Workplace Discourse (Continuum Discourse)

✍ Scribed by Almut Koester

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 204
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Workplace Discourse provides an overview of the rapidly developing field of spoken and written workplace interaction, taking a fresh perspective on research methods and key issues in the field.. It examines discourse in a wide variety of workplace contexts using both genre analysis and a corpus-driven approach. The book draws on Koester's previous research, but examines the current state of workplace discourse more widely. It provides a descriptive account of the linguistic characteristics of workplace discourse within their social and organizational contexts, with illustrative extracts from real texts and naturally occurring spoken interactions. It showcases specific issues at the forefront of current research and practice in this area: the use of English as a lingua franca, the importance of relationship building and the teaching applications of research.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Notes on Data and Transcription......Page 12
Part I: Describing Workplace Discourse......Page 14
1.1 Introduction......Page 16
1.2 Workplace, institutional, professional and business discourse......Page 18
1.3 Communities of practice and discourse communities......Page 20
1.4 Approaches to analysing workplace discourse......Page 22
1.5 Where does workplace discourse occur?......Page 25
1.7 Outline of the book......Page 29
2.1 Introduction......Page 31
2.2 Recurring or widespread genres in the workplace......Page 36
2.3 The use of genres within organizations......Page 49
2.4 Conclusion......Page 56
3.2 Overview of relevant corpora......Page 58
3.3 Lexico-grammar of the workplace......Page 60
3.4 Pragmatic features......Page 70
3.5 Corpus and genre......Page 74
3.6 Discussion and conclusion......Page 79
4.1 Introduction......Page 83
4.2 Previous studies of directives......Page 84
4.3 A corpus-informed study of procedural workplace discourse......Page 87
4.4 Directives in transactional and collaborative talk......Page 89
4.5 Solidarity and involvement strategies in procedural talk involving training......Page 97
4.6 Training, apprenticeship and workplace learning......Page 103
4.7 Conclusion......Page 106
Part II: Issues and Applications in Workplace Discourse......Page 108
5.1 Introduction......Page 110
5.2 ‘Work’ done through relational talk......Page 112
5.3 The role of relational talk within a community of practice......Page 116
5.4 Humour......Page 121
5.5 Humour and workplace culture......Page 122
5.6 Humour in the ABOT Corpus......Page 124
5.7 Conclusion......Page 133
6.1 Introduction......Page 135
6.2 English as a lingua franca......Page 136
6.3 English as an international language in business......Page 138
6.4 Relational language in lingua franca workplace and business interactions......Page 144
6.5 English in the multi-ethnic workplace......Page 152
6.6 Discussion and conclusion......Page 154
7.2 Research-based consultancy......Page 158
7.3 Training and teaching......Page 159
7.4 Using insights from research for teaching and teacher training......Page 162
7.5 Conclusion......Page 172
Appendix I: Adhesive Labels......Page 174
Appendix II: Sample Activities......Page 176
Notes......Page 180
References......Page 184
C......Page 200
F......Page 201
M......Page 202
W......Page 203
Z......Page 204