Occupational Language

Question 1

Drew and Heritage - Institutional Talk

Answer 1

• said that members of a discourse community share inferential framework with each other.
• they include: implicit ways of thinking, communicating and behaving
• CEO of company communicate in a formal manner; mostly sending emails and managing meetings.
• Employees converge when they are talking to CEO/boss. they are more likely to respond to emails rather than send them and they will not manage meetings and talk less or more depending on the context.
  everyday workplace talk and conversation include:
• goal-orientation
• turn-taking
• allowable contributions
• professional lexis
• structure
• asymmetry

Question 2

John Swales - Discourse Communities

Answer 2

he defined a discourse community as having members who:
- share a set of common goals
- communicate internally and ‘owning’ one or more genres of education
- using jargon and discourse
- possess a required level of knowledge and skill to be considered eligible to participate in the community.

• discourse is constantly changing as occupation changes and new people bring in fresh ideas.

Question 3

Koester - Phatic Communication

Answer 3

• said that phatic communication was important in occupational contexts as it helps get jobs done.
• said that workers need to have inter personal relationships with each other and have interactions not solely based on work related procedures.
• Koester suggests that being sociable and engaging in personal chats promotes effective working relationships

Question 4

Fairhurst

Answer 4

fairhurst studied effective leadership talk and found that it evidences a range of diverse competencies.

• transactional skills oriented to achieving workplace objectives
• relational skills which take into account interpersonal aspects of communicating, such as establishing rapports with colleagues and reducing directives.

Question 5

A01 - Jargon

Answer 5

language specific to a certain area/profession.

Question 6

A01 - Hierarchy

Answer 6

power structure within an institution.

Question 7

A01 - Legalese

Answer 7

language of law, very opaque to non-specialist

Question 8

A01 - Phatic Communication

Answer 8

small talk

Question 9

A01 - Phatic token

Answer 9

a single example of small talk utterance.

Question 10

A01 - Self oriented token

Answer 10

information relating to yourself

Question 11

A01 - Other orientated token

Answer 11

information relating to somebody else