AQA A Level English Language Occupation Theories

Terms in this set (11)

Eakins and Eakins (1976)

In 7 university faculty meetings, the men spoke for longer and took longer turns

In a series of meeting in a university department faculty committee, men took more and longer turns and did more joking, arguing, directing and soliciting of responses during the more structured segments of meetings. During the 'free for all' parts the women, women and men talked equally and women joked, argued, directed and solicited responses more than men

Herbert and Straight (1989)

Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank

I'm an email discussion which took place on a linguistics 'distribution list', men's messages were twice as long, on average, as women's. women tended to use a personal voice e.g. 'I am intrigued by your comment'. The tone adopted by the men who dominated the discussion was assertive 'it is obvious that...'

Holmes (1998 Onwards)

Women managers seem to be more likely to negotiate consensus than male managers, they are less likely to just 'plough through the agenda', taking time to make sure everyone genuinely agrees with what had been decided

Holmes (2005) Holmes and Marra (2002)

Contrary to popular belief, women use just as much humour as men, and use it for the same functions, to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors, although they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour

The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest ranking person in the room

Tracy and Eisenburg (1990/1991)

When role-playing delivering criticism to a co-worker about errors in a business letter, men showed more concern for feelings when in the subordinate role, while women showed more concern when in the superior role

Describes how speakers change their language to resemble that of their listener:convergence; divergence (Accommodation theory)

Once you start work, you become a member of a professional community, which has a set of professional practices and shares specialist knowledge and certain values

Drew and Heritage (1992)

Goal Orientation: Participants in workplace conversations usually focus on specific tasks

Turn taking rules or restrictions: In some professionally contexts (e.g. The courtroom) there are special turn taking rules in operation. But even when no special rules exist, there may be unwritten restrictions on who speaks when; for example in doctor- patient consultations, it is the doctor who tends to ask the questions

Allowable contributions: There may be restrictions on what kinds of contributions are considered 'allowable', I.e. What participants may say

Professional lexis: The professional/workplace context may be reflected in the language choice, i.e. In special lexis or vocabulary used by the speakers

Structure: Workplace and professional interactions may be structured in specific ways

Symmetry: Workplace and professional interactions are often symmetrical, that is often one speaker has more power and/or special knowledge than the other. Examples are conversations between the boss and the employee or a doctor and a patient

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