Language and Occupation

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Study of Workplace Talk: Drew and Heritage (1992)
Summarised differences between everyday conversation and workplace talk: goal orientation, turn taking, allowable contributions, professional lexis, structure, asymmetry
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Accommodation Theory: Howard Giles (1973)
Describes how speakers change their language to resemble that of their listener: convergence, divergence, upwards/downwards/mutual
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Herbert & Straight (1989)
Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank.
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Hornyak (1994)
The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.* Hornyak - 1994? - The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room
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Small talk
The way co-workers use small talk is defined by the power relationship between them. Superiors tend to initiate and delimit small talk, as well as defining what subject matters are acceptable subjects for conversation.
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Directives
When giving a directive to an equal, workers tend to use more indirect devices (such as we instead of you, hedged structures and modals). When giving directions to a subordinate, workers are often more direct.
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Swales (1990)
Once you start work you become a member of a professional community - people working in the same organisation/field have mechanisms of intercommunication including specialised lexis - these professional groups are known as discourse communities
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Wenger
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
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Herring (1992)
In an email discussion between 5 women and 30 men, men's messages were twice as long. Women tended to use personal voice, while men were assertive.
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Holmes (1998)
Women managers seem to be more likely to negotiate consensus than male managers, they are less likely to just ‘plough through the agenda’, taking time to make sure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided
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Holmes and Marra (2002), Holmes (2005)
Contrary to popular belief, women use just as much humour as men, and use it for the same functions, to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors, although they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative behaviour
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Eakins and Eakins (1976)
In seven university faculty meetings, the men spoke for longer. The men’s turns ranged from 11 to 17 seconds, the women’s from 3 to 10 seconds.
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Edelsky (1981)
In structured meetings men took more and longer turns, and did more joking, arguing, directing etc. However, in the 'free for all' part of the meeting men and women spoke equally and women joked, argued and directed more than men
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Tracy and Eisenberg (1990/1991)
When role-playing delivering criticism to a co-worker about errors in a business letter, men showed more concern for the feelings of the person they were criticizing when in the subordinate role, while women showed more concern in the superior role
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Describes how speakers change their language to resemble that of their listener: convergence, divergence, upwards/downwards/mutual

Back

Accommodation Theory: Howard Giles (1973)

Card 3

Front

Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.* Hornyak - 1994? - The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The way co-workers use small talk is defined by the power relationship between them. Superiors tend to initiate and delimit small talk, as well as defining what subject matters are acceptable subjects for conversation.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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