Occupational Language

Swales

Professional groups are ‘discourse communities’ that share common goals and use specialist lexis to communicate in a professional genre

Swales evaluation

Exclusion could be an unintended byproduct of the need for cohesion. Specialist lexis is a rule-governed necessity for professional efficiency and lexical precision, prioritises speed over broad/unspecific ‘common’ language (e.g NPO)

Drew and Herritage

Workplace different to every day due to ‘inferential frameworks’ (implicit rules about how to communicate) alongside interactional asymmetry where one speaker has more power than the other

Drew and Heritage evalaution

Interactional asymmetry a byproduct of goal orientation, basically not to be ‘bossy’ but to ensure transactional efficiency in high stakes discourse communities

Koester

Work place language isn’t just transactional (task based) but also interactional with vital role of phatic talk (small talk). Office people build rapport > exclude

Koester evlaution

Social chat makes people more productive (social solidarity) such as open plan offices, Can cause lack of professionalism, based on Western culture (ignores Japan)

Norman Fairclough

Difference between instrumental power (official authority like CEO ‘All staff are required too) and influential power (persuasion without formal authority like rule of 3 ‘snap crackle pop’). Synthetic personalisation where text producers address a mass audience as ‘you’

Norman Fairclough evaluation

Power is a linguistic performance where words are tools to represent influential power. By viewing every interaction as a struggle for power it ignores Swales view that it’s simply for efficiency

O’barr and Atkins

Studies courtrooms and found powerless language (hedges) were linked to low social status and a lack of courtroom experience

Negative evaluation Obarr and Atkins

Rank/professional capacity override biological identity, language is performative of status. Highly context specific to a courtroom

Hornyak

Highest rank person in the room shifts from ‘work talk’ to ‘phatic talk’

Hornyak evaluation

Office chat isn’t simple a sign of a ‘flat’ workplace but performances of power from elites to signal beginning/end of professional boundaries. Conducted before widespread rise of media communication

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Efficiency vs Exclusion (Swales + Koester), Workplace authority performance over natural (Fairclough + Drew and Heritage), Rank>Gender (O’barr and Atkins + Hornyak)