Occupational Language Flashcards
Define occupational dialects
Each occupation has their own specialised language, technical words and phrases that are peculiar to a particular occupation
Who speaks in the occupational dialects?
Professionals who are authoritative and display expertise
What are discourse communities?
Groups of people who share a set of basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals
How has jargon changed over time?
It had developed to become less offensive
How is occupational dialect used?
Used in the workplace day to day to talk to colleagues/ clients, attending meetings, phone calls
What is a discourse community?
A group of people who share a set of basic values and assumptions and ways of communicating about those goals
What is jargon?
The discourse communities specialist terms
Positives/negatives of Jargon
Positive- appropriate and helpful in a professional environment, allows clear and precise communication
Negative- confusing and inappropriate for the non-specialist audience
What are some linguistic features of jargon?
Scientific/ technical lexis
Buzz words
Euphemisms
Elaborate noun phrases
Syntax and lexis of legal and official documents
What is the plain english campaign?
A commercial editing and training firm based in the UK who offer advice on how to write in a clear and accessible style, founded in 1979 by Chrissie Maher, campaigning against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public info
Main advantage of plain English?
Faster to read
Faster to write
10 steps to write in plain English…
- Keep your sentences short
- Prefer active verbs
- Good uses of passives
- Use ‘you’ and ‘we’
- Use words that are appropriate for the reader
- Don’t be afraid to give instructions
- Avoid normalisations
- Listing
- Apologising
- Destroy grammatical myths
Techniques of jargon
- Semantic shift (mouse)
- Initialisms (PC, HTTP)
- Acronyms (LOL)
- Compounds (laptop, trash can)
- Affixing (microchip)
What are the unwritten rules of occupational discourse?
- Politeness used to make colleagues feel included and respected
- Meeting other peoples negative face needs by accompanying requests with apologies and positive face needs with phatic talk
- Euphemisms in common workplace language
- Flouting maxims
- Praise and positive feedback
- Formality
- Standard english
- Some informal lexis
- Phonological features
- Prosodic features
- Terms of address
Instrumental power
Some occupational roles have a legitimate right to exercise power and authority in an instrumental way
(Teachers, police, lawyers, judges…)
