Occupational Language

Question 1

John Swales (2011)

specialist lexis

Answer 1

• Once you start work, you become a member of a professional community, which has a set of professional practices and shares specialist knowledge and certain values.
• Language plays a key role here, as people working together in the same organization or field have mechanisms of intercommunication and use professional genres and specialist lexis.
• Linguists refer to such professional groups as discourse communities in order to emphasize the important role language plays in their constitution.

Question 2

Horvak

Answer 2

• The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.

Question 3

Herbet and Straight (1989)

Answer 3

• Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank.

Question 4

Drew and Heritage (1992)

Everyday conversation versus Workplace talk

Answer 4

• Summarised differences between everyday conversation and workplace talk:
  Goal orientation, turn taking, allowable contributions, professional lexis, structure, asymmetry.
• Inferential framework - knowledge is built up over time and used in order to understand meanings that are implicit.

Question 5

Janet Holmes (1998)

Answer 5

• Women managers seem to be more likely to negotiate consensus than male managers, they are less likely to just ‘plough through the agenda’, taking time to make sure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided.

Question 6

Koester, Phatic Talk

Answer 6

• Verbal or non-verbal communication that has a social function, such as to start a conversation, greet someone, or say goodbye, rather than an informative function.
• Words such as, ‘so…’ etc. used to signal a change in topic.

Question 7

Grice’s Maxims (1975)

Answer 7

• Rules that need to be applied to conversations in order to make them successful.
• The maxim of quantity, where one tries to be as informative as one possibly can, and gives as much information as is needed, and no more.
• The maxim of quality, where one tries to be truthful, and does not give information that is false or that is not supported by evidence.
  The maxim of relation, where one tries to be relevant, and says things that are pertinent to the discussion.
• The maxim of manner, when one tries to be as clear, as brief, and as orderly as one can in what one says, and where one avoids obscurity and ambiguity.
  If these maxims are flouted, conversation will fail

Question 8

Holmes 2005 and Marra 2002

Answer 8

• Contrary to popular belief, women use just as much humour as men, and use it for the same functions, to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors.
• Although they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour.

Question 9

Goffman/Levison and Brown, Face

Answer 9

• Face: a person’s self-esteem or emotional needs
• Positive face: the need to feel wanted, liked and appreciated
• Negative face: the need to have freedom of action and thought and not be imposed on Face.
• Threatening Act: a communicative act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face needs

Question 10

Occupational Register

Answer 10

• The idea that we use jargon and language in specific occupations.
• These words sometimes become more widely used and recognised.