IMAGINE four Filipino migrants in Japan. One teaches English at a university. Another works as an accountant in a multinational company. A third is a nurse in a community hospital. The fourth operates machinery in an automobile factory. At first glance, they seem to have one thing in common: All need Japanese to perform their jobs. This assumption underlies much of migration policy. Destination countries establish language requirements, employers specify minimum levels of proficiency, and language tests determine who is considered linguistically prepared for employment.
Yet a closer look reveals that these four migrants do not need Japanese in quite the same way. The university teacher works with language itself. The accountant uses language to communicate professional expertise. The nurse relies on language to build trust with patients and collaborate with colleagues. The factory worker uses language to coordinate tasks, follow safety instructions and solve workplace problems but spends much of the day carrying out technical work. They all require language, but they do not face the same communicative demands at work.
This distinction is often overlooked. Labor migration is usually discussed in economic terms. Governments debate labor shortages, employers search for workers, and economists calculate migrants’ contributions to productivity and economic growth. Such discussions are entirely understandable because, as the World Migration Report 2026 reminds us, employment remains the principal driver of international migration. Most people migrate because they seek better work and better lives. Surprisingly, however, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship between language and the work migrants actually perform.
Language is frequently treated as though it were another qualification, much like an educational credential or a technical skill. Immigration systems prescribe minimum language requirements, employers request evidence of proficiency, and language education aims to prepare migrants for employment. While these measures undoubtedly have value, they also encourage us to think of language as though it were a single, uniform ability that functions similarly across occupations. The workplace tells a rather different story. Every occupation involves communication, but language performs different functions depending on the nature of the work itself.
To better understand these differences, I propose a four-category typology based on the communicative demands of work. The categories are not intended to measure linguistic difficulty or rank occupations according to prestige. Rather, they distinguish occupations according to the role language plays in accomplishing work.
The first category is language-concentrated work, in which language itself constitutes the primary object of work. Workers in these occupations earn their living by producing, analyzing, teaching, interpreting, translating, editing or evaluating language. Linguists, language teachers, interpreters, translators, editors, journalists and speech-language pathologists all belong to this category. Their expertise is fundamentally linguistic, and the quality of their work depends directly on the precision, sophistication and creativity with which they use language. Here, language is not simply a means of accomplishing work; it is the work itself.
The second category is language-supplemental work, in which language is not the primary object of work but serves as an essential resource for carrying out professional responsibilities. Lawyers, accountants, managers, office administrators, human resource personnel and childcare workers exemplify this category. Their occupations are defined primarily by specialized knowledge, but that knowledge has little value unless it can be communicated effectively. Reports must be written, meetings conducted, negotiations managed, and professional advice explained clearly to colleagues and clients. Language therefore supplements professional expertise by making it operational.
The third category is interaction-reliant work, in which frequent interpersonal communication is central to occupational performance. Health care professionals, customer service personnel, sales staff, tourism and hospitality workers and social workers spend much of their working lives interacting with people. Success depends not only on technical competence but also on the ability to reassure patients, build relationships, negotiate with customers, resolve misunderstandings and communicate with empathy. In these occupations, communication is not merely something that accompanies work; it constitutes an integral part of the service itself.
The fourth category is interaction-minimal work, in which sustained interpersonal communication is comparatively less central to occupational performance. Factory workers, machine operators, warehouse workers, cleaners and agricultural workers continue to communicate with supervisors and colleagues, coordinate tasks, observe safety procedures and report problems. Nevertheless, much of their working day is devoted to physical, technical or production-related tasks that can be performed independently or with relatively limited interaction. Communication remains necessary, but it is generally more routine, task-oriented and intermittent than in occupations where interpersonal engagement lies at the heart of the work.
These categories should not be interpreted as rigid boundaries. Many occupations naturally overlap, and workers may perform tasks that span more than one category. Nor do the categories imply that one type of work is more linguistically demanding or socially valuable than another. Their purpose is simply to highlight an important but often neglected reality: the communicative demands of work vary considerably across occupations, even when workers share the same language.
Recognizing this diversity has important implications for migration policy. Language education frequently assumes that one form of proficiency adequately prepares migrants for every workplace. Standardized language examinations measure general competence, while many language courses remain detached from occupational realities. Yet migrants do not learn languages merely to pass examinations or satisfy immigration requirements. They learn them to perform the communicative tasks expected of them in their professions. A nurse, an engineer, a hotel receptionist and a factory worker may all require Japanese or English, but they require these languages in different ways because their work demands different forms of communication.
Employment may indeed be the principal driver of migration, but language often determines whether employment becomes meaningful participation in the workplace. If migration is fundamentally about work, then understanding migration also requires us to understand the communicative demands of work. Only when language policies acknowledge that different occupations require different forms of communication can they truly support migrants in finding, keeping and succeeding in employment.
Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is a public intellectual, language scholar and migrant advocate. He is one of the leading researchers on English in the Philippines and one of the pioneers of migration linguistics. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics, at age 23, from De La Salle University, and has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland and Singapore. He is currently associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
