Language And Occupation

Question 1

What is power dependent on?

Answer 1

The hierarchy which can shift along with power all the time even in friendship groups there is hierarchy within the workplace this is constantly in flux linked to personality in peer groups we have to adapt our personality in the workplace

Question 2

What is the accommodation theory?

Answer 2

Howard Giles, convergence moving towards the context and divergence moving away from the context can be upwards or downwards, we are more likely to use convergence to build and sustain rapports

Question 3

What is the national average salary?

Answer 3

£28,677

Question 4

What is the minimum wage for over 25s?

Answer 4

£17,076

Question 5

What is the minimum wage for 21-24 year olds?

Answer 5

£16,016

Question 6

What is the minimum wage for 18-20 year olds?

Answer 6

£12,796

Question 7

What is Fairclough’s theory on powerful and less powerful participants?

Answer 7

Degree of power asymmetry, difference in the power status of the individuals speaking, most obvious when one speaker has a higher status or role, difficult to balance being fair and friendly when having awkward conversations, unequal encounters, one is the powerful participant and one is the less powerful participant, the rules of conversation (e.g turn taking) apply less here, the more powerful participant controls the conversation, places constraints on the less powerful participant as a direct result of their power and status

Question 8

What is jargon?

Answer 8

Work based colloquial language understood by a minority depending on the institution but all within the institution otherwise you can’t fulfil your role, e.g. SISRA, SPI, PP, QFT in the teaching occupation, abbreviations for teaching complex language

Question 9

What is subject specific lexis?

Answer 9

Words specific to a field of work, topic and context related language specific to a field, not wholly related to occupation

Question 10

What is a language community and what might this involve?

Answer 10

Can have very open communities and closed language communities these can be really limiting

Question 11

What is John Swales’ theory on discourse communities?

Answer 11

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 suitable to participate in the community

Question 12

What is meant by language for brevity?

Answer 12

Short, concise, brief, jargon is nonsense and in a way a joke, gent are across institutions but they change and update all the time- damages positive face

Question 13

What is Del Hymes’ theory?

Answer 13

Communicative competency, you know and can follow the rules of conversation and can make valuable contributions links to Lakoff’s politeness principles

Question 14

What are Lakoff’s politeness principles?

Answer 14

Don’t impose, give options, maintain positive face, make the receiver feel good

Question 15

What is meant by standardisation?

Answer 15

Everyone is following the same linguistic rules, set by those highest in the hierarchy

Question 16

What is meant by power asymmetry?

Answer 16

Language is used to assert and respect power in the workplace, this is noticeable in both verbal and written discourse, the cues found in powerful discourse are recognised by those without power, and usually there is no question as to who holds more

Question 17

How do emails affect workplace communication?

Answer 17

Can be more difficult than face to face interactions, have to maintain good relationships while asking for things to get done, acting based on your position in the management hierarchy

Question 18

What is meant by register?

Answer 18

The levels of formality in a text

Question 19

What is Swales’ 2011 theory?

Answer 19

Discourse communities have 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 and skill suitable to participate in the community

Question 20

What is Drew and Heritage’s 1992 theory?

Answer 20

Institutional talk, believe institutional talk differs from ordinary conversation in various ways: goal orientation, turn-taking rules, allowable contributions, professional lexis, structure, asymmetry

Question 21

What is Drew and Heritage’s 1993 theory?

Answer 21

Inferential frameworks and power relations, they suggest that members of a discourse community share inferential frameworks with each other, this involves implicit ways of thinking, behaving and communicating, they also suggest that there are strong hierarchies of power within organisations, with many asymmetrical power relations marked by language use

Question 22

What is Koester’s 2004 theory?

Answer 22

Phatic talk, looked at how employees can support each other in their tasks and shows how important phatic talk is in getting jobs done, workers need to establish interpersonal relationships and have interactions that are not just about work related procedures, although, some employers are represented as discouraging talk that is not strictly work related, she shows that being personal and engaging in personal chat is an important aspect of effective working, solidarity and the ability to connect with ones workmates is an important aspect of workplace communication

Question 23

What is Nelson’s 2000 theory?

Answer 23

Business language, he wanted to investigate whether there was such a thing as business lexis, he found that there was a semantic field for business that involves a limited number of semantic categories, terms had to do with: business people, companies, institutions

Question 24

What is Salimon’s theory?

