Language in Ocuppation

• What is Occupational register?

  Words or phrases solely in a particular job
• What is Occupational Lexis?


  Words associated with a specific occupational group
• Technical terms


  refer to terms that are not used anywhere else, or have different meanings in other places
• Jargon


  Special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand.

  Can have negative connotations as it is often used for language that deliberately excludes others

  eg. code 8, obbo, arvs, etc
• Accommodation Theory - Howard Giles

  • We adjust our speech to 'accommodate' the person we are addressing
  • Will result in convergence (moving closer) or divergence (moving further away)
  • Can converge/diverge upwards (towards prestige) or downwards (towards more standard form)
• Grace's Maxim's of conversation

  Suggests what people should adhere to in conversations.

  • Quantity - contribute as much info as possible, no more than necessary
  • Quality - share what you know to be true, avoid false or misleading info
  • Relevance - be relevant with contributions
  • Manner - avoid obscurity of expression and ambiguity, be brief and orderly
• Goal Orientation


  Focus on specific tasks or goals
• Turn-taking rules


  Specific turn-taking rules in operation (may be unwritten) on who speaks when (e.g. doctor-patient)
• Allowable contributions


  Restrictions on what kind of contributions are considered allowable (what they can say)
• Professional lexis


  Use of special lexis/vocab in professional cases
• Structure


  Structured conversations
• Asymmetry


  One speaker has more power and knowledge than the other (e.g. student-teacher, boss-employee)
• Drew and Heritage - 1992 - Talk at work
• Looked at differences between regular talk and talk in the workplace
• Sinclair and Coulthard


  they noted that classroom talk uses a 3 part structure

  • initiation - (eg. what book is it)
  • response - (eg. a dictionary)
  • feedback - (eg. yes a dictionary)
• IRF structure

  • initiation, response, feedback
  • used in all situations
• 3 main functions to teacher talk

  • Informative - (eg. dictionaries are used to look up meanings)
  • Directive - (eg. Reece, tell me one thing its used for)
  • Elicitation - (eg, you can also use it to look up....)
• Herbert and Straight - Compliments at work - 1989

  Hebert and Straight in 1989 found that compliments flowed from higher rank to lower rank
• Fairclough - Conversationalisation - 1992


  Stated that there is modern trend towards 'conversationalisation' at work where exchanges are becoming less and less formal