Occupation

• John Swales - coined the term discourse communities, a web of discourse examines links between colleagues with speakers converging, diverging, using jargon, tone and register.
• Herbert and Straight - found that compliments flowed from higher status to a lower one in the workplace
• Fairclough - stated there is a modern trend towards ‘conversationalism’ where language is becoming more and more informal
• French and Raven’s 6 bases of power

  1 - Legitimate power, (positional power)

  2 - Coercive power e.g teachers threatening a detention

  3 - Reward power,

  4 - Referent power, when others are envious of someone else

  5 - Expert power

  6 - Informational power e.g advertising saying you need this in your life
• Grice’s conversational maxims, which uphold a successful conversation

  • Manner
  • Quality
  • Quantity
  • Relevance

  You can break these intentionally or unconsciously
• Neologism = a new word, often used in occupational speech

  For example,

  • Best Boy - military
  • Flairing - bartending
• Herrgard - believes that it is important to use jargon at work. Makes the workplace more efficient, especially in a time-pressured environment.
• Herring - found that men’s emails were more direct and opinionated. Women’s emails were more emotional and personal. Men’s were twice as long.
• Initialisms = combination of letters that do not make a word

  For example,

  • MFL - schools
• Drew and Heritage - institutional talk

  Workplace language is different to other language.

  1. it is goal-orientated
  2. has particular constaints
  3. defined by the inferential procedures

  Members use the inclusive personal pronoun ‘we’ to show their community.
• Tannen - power in the workplace


  professionals in the workplace have more expertise and on their ‘home turf, therefore outsiders have less power as they are excluded and confused
• Heritage - use of interrogatives

  Professionals are the people who ask the question. This is an unspoken rule of interactions that structures dialogue. These interactions are asymmetrical in power as a result.