quotes the following response by a British Local Government official to a citizen request to put up posters in the local public library:
So far I have dealt with the format of the language itself; there are, however, other
considerations to be made with regard to the function of English in the work place.
Indeed, other work-related quality of language may be more distinctively represented in the structure of an interaction, rather than the fact that technical English words are used. (Neil Mercer, 1996, p. 87). The process of working together towards a common goal involves consultation, deliberation, instruction, information, as well as explanation, interpretation and negotiation. All interpersonal factors that are strictly linked to the useof language. M.A.K. Halliday (1995) identified three specific aspects associated with the use of English at work which are outlined below.
The ideational function
Probably the main purpose of work-related language is to facilitate carrying out a
task or job and completing it successfully without introducing any ambiguity or unnecessary risks. This can be achieved by means of highly task-oriented communications, heavily based on content, reference, dealing with concrete facts and problematic situations; the ideational aspect of language works mainly by encoding two sorts of reference, to entities (including things, people and abstract ideas) and to processes, relations and actions. These referential needs are realized in English roughly through noun phrases on the onehand and verb phrases on the other.(Peter Medway, 1996, p. 108).
The interpersonal function
Another important aspect is related to building, maintaining and supporting relationships among members of a discourse community. All individuals in the group of people involved represent distinctive personalities, and the awareness of their status, authority, expertise and dependence in relation to each other becomes the focus of the
interpersonal function.
Intertextuality
Like many other types of discourses, a work-related communication makes extensive
use of intertextual references, that is, implicit or explicit references to another piece of
discourse. Phrases like
Ò...as I was telling you yesterday...Ó
, andÒ...we could move thisgraphic to the right...Ó
1 contain the same semantic (and sometimes verbal) material of another conversation carried out previously by the parties involved. Intertextuality is of central importance in workplace discourse since it connects all separate spoken and written communications into a single network of ideas and contributions, as well as bringing
together the diverse participants into a discourse community.
Social factors
English is in a unique position in that it is, for a vast number of people, a language
which is not their mother tongue, but which has to be employed at work. Many corporates and industries in the world are faced with a dilemma where there is a need to be competitive internationally, meaning that a comprehension of English is
invariably required, but at the same time the majority of the workforce does not have the language as their mother tongue. It is obvious, then, that a compromise has to be found, so that both the financial viability of the firm and the satisfaction of the employees are secured. Although different approaches have been taken, the common idea is that English should be used for important internal communications and for conversations between managers and external business partners. On the other hand, the workers have the freedom of converse in their local language(s) when speaking between themselves (this was thought to be important for both retaining a social identity, and for reducing the psychological strain of having to constantly monitor themselves so as not to slip into the native language) as well as having the choice of talking to their managers through either languages. A significant issue relates to safety policies within organisation: it seems sensible to produce multi-lingual signs and notifications to avoid misunderstandings and legal complications.
Carrying out a working conversation in a multilingual context can sometimes produce
unsatisfactory results; difference in expectations and interpretations can be attributed
to diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences of the participants involved. Helen
Marriott, who researched what she called intercultural business negotiations, points
out that explaining misunderstandings in terms of cultural experiences does not mean
simply making generalized comparisons between the interlocutors ways of talking. In the international business world of today other cultural factors beside national origins might be important for shaping speakers ways of talking business in English, and for shaping their interpretation of events.(quoted in Mercer, 1996, p. 90).
Paolo Cordone (R4453547) TMA 03 Option
Gender and status
Beside the influence of the work culture on speakers choice of language there is the
important aspect of gender, which influences the way conversations take place. In her
research, Janet Maybin (1996) discovered that men tend to exercise more influence over the choice of topics, to interrupt female partners and to dominate the interaction as well as control codeswitching in multilingual conversations. A similar pattern can be identified with regard to job status. The higher-ranking individual is the one who generally steer the conversation and selects the type of language. One interesting investigation carried out by Nicola Woods attempted to find out which one of the two factors has the greatest effect on speakers control of a verbal interaction. Her results showed that when the two power bases of gender and occupational status are at work, then the former gender tends to exert the greatest influence on floor apportionment
Essentially, while the power base of occupational status did influence the
way that both men and women organized conversation [...], nevertheless even when women
held high-status occupational positions male subordinates still organized the interaction ina way that allowed them to dominate the floor. (quoted in Mercer, 1996, p. 95).
Working with the public
Until now I have concentrated on issues particularly related to the working language
within certain communities of discourse. However, there are particular issues of interest concerning English used by professional individuals when talking to members of the public who do not belong to the same discourse community. The points should also be
considered when analysing discourses in the workplace.
Use of jargon and specialised language
As illustrated above, the use of jargon and specialised language can sometimes cause
misunderstandings and produce poor communication especially when the professional is not able to talk about relevant topics in a way that is clear to the uninitiated layman.
Often the insider might genuinely find it hard to cover a work-related topic without using any language other than that of his or her discourse community. On the other
hand, there are instances where the control and power over the non-specialist are deliberately exerted by ignoring any lack of understanding, thus monopolizing the knowledge required to steer the conversation in a given direction.
Difference in culture
In a multicultural situation, a common problem arises when a speaker is not fluent in
English and does not have the same shared understanding of the principles required for engaging in a specialised type of conversation. C. Roberts and P. Sayers carried out a study to address this particular issue in the context of interviews by British English speakers of, among others, Indian immigrants to Britain; they arrived at the conclusion that there is a tendency to use the language factor as a reason for not clarifying misunderstandings. The interviewers assume that any of the candidates talk which they did not understand was therefore meaningless, i.e. not meaningful for the candidate. Instead of clarifying such utterances, interviewers choose to ignore them. In this way they often fail to grasp where key points for the candidate are occurring, and the whole interaction starts to go wrong.(quoted in Mercer, 1996, p. 102).
