occupation

Question 1

John Swales

Answer 1

people within occupational settings form a discourse community which he defines as groups that have shared goals or purposes and use communication to achieve these goals

• share goals
• specialist lexis or discourse
• possess required knowledge + skills

Question 2

examples of discourse community

Answer 2

hospital, medical staff have common goal to help patients , use specialist lexis e.g. medical terms and possess specific skills to be a part of the discourse community

Question 3

Drew and Heritage

Answer 3

look at ‘institutional talk’ still has shared goals and specialised lexis but that power hierarchies interactions are often asymmetrical with restrictions on turn - taking meaning some people modify their language to adapt to the circumstances they’re in e.g. manager would use different speech when speaking to junior employee e.g. more imperatives

Question 4

Almut Koester

Answer 4

looks at importance of ‘phatic talk’ in the workplace. Workers need to establish interpersonal relationships and have interactions that are not just work related procedures. Koester shows that being sociable and engaging in personal chat is an important aspect of effective working. As well as power, solidarity to connect with one’s workmates

Question 5

Janet Holmes

Answer 5

looks at ‘small talk’ in Government Departments and finds that small talk enables workmates to do ‘collegiality’ and serve bridging function which helps warm people up socially and gets talk started on a positive note

Question 5

small talk