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 volume provides a multidisciplinary approach of the discursive dimension of power. It challenges the usual conception of discourse and power that underlies most of the current theories in contemporary discourse analysis, and shows that it is unsatisfying in so far as it reduces power to domination and discourse to power technology. In opposition to such a conception, an alternative model of power-in-discourse is constructed. It is called "Dialogical Model" in accordance with its being grounded in a dialogical conception of discourse that naturally leads to a participative conception of power (as empowerment). Part One provides the DM with theoretical and philosophical foundations, while Part Two affords empirical evidence by applying the DM to such typical situations as journalistic discourse under censorship, classroom sessions, and children interaction in a problem-solving situation.
This volume presents both an analysis of how identities are built, represented and negotiated in narrative, as well as a theoretical reflection on the links between narrative discourse and identity construction. The data for the bookareMexican immigrants' personal experience narratives and chronicles of their border crossings into the United States.
This innovative study of naturally-occurring English conversations between Hong Kong Chinese and their native English friends and colleagues makes a worthwhile contribution to the research literature on intercultural conversation. Through analyzing dyadic intercultural conversations, the study investigates the ways in which culturally divergent conversationalists manage their organizational and interpersonal aspects of the unfolding conversations.
This book explores the issue of politeness phenomena and socially appropriate behavior in two societies, Mexico and the United States, in three different contexts: refusing invitations, requests, and suggestions. In addition to a state-of-the-art review of the speech act of refusals in numerous languages, the book provides a rigorous analysis of data collection methods utilized to examine speech act behavior at the production and perception levels.
