Psychosocial risk of fossilization by occupationally-used non-native English in information and communication technologists of Argentina.

Aims. Companies use non-native language as a service tool, and they may incur in occupational psychosocial risks. Interlanguage can be chronic under poor communicative situations, leading to fossilization. It could be an adverse effect because of its impact in productivity and occupational health. Thus, our aim was to establish factors of this psychosocial risk. Methods. 348 information and communication technologists (ICT) were analyzed. They were native Spanish speakers with normal hearing, and used English as a work tool. Age, gender, L2 stages and errors were recorded in relation to fossilization risk. Statistical methods were applied for categorical data (p<0.05). Results. After gender and age adjustments, a significant inverse association was found between L2 stages and fossilization risk (p<0.0001), with higher risk being in the acquisition stage. Also, L2 errors showed a significant direct relation with fossilization risk (p=0.0005). Conclusions. Summing up, ICT in acquisition L2 had upper psychosocial risk to fossilization with mechanistic execution of it, under poorer communicative formats. This results have high sanitary impact given they involved a massively demanded professionals.