Floor apportionment
Measures the relative extent to which speakers take substantial turns at speaking.
Paolo Cordone (R4453547) TMA 03 Option (b)
The interview situation is very characteristic of a professional vs. layman verbal
exchange; in it the type of language plays a major role and is often the main factor in
determining the outcome of the interview. The research of Jo Longman (1996) is particularly relevant to this issue in that it defines three concepts which are useful for analyzing the relationships between interviewer and candidates, particularly when there is an element of co-operation between the two (such as it is the case with a professional adviser in occupational training and an unemployed person); they are filtering, reformulation, and accountability.
Filtering
. The information provided by the candidate frequently contains uncertainty,
hesitation and other elements which can be counter-productive to the purpose
of the interview. By filtering out these elements the advisor ensures that only
crucial and relevant points are retained and the presentation is more effective.
Reformulation
. The format of the information is adapted and polished by the adviser so as to create a more professional language. The choice of words is crucial here as are the grammar and structure of sentences.
Accountability
. Since the advisor is manipulating someone elses information, there needs to be a certain accountability on his part when talking to the candidate. This often takes the form of asking for clarification and approval as well as making sure that there is full agreement on the final output. After discussing the general characteristics of English as a tool for work I am going to present and analyse some examples of language from the software industry.
Some example of working English from the software industry
The examples reported below are taken from electronic mails received within a leading software corporate. Although there are several forms in which English in this context has been adapted, I will concentrate on two aspects: the use of jargon, especially in the written communications, and the way assumptions are made as to what certain words mean, which would be meaningless to outsiders.
Use of jargon
The advent of the computer industry, and in particular of electronic mail has
brought about radical changes in the way people communicate within organisations and the conventions linked to the use of language. This is particularly evident in the over-use of jargon and so-called computerese, a highly-specialised type of English which can sound obscure to outsiders and, sometime, to insiders as well.
There are several features that can be identified. The first is undoubtedly represented
by acronyms and abbreviations. Starting with people proper names, often incorporated
into status reports sections like the following:
Minutes of Management Meeting - 2 April 1998
Attendees: PC, TOR, RK, SG, MM, BM
Agenda: Plan for new release, Quality issues, AOB.
Another instance of abbreviation occurs in email subject lines, which were originally
meant to give a short summary the message content. However, with increasing frequencythe entire content of the mail is entered in the subject and ended by an identifier( <eom>= end of message) to signal that there is no actual text in the mail:
53547) TMA 03 Option (b)
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1998 13:46:46 +0100
From: [email protected]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (PPC; I)
Subject: Please send me your status report <eom>
In more extreme cases, the whole subject line is virtually reduced to a string of
abbreviations and acronyms which barely make sense, like on the example below:
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 13:46:46 -0100
From: [email protected]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (PPC; I)
Subject: out of office ufn, atb <eom>
which translates into
out of office until further notice, all the best
.
Finally, abbreviations such as Rgds (for regards) and Thx (for thanks) have also
become part of the standard netiquette of electronic interaction, although their usefulness (like the one of the subject line) is highly questionable: in my opinion, the actual time saved when typing cannot justify the loss of meaning.
Exertion of power/trying to impress
More than in any other field, the advance in technology of the IT industry makes
keeping up-to-date with the latest terms and buzzwords. Sometimes this fact is exploited by employees to show their superiority when participating at meetings. A sample from a recent brainstorming session illustrates this very effectively. Tony (the manager), Sarah (the junior engineer), and Fergus (the senior engineer) are discussing the new features of an upcoming software release:
Tony: We need to find out what other features are incorporated into 4.06.
Sarah: The Eudora filter and smart browsing definitely need to be evaluated.
Tony: Lets ask the marketing people to send us a detailed list of
changes, since at the moment we dont know for sure.
Fergus: I know that there is a lot of LDAP stuff.
Tony: [5 secs]Ok, that’s it then.
The second last sentence had no specific relevance to the question asked in the context
of the meeting; it was deliberately uttered to impress the other participants since the
senior engineer was aware that nobody else would understand what LDAP was; furthermore no extra explanation was given to clarify what the technical term really meant and thus added nothing useful to the conversation. In fact the meeting was ended by the manager without taking notice of the engineerÕs contribution.
Extension of the language as a tool
English has become a literal tool for work in the field of computer programming.
especially in fourth generation computer code. Whereas older programming languages
were made of indecipherable and cryptic terms and clusters of symbols, newer ones have become more user-friendly and adopt English-like commands. Snippets from
Assembler (machine language),C (created in the 70s), and SQL (a fourth generation database language), illustrate the point effectively:
Paolo Cordone (R4453547) TMA 03 Option (b
Conclusion
In this essay I have described in general terms the ways in which English is adapted
to the needs of workers to achieve goals and communicate effectively in the workplace. I have looked at the quality of language in this context and the social factors which shape it. In the latter part of the paper I have presented some example of working English from the software industry, where English has become the dominating language.
References:
David Graddol, Dick Lieth and Joan Swann (2003) ‘English history, diversity and change’ The open University.
Halliday, M.A.K (1985) Spken and written language, Deakin, Victoria, Deakin University Press.
David Graddol, Dick Lieth and Joan Swann (2003)’ Using English: from conversation to canon”The open University.
