Language and Occupation

John Swales - Discourse communities

Members that share a common set of goals. They use specialist lexis or grammatical structures and possess particular skills or knowledge (counter staff use Q & A structures and the army uses a lot of exclamatory and imperatives).

Drew and Heritage

There are strong hierarchies of power within organisation with asymmetrical relationships marked by language use. There are constraints on individuals dictating the language they are allowed to use.

Koester

Employees can support each other in their tasks, e.g. phatic talk is important. Interpersonal relationships and solidarity are important dimensions in the workplace.

External communication

External communication occurs between businesses and the public, e.g. advertising, employee-customer interactions.

Internal communication

Internal communication occurs between individuals within an occupation, e.g emails, meetings

There are three varieties:

• Upward communication (to superiors)

• Downward communication (to subordinates)

• Lateral communication (to colleagues)

Wareing - 3 types of power

Political power - those who draw power from the law, e.g. politicans, the police.

Personal power - those who draw power from their occupation, e.g CEOs, chefs.

Social power - those who draw power from belonging to a social group such as class.

Pateman - power in the workplace

Examines power from the perspective of:

‘oppressive’ - the open expression of power and ‘repressive’ discourse - a covert means of exercising ‘top down’ or ‘coercive’ power.

e.g. superiors will emphasise solidarity in order to gain their interlocutor’s good will.

Brown and Levinson’s face theory

Positive face - the need to form bonds with others. Have status and to be included in the conversation.

Negative face - your wish to get your view across unimpeded, to keep a level of distance and respect between yourself and others.

Asymmetry

Workplace and professional interactions are often asymmetrical, tht is often one speaker has more power and/ or special knowledge than the other. Examples are conversations between a boss and employee, or a doctor and a patient.

Positive Politeness theory - brown and levinson

Positive politeness (positive concern for others). For example ‘How are you?

Negative Politeness theory - brown and levinson

Negative politeness (non-imposing distancing behaviour) For example ‘Excuse me’

Face Theory - Goffman

• Lose face

• Gain face

• Threaten face

• Have face threatened

Cooperative principle - Grice 1975

Say the right thing at the right time in order to get people to do what you want them to do.

Politeness Theory - Brown and Levinson (vast)

• Politeness is vastly more complex than formulaic conventions such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. It is about the choices we make in interactions and why:

Context (relationship between interlocutor)

Positive face (desire to be accepted)

Negative face (desire to be unimpeded)

Cross cultural commonalities

There are cross-culture commonalities in politeness strategies.

Risks to politeness strategies

Social distance - How well do we know each other?

Power dynamic - What relationship do we have with each other?

Absolute ranking of imposition - How hard is the request?

What is positive politeness about?

Positive politeness is about creating solidarity

What is negative politeness about?

Negative politeness is about respecting and maintaining social distance.

Examples of positive politeness strategies

• Attend to x’s wants (congratulations!)

• Give or ask reasons (why not?)

• Give gifts to x such as presents or compliments (that hair cut suits you!)

Examples of negative politeness strategies

• Question, hedge (excuse me, is anyone sitting there?)

• Be pessimistic (I dont suppose you have got time to look at this?)

• Minimise imposition (could you pass the salt, please?)

• Apologise (I am really sorry I missed your party)

Impoliteness framwork: Culpeper (2011)

Culpeper identified a series of strategies that are oriented towards attacking face — underlying these is the importance of context; certain things are only impolite depending on the situation of use:

• Mock impoliteness - ‘banter’

• Exclusion from a conversation

• Appearing uninterested

• Actively seeking disagreement

• Making interlocutor uncomfortable

• Using taboo words

• Using personal negative evaluations

• Invading personal space (metaphorically or literally)

• Dismissals

• Sarcasm

Face threatening acts - Threats to x’s self value

• Expressions of disapproval ,criticism, ridicule, complaints, accusations, insults (what time do you call this?)

• Blatant non cooperation (No, I wont)

• Misuse of terms of address (Yes Charles (to the King))

• Raising dangerously divisive topics

• Irreverence, mentioning of taboo subjects (you’ve got to admit that was funny)

Face threatening acts - Threats to x’s autonomy

• Orders, requests (Could you get me a…)

• Suggestions, advice (Next time why dont you…)

• Reminders (Dont forget that you need to…)

• Threats, warning, dares (You’d better do it otherwise…)

• Offers (You can borrow mine)

• Expressions of strong negative emotions toward x such as hated, anger, lust, moreso street harassment (Alright darling, come and join us)

Threats to speakers positive face

• Apologising

• Accepting a compliment

• Breakdown of physical control over body

• Self-humiliation, self-contradiction, acting stupid

• Confessing, admitting guilt, or responsibility

• Emotion leakage, non-control of laughter / tears.

Threats to speakers negative face

• Expressing thanks

• Accepting thanks or apologies

• Excuses

• Accepting offers

• Ignoring faux pas

• Unwilling promises

Hypocorism

Hypocorism is a nickname or secondary name you give to people to show closeness or affection.

For example - ‘Louis’ —> ‘Loulou’ or just ‘Lou’

Vocative

Using a persons name to get their attention.