Language and Occupation Flashcards
What is ‘Inter-Organisation Communication’?
Takes place between different organisations
What is ‘Intra-Organisation Communication’?
Takes place within an organisation
What is ‘External Communication’?
Communication from an institution to an external group
What does the term ‘To Codify’ mean?
Using language that’s designed to include groups of people, the process of inclusion occurs because people understand the lang that’s being used
What does the term ‘To exclude’ mean?
The concept of exclusion doesn’t mean that lang is being used to deliberately exclude people, more that it’s used amongst specific groups w/ particular knowledge or understanding of a field
What does the term ‘Discourse Community’ mean?
It’s used to represent the desire to form communities and all occupations have them
What is meant by the term ‘Legalese’?
Language of Law and is pejorative term, associated with the traditional style of legal writing
What is a theory that can be linked to ‘Legalese’?
David Mellinkoff in ‘The Language of the Law (1963)’ says “The law is a profession of words”
Whether it’s legislation, classroom activities or documents of restriction on daily life, the words of the law are the law
What are some problems with ‘Legalese’?
- Can be difficult to understand, esp. with the general public
- In a Democracy, the law should be accessible for all
What is meant by the term ‘Function Shifting’?
Many common words have uncommon meanings when used in an occupational context
What are the five functions of Language?
- Communicating info
- Requesting help
- Confirming arrangements
- Instructing employees/colleagues to do something
- Making things or enacting them to happen
What does the term ‘Jargon’ mean?
Specialist vocab of an occupation
How can jargon be used positively?
Allows people to communicate quickly and effectively
How can jargon be used negatively?
Not all can understand and can be used to gain superiority and power over those who don’t understand
What was Cameron’s ‘Call Centre Research’ theory?
- Concludes that such telephone interactions are subject to a worrying degree of managerial control, characterised by ‘codification’ and ‘surveillance’
- Research showed that many call centres give very detailed specifications or even full scripts for what the agent should say and that the calls are monitored + recorded and used as a basis for appraisal
- She says, this results in a standardisation of interactions + reduction of autonomy of call centre employees
Concludes that all call centres are ‘communication factories’ with employees working in conditions similar to a production line
What was Drew and Heritage’s ‘Institutional Talk’ theory?
Workplace or professional talk differs from ordinary conversation in a number of ways:
- goal orientation
- turn-taking rules or restrictions
- allowable contributions
- professional lexis
- structure
- asymmetry
Suggested that members of a discourse community share inferential frameworks with each other, consisting of an implicit way of thinking, communicating, and behaving
What was Goffman’s ‘Face Theory’?
Politeness theory - an individual has both positive and negative needs
What was Koester’s ‘Interpersonal Relationships’ theory?
- Importance of phatic (conveying emotions rather than ideas) talk is in getting jobs done
- Although some employers are represented as discouraging talk that’s not strictly work-related, Koester shows that being sociable and engaging in personal chat is an important aspect in effective working
- As well as power, then, solidarity - the ability to connect with one’s workmates - is an important dimension in workplace communication
What was Swales’ ‘Discourse Communities’ theory?
He defined a discourse community as having members who:
- Share a set of common goals
- Communicates internally
- Using + ‘owning’ one or more genres of communication
- Use specialist lexis + discourse
- Possess a required level of knowledge + skill to be considered eligible to participate in the community
What was Nelson’s ‘Business Language’ theory?
Found what he describes as a ‘semantic field of business’ involving a limited number of semantic categories:
- terms to do with ‘business people
- companies
- institutions
- money
- business events
- places of business
- time
- modes of communication
- lexis concerned with technology’
What was Brown and Levinson’s ‘+/- Face Needs’ theory?
- Developed a theory of how the notion of face, which has to do with basic human needs + feelings of self-worth, influences how people interact. Negative face + Positive face
- Positive or negative face can be threatened in various interactive situations by what Brown and Levinson call face-threatening acts
Fairclough’s ‘Unequal Encounters’ theory summary
Fairclough:
People in power decide what is correct and appropriate in conversation
Pateman: power comes in two forms
Pateman: power comes in two forms:
- REPRESSIVE - coercive, solidarity
- OPPRESIVE - top down, controlling
Michael Nelson; Business Jargon
Michael Nelson; Business Jargon
Business lang is field-specific + involves semantic fields to do with money, people, and events
Levine’s theory
Levine:
Employers prefer to stick to non-personal topics in small talk to maintain a degree of social distance, whereas employees appreciate this opportunity to engage in small talk
Janet Holmes’ theory
Janet Holmes:
Looked at small talk in New Zealand workplaces and found senior staff set agenda, give orders + summarise decisions - to do this, they use subtle strategies like convert prestige
Ng and Bradac’s theory
Ng and Bradac:
Looked at ways of exercising covert prestige over others this is increasingly the way power is being exercised
Howard Giles’ ‘Accommodation Theory’
Accommodation Theory:
We can converge our language to help a customer understand + not to threaten them with jargon
Kim and Elder’s theory
Kim and Elder:
Occupational lang is culturally relative - Korean and USA air traffic control struggle to communicate with jargon
Brown and Levinson’s ‘Face Theory’
Face Theory:
Positive Face = forming bonds with others, having status + being included in the conversation, feeling valued
- could use positive politeness strategies to achieve a positive face
Negative Face = getting your view across unimpeded, keeping a level of distance + respect between yourself and others
Drew and Heritage’s theory summary
Drew and Heritage:
We expect to be spoken to in different ways by different occupational jobs
John Swales’ theory summary
John Swales:
Discourse communities - language used by people in the same field, have the same goals + specialist lexis, a certain level of knowledge is required to be able to use it
What is meant by ‘Styling’?
Implicit scripts for interaction with customers that give a uniformed experience
What theory did Pateman (1980) conclude about Power in the workplace?
Pateman (1980):
Examines power from the perspective of:
Oppressive (power) and repressive (top-down/coercive power - superior emphasising solidarity to gain listeners goodwill) discourse
