC. Although Filipino TCC workers are generally perceived to be competent users of English, this study implies a growing necessity in further trainings on workers’ intercultural awareness and other aspects of spoken English.