Workplace interaction
Table of contents
The interests of those researchers in the field of pragmatics have always been diverse; interaction and meaning making is filled with fascinating intricacies. It is surprising, therefore, that despite foundational work by Gumperz (1982a, 1982b), a dedicated focus on interaction at work took so long to emerge as a recognised research cluster within the wide scope of activity, and that workplace literature only began to appear in noticeable volume in the 1990s. We spend a significant proportion of our lives at work and the people we interact with are an important part of our social worlds. The way in which we navigate our professional identities, our workplace teams and our industries was ripe for investigation. In this chapter we cover the now burgeoning area of (socio)pragmatics dedicated to the study of institutional and workplace talk, from a traditional focus on speech acts through team norms to societal values, and from elicitation techniques that report practices through the use of naturalistic recordings to the metapragmatic understandings evidenced in interviews. The synthesis enables us to demonstrate the developing research interests of workplace scholars.
References
Angouri, Jo, and Meredith Marra
2010 “Corporate meetings as genre: A study of the role of the chair in corporate meeting talk.” Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies 30 (6): 615–636. 
Angouri, Jo, Meredith Marra, and Shelley Dawson
2021 “More than builders in pink shirts: Identity construction in gendered workplaces.” In Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality, ed. by Jo Angouri, and Judith Baxter, 212–225. London: Routledge.
Angouri, Jo, Meredith Marra, and Janet Holmes
(eds) 2017 Negotiating Boundaries at Work. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Asmuß, Birte, and Jan Svennevig
(eds) 2009 “Meeting Talk.” Special issue, Journal of Business Communication 46 (1).
Atkinson, J. Maxwell, and Paul Drew
1979 Order in Court: The Organization of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. London: Macmillan.
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen, and Beverly S. Hartford
1993 “Refining the DCT: Comparing open questionnaires and dialogue completion tasks.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning 4, ed. by Lawrence F. Bouton, and Yamuna Kachru, 143–165. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Barnes, Rebecca K.
2019 “Conversation Analysis of Communication in Medical Care: Description and Beyond.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 52 (3): 300–315.
Baxter, Judith, and Kieran Wallace
2009 “Outside In-Group and Out-Group Identities? Constructing Male Solidarity and Female Exclusion in UK Builders’ Talk.” Discourse & Society 20: 411–429.
Beebe, Leslie M., and Tomoko Takahashi
1989 “ ‘Do you have a bag?’: Social status and patterned variation in second language acquisition.” In Variation in Second Language Acquisition: Discourse and Pragmatics, ed. by Susan M. Gass, Carolyn G. Madden, Dennis Preston, and Larry Selinker, 103–128. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Benneworth-Gray, Kelly
2014 “ ‘Are you going to tell me the truth today?’: Invoking obligations of honesty in police-suspect interviews.” The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 21: 251–277.
Benoit-Barné, Chantal, and François Cooren
2009 “The accomplishment of authority through presentification: How authority is distributed among and negotiated by organizational members.” Management Communication Quarterly 23 (1): 5–31.
Berthoud, Anne-Claude, François Grin, and Georges Lüdi
(eds) 2013 Exploring the Dynamics of Multilingualism. The DYLAN project. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Blommaert, Jan
2005 Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper
(eds) 1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson
1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clyne, Michael
1994 Intercultural Communication at Work: Cultural Values in Discourse. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Connell, Raewyn W.
1987 Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Coupland, Nikolas, and Adam Jaworski
2004 “Sociolinguistic perspectives on metalanguage: Reflexivity, evaluation and ideology.” In Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives, ed. by Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland, and Dariusz Galasinski, 15–51. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Daly, Nicola, Janet Holmes, Jonathan Newton, and Maria Stubbe
2004 “Expletives as solidarity signals in FTAs on the factory floor.” Journal of Pragmatics 36 (5): 945–964.
de Bres, Julia, and Janet Holmes
Forthcoming). “Ethnicity and humour in the workplace.” In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. ed. by James Paul Gee, and Mike Handford London Routledge
Dew, Kevin, Maria Stubbe, Louise Signal, Jeannine Stairmand, Elizabeth Dennett, Jonathan Koea, Andrew Simpson, et al.
2015 “Cancer care decision making in multidisciplinary meetings.” Qualitative Health Research 25 (3): 397–407.
Drew, Paul
2003 “Conversation Analysis.” In Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods, ed. by Jonathan A. Smith, 132–158. London: Sage.
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage
(eds) 1992 Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope, and Sally McConnell-Ginet
1992 “Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice.” Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1): 461–488.
2013 Language and Gender. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Filliettaz, Laurent
2010 “Interactions and miscommunication in the Swiss vocational education context: Researching vocational learning from a linguistic perspective.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 7: 27–50.