Answer 24

Workplace emails have lower register (level of formality), everything for brevity because of the sheer amount we send, sent to prove that people are working hard and because they are easy to send, can be written fast, edited fast, sent fast and deleted fast, lead to a crisis because people expect an immediate response, proven that they can cause more stress and anxiety in the workplace because it is easy to miss something in a flood on emails, constant pressure for fast/immediate response

Question 25

What is meant by hierarchy?

Answer 25

Denoting position, positional power types within an occupation

Question 26

Why is phatic talk essential in the workplace, especially from the boss?

Answer 26

Maintain positive face, build and maintain rapports and recognising differences (taking an interest) to make employees feel valued, without it, the workplace couldn’t run, relationships wouldn’t form

Question 27

What is Honyak’s theory?

Answer 27

Compliments flow down the hierarchy in institutions i.e. they flow from people with more power (the boss) and move down

Question 28

Why has honyak got merit?

Answer 28

The boss gives compliments to make sure that their employees feel valued in the workplace and save positive face so they’re motivated to work (Goffman), forming internal and interpersonal relationships, keep them on the right track so positive acts are maintained, everyone likes compliments and praise, mistakes in the workplace are often on a public scale, if mistakes happen they are motivated to correct them; the bosses have personal power because of their position in the hierarchy, bosses should learn and be observant, they should never abuse their personal power, a lot of work relies on good will; people wanting to go the extra mile for their boss

Question 29

What is meant by asymmetrical relationships?

Answer 29

Power isn’t equal, personal and positional power

Question 30

What are positive face threatening acts?

Answer 30

Any act that might make the receiver not feel vaulted and a valued contributor to discussion e.g. “rubbish idea” or “I don’t agree” or having to tell someone “you’ve misunderstood this”

Question 31

What are negative face threatening acts?

Answer 31

When you are imposed upon usually through an imperative e.g. “I need that report by Friday” “pass me the file” or “get me a coffee”

Question 32

What do Drew and Heritage mean by goal orientation?

Answer 32

Participants in workplace conversations usually focus on specific tasks or goals

Question 33

What do Drew and Heritage mean by turn taking rules?

Answer 33

In some professional contexts (e.g. courtroom) there are special turn taking rules in operation, person A speaks and person B responds, you have to know the rules and if you break them you will in trouble

Question 34

What do Drew and Heritage mean by allowable contributions?

Answer 34

You know what to say and when to say it

Question 35

What do Drew and Heritage mean by professional lexis?

Answer 35

Professional contexts may be reflected in the lexical choice, special lexis or vocabulary used by the speakers

Question 36

What do Drew and Heritage mean by structure?

Answer 36

Workplace and professional interactions may be structured in specific ways

Question 37

What do Drew and Heritage mean by asymmetry?

Answer 37

One speaker has more power than the other e.g. between a boss and employee

Question 38

Why is Howard Giles’ accommodation theory important in the workplace?

Answer 38

Converging our language closer to the context helps everyone to understand, meaning everyone will feel valued in the workplace therefore saving positive face, the context- or multi context- calls from this, in the workplace we speak to people of different levels of personal power so we adopt a different register, the convergence and divergence is essential so everyone can access the conversation, the discourse community (John Swales) can only operate if everyone can understand and contribute

Question 39

What is meant by convergence?

Answer 39

Social integration, language variety chosen which seems to fit the style of the other speaker e.g. changing language based on audience: social integration, phone voice, subconscious, convergence may be mutual, upward or downward, accent levelling

Question 40

What are the prosodic features?

Answer 40

Pitch, tone and intonation

Question 41

What is divergence?

Answer 41

Language chosen to create a distance between speakers and move away from each other- social distance, disapproval, in an occupational setting if you were the boss you would distance yourself

Question 42

What is covert prestige?

Answer 42

Using language in a smaller group to show understanding and fit in; less formal register

Question 43

What is overt prestige?

Answer 43

Using and adapting language for a larger group

Question 44

Which occupations would use convergence?

Answer 44

Doctors, teachers, sports teams and managers

Question 45

Which occupations may use divergence?

Answer 45

Solicitors, police and government officials to demonstrate power

Question 46

What is multi modality?

Answer 46

When a text has features of spoken and written language combined, low register, this is likely to make a text more informal at times

Question 47

What spoken language features might we find in a multi modal text?

Answer 47

Deletion, features of dialect, blending, rhetorical devices, idioms, lots of exclamatory sentences, reduplication of letters

Question 48

What is instrumental authority? (Fairclough)

Answer 48

Enforcing authority, can do this through positional and political power, bosses

Question 49

What is influential authority? (Fairclough)

Answer 49

Using persuasion to make someone behave in a certain way, covert prestige, friendship groups