Abstract: English has occupied a growing place in recent years, as an increasing number of international companies have been granted for Algerian partnership. The study seeks to identify the type of English used in written texts between native and non-native partners, and how do its linguistic characteristics affect communication and business success in English as a Lingua Franca context. Much focus has been devoted to English oral workplace communication; yet, little concern has been dedicated to the written medium. The paper maps out the quantitative and qualitative approaches devoted to the case study of an Algerian Cosmetics Liability Limited Company. It describes the use of a triangulation throughout the study by means of a survey with 30 in-service informants, an analysis of different types of written documents in English, typically exploited in the workplace and sequential field observations. The results show that written documents contain a relatively considerable number of grammatical and morpho-syntactic deviations from Standard English; involving word mechanics and order, verbs concord and intercultural considerations to be aware of in business transactions.

Key words: ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), workplace communication, non-native partners, deviation