Getting Things Done at Work: The Discourse of Power in Workplace Interaction

The linguistic study of workplace language is a new and exciting area of research. This book explores the expression of power in a New Zealand workplace through examination of 52 everyday interactions between four women and their colleagues. The main focus of this research is the expression of three types of "control acts", i.e., directives, requests and advice. The women include two managers who demonstrate an interactive participative style of management. They tend to minimise rather than exert power, although their status is still evident in their speech.

The study is original in its combination of a quantitative and a qualitative approach, as well as in its combination of a detailed categorisation of head acts and an analysis of context and role relationships. Through the design of the study and the methodology used, the results which are brought forward challenge earlier research both on power and control acts. The data analyzed is drawn from the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project.

 

Table of contents

 

Acknowledgments	ix
1. Introduction	1
2. Directives, requests and advice	15
3. Identifying control acts	39
4. Analysis of control act head acts	63
5. Modification of control act head acts	93
6. Exploring control acts in context	121
7. Control acts between Managers and their staff	147
8. Managers and power in the workplace	167
9. Language and power between equals	201
Appendix A. Transcription conventions	219
Appendix B. Main interaction purpose and word counts	221
Appendix C. Directive head acts	227
Appendix D. Request head acts	241
Appendix E. Advice head acts	247
Notes	253
References	255
Author Index	269
Subject Index	273