Fletcher, Joyce K.
1999 Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Ford, Cecilia E., and Trini Stickle
2012 “Securing Recipiency in Workplace Meetings: Multimodal Practices.” Discourse Studies 14: 11–30.
Franziskus, Anne
2013 “Getting by in a multilingual workplace: The language practices, ideologies and norms of cross-border workers in Luxembourg.” PhD thesis, University of Luxembourg.
Gumperz, John J.
1982a Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(ed) 1982b Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gumperz, John J., Tom C. Jupp, and Celia Roberts
1979 Crosstalk, A Study of Cross-Cultural Communication. Background Material and Notes to Accompany the B.B.C. Film. Southall, Middx, UK: BBC/National Centre for Industrial Language Training.
Haugh, Michael, Dániel Kádár, and Marina Terkourafi
2021 Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heritage, John, and Douglas W. Maynard
(eds) 2006 Communication in Medical Care: Interactions Between Primary Care Physicians and Patients. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, Janet
2006 Gendered Talk at Work. Malden: Blackwell.
2018 “Negotiating the culture order in New Zealand workplaces.” Language in Society 47 (1): 33–56.
2020 “ ‘Until I got a man in, he wouldn’t listen’: Evidence for the gender order in New Zealand workplaces.” In Innovations and Challenges: Women, Language and Sexism, ed. by Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard, 95–112. London: Routledge.
Forthcoming). “Rapport Management and microaggression in workplace interaction.” In Developing Intercultural Relations: Insights from Linguistics, Social Psychology and Intercultural Training. In Honour of Helen Spencer-Oatey ed. by Troy McConachy, and Perry Hinton London Bloomsbury
Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra
2002a “Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction.” In Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures, ed. by Anna Duszak, 377–400. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2002b “Having a laugh at work: How humour contributes to workplace culture.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 1683–1710.
2017 “ ‘You’re a proper tradesman mate’: Identity struggles and workplace transitions.” In Identity Struggles. Evidence from Workplaces around the World, ed. by Dorien Van De Mieroop, and Stephanie Schnurr, 127–145. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Holmes, Janet, Meredith Marra, and Bernadette Vine
2011 Leadership, Discourse, and Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2012 “Politeness and impoliteness in New Zealand English workplace discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1063–1076.
Holmes, Janet, and Maria Stubbe
2003 “ ‘Feminine’ workplaces: Stereotype and reality.” In The Handbook of Language and Gender, ed. by Janet Holmes, and Miriam Meyerhoff, 573–599. Oxford: Blackwell.
2015 Power and Politeness in the Workplace. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Holmes, Janet, and Jay Woodhams
2013 “Building interaction: The role of talk in joining a community of practice.” Discourse & Communication 7 (3): 275–298.
Kendall, Shari
2003 “Creating gendered demeanors of authority at work and at home.” In The Handbook of Language and Gender, ed. by Janet Holmes, and Miriam Meyerhoff, 600–623. Malden: Blackwell.
King, Brian W.
2019a Communities of Practice in Applied Language Research: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.
2019b “Finding ideologies in talk about talk.” Paper presented at the
New Zealand Discourse Conference
, Wellington, New Zealand.
Koester, Almut
2002 “The performance of speech acts in workplace conversations and the teaching of communicative functions.” System 30: 167–184.
Koller, Veronika
2018 “Critical discourse studies.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, ed. by Bernadette Vine, 27–39. Abingdon: Routledge.
Ladegaard, Hans. J.
2017 The Discourse of Powerlessness and Repression: Life Stories of Domestic Migrant Workers in Hong Kong. London: Routledge.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger
1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lazzaro-Salazar, Mariana
2013 “Investigating identity construction in intercultural health settings in New Zealand.” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.
Locher, Miriam, and Richard J. Watts
2005 “Politeness theory and relational work.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 9–33.
Lønsmann, Dorte, and Kamilla Kraft
2018 “Language in blue-collar workplaces.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, ed. by Bernadette Vine, 138–149. Abingdon: Routledge.
Marra, Meredith
2003 “Decisions in New Zealand business meetings: A sociolinguistic analysis of power at work.” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.
2012 “Disagreeing without being disagreeable: Negotiating workplace communities as an outsider.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1580–1590.
Marra, Meredith, and Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar
2018 “Ethnographic methods in pragmatics.” In Methods in Pragmatics, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Klaus P. Schneider, and Wolfram Bublitz, 343–366. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Marsden, Sharon, and Janet Holmes
2014 “Talking to the elderly in New Zealand residential care settings.” Journal of Pragmatics 64: 17–34.
McDowell, Joanne
(ed) 2020 De-Gendering Gendered Occupations: Analysing Professional Discourse. New York: Routledge.
McDowell, Joanne, and Revert