The dynamics of the workplace 26 Institutional and professional discourses at the workplace

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CA and the management of conversation

Within turn-taking systems, there are various features that show the subtlety of the organisation of talk on which ethnomethodologists base their interpretations of the management of conversations. Sacks (1972) made the observation that the sense or intelligibility of utterances was tied to their particular sequential location in a stretch of talk. This underlines the notion that an important feature of conversation in any context is the local management of talk. To this end, CA seeks to examine how interlocutors can interact and coordinate, through mutually shared rules, methods and devices to produce and manage their own and other people’s speech behaviour. Conversation management techniques which include the control of topics, regulation and reformulation of ideas and turn–taking among 53 other discourse strategies may be used by interlocutors to control and manipulate conversation. Hence speakers can compete for the floor and the end of one speaker’s turn and the beginning of the next turn frequently latch onto each other.

Interruption

The speaker on the floor is vulnerable to interruption at every transition relevant place (as discussed above), at the end of a sentence, following the appearance of one of several stereotyped fillers such as but, uh or vagueness indicated by what Bernstein (1962) labels sociocentric sequences such as you know, eh…eh or whatever. The length of a turn also has a causal effect on interruption. The longer the speaker stays on the floor, the more open they are to interruption as they are more likely to force other speakers into a position where they must interrupt in order to comment or respond to a point made. Speakers can reject interruptions if they choose not to yield the floor by speaking more loudly, more quickly or referring to the interruption and ‘asking for permission’ to complete their utterance for example in a moment if you may when I have finished… On the other hand, a participant who wishes to speak but is unable to find a suitable entry spot has the option of simply breaking into the stretch of talk of others. One or more speakers can opt for this route, resulting in simultaneous speech, which Edelsky (1981) claims is an acceptable mode of turn structure in some cultures and languages.

The importance of CA in gender-related research

CA as an approach is particularly suitable for research that looks at the nature and possible differences in the behaviours of men and women, as it allows the researcher to attempt to explain the relevancies of the parties to the interaction. Social categories and identities such as male and female should not necessarily be imposed by the analyst on materials under investigation; rather through close analysis of conversation activities, it should be possible to investigate how gender and power are reflected in the language used to manage talk. As Pomerantz and Fehr (2000:66) point out, CA ‘allows a researcher with a particular interest in the relations between men and women to, if they so decide, code as part of the analysis those who are female or male.’ This should further enable the analyst to study how women and men participate in practices through which structures of gender domination are produced and to observe, through the sequential structure of turns, whether or not they are conscious of what they say and do.

Principles and characteristics of pragmatics

In this section, I examine the principles and characteristics of pragmatics and discuss the ways in which language can be used in the transfer of meaning. I then look at how pragmatics can be used in analysing the ways in which interactants present themselves in social interaction. This is important as self-presentation emerged as one of the two macro-areas of participant verbal behaviour. Crystal (1987:120) defines pragmatics as ‘a field of study that sets out to examine the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction, how an utterance is presented, and the effects of our choice on others’. In theory we can say anything we like, but in practice we follow a large number of social rules (most of them unconsciously) that influence the way we speak.

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Pragmatics and self-presentation

In this section, I discuss the link between pragmatics and the way speakers during social interaction, try to be relevant in what they intend to say by positioning themselves relative to the person for whom the utterance is intended. Within a social constructionist framework, language in verbal interaction is viewed as ‘a set of strategies for negotiating the social landscape’ (Crawford, 1995:21). In other words, each person’s discourse is ‘constructed, and is ethnicised, gendered, or professionalised within the social setting in which they are exposed’ (Weedon, 1987:21). One obvious outcome of this is that people construct talk in a manner designed to portray a particular image of them, by making their identity, authority and power in relation to others in a given setting quite explicit. Typical ways may include explicit assertions of authority realised by very direct strategies.

CONTENTS :

ABSTRACT
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
- 1.0 Introduction
- 1.1 Area of investigation
- 1.2 Rationale
- 1.3 Aims of the research
- 1.4 A historical synopsis of the corporate landscape in Zimbabwe
- 1.5 Talk and gender in formal contexts: an overview
- 1.6 Gender dynamics in the workplace
- 1.7 Language and gender
- 1.8 Conclusion and some general observations
CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND: THE WORKPLACE AS CONTEXT
- 2.0 Introduction
- 2.1 The dynamics of the workplace 26 Institutional and professional discourses at the workplace
- 2.3 Communication at the workplace
- 2.4 Data sites at the workplace: researching the front stage and the back stage
- 2.5 Discourse contexts within the workplace
- 2.6 Organisational culture
- 2.7 Group behaviour
- 2.8 Communication and interpersonal relations
- 2.9 Power politics
- 2.10 Discourse and access
- 2.11 Speaker and hearer perception
- 2.12 General observations
CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL APPROACHES THAT INFORM THE RESEARCH
- 3.0 Introduction
- 3.1 Principles and characteristics of CA
- 3.2 CA and the management of conversation
- 3.3 The role of schemata in CA
- 3.4 The importance of CA in gender-related research
- 3.5 Principles and characteristics of pragmatics
- 3.6 Pragmatics and self-presentation
- 3.7 The role of pragmatics in present study
- 3.8 Principles and characteristics of CDA
- 3.9 CDA and social cognition
- 3.10 CDA and power
- 3.11 The role of CDA in analysing issues of language and gender
- 3.12 A comparative analysis of CA, CDA and pragmatics
- 3.13 Justification of the multidisciplinary theoretical framework
- 3.14 Summary
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- 4.0 Introduction
- 4.1 Research aims and questions
- 4.2 Research methods
- 4.2.1 Sampling: the subject population
- 4.2.2 Brief accounts of the data sites
- 4.2.3 Data collection procedures
- 4.2.4 Pre-test as pilot study
- 4.2.5 Focus group discussions (FGDs)
- 4.3 Approaches to analysis and interpretation of data
- 4.3.1 Analysis and interpretation of data: an overview
- 4.3.2 Analysis of data
- 4.3.3 Interpretation of data
- 4.3.4 From interpretation to explanation
- 4.3.5 Sample analysis
- 4.4 Ethical issues
- 4.5 Limitations of the methodology
- 4.6 Establishing validity and reliability
- 4.7 Summary
CHAPTER 5: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION