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Occupation - Coggle Diagram
Occupation
Drew and Heritage 1992, Workplace talk differs from ordinary conversation in a number of ways
Goal orientation- participants in workplace conversation usually focus on specific goals
Turn-taking rules- in some professional contexts (eg the courtroom) there are special turn-taking rules in operation.
Allowable contributions- restrictions on what people are allowed to say
Professional lexis- special lexis used by the speakers
Structure-a specific structure may be followed
Asymmetry- one speaker often has more power and/or special knowledge then the other
Nelson 2000
He also found that certain language did NOT appear in business contexts. For exams, weekdays featured, but Saturday and Sunday did not.
Wanted to investigate whether there was such a thing as business lexis
Found that there was a "semantic field for business" that had limited semantic topics
There were also very few references to personal issues, house/home, family, society and personal activities
Terms had to do with : business people, companies, institutions, money, business events, places of business, time, modes of communication and technology
Grice's maxims 1975
Quality
Do not say what you believe to be false
Don't say that for which you lack evidence
Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as needed
Do not make your contribution more informative than is needed
Relevance
Be relevant
Pay attention as relevance may change during an interaction
Manner
Avoid obscurity of expression
Avoid ambiguity
Be brief
Be orderly
Koester 2004
Being personal and engaging in personal chat is an important aspect of effective working
Solidarity, the ability to connect with one's workmates, is an important aspect of workplace communication
Workers need to establish interpersonal relationships and have interactions that are not just about work. This can be done through the use of phatic talk
Phatic talk- the nonreferential use of language to share feelings or establish a mood of sociability
Louhiala-salminen 1999
Believes that business letters are more formal than emails or faxes because the conventions of business letter are well-established, whereas electronic modes are not as stabilised
Thus, there's more variation in the language used in faxes and emails, because writers are less constrained to conform to certain standards
A further reason for the informality of fax and email is the context-dependence of these types of messages. They are often less explicit than letters and assume the reader already has some background knowledge about the situation
Can link to technology causing lang change
Giles 1973 Accommodation Theory
Convergence
When individuals change their speech to sound more like their interlocutor
Divergence
When individuals emphasise a difference in communication style
Coulthard and Sinclair 1975
Found teachers use the IRF model
IRF- Initiation, Response, Feedback. It is a pattern of discussion between the teacher and the learner. The teacher initiates, the student responds, the teacher feeds back
Occupational lexis
Work-place jargon
A lot of jobs require specialist lexis in order to speak to colleagues effectively
For example a Doctor requires a lot of medical jargon and specialist lexis: abrasion, benign, chronic, defibrillator, inpatient, prognosis, suture, epidermis
A lawyer requires a lot of legal lexis: court, order, jury, guilty, defendant, acquittal, bail, ad litem, caveat, plaintiff, verdict
formality of speech
formality of speech changes dependent on your job
for example if you are a sotck broker then you will have to speak very formallly
If you are a bricklayer then you may not speak as formally
Wareing 1999
Identified 3 types of power that affects language
power held as a result of being a dominant member of a social group through variables such as class, gender and age
Personal power- power held by individuals because of their role or job in their occupation
Political power- power held by individuals with backing of the law (eg politicians)
Swales 2011
A discourse community has members who: share a set of common goals, communicate internally using and 'owning' one or more genres, use specialist lexis and discourse, and possess a level of knowledge/skill to suitable participate in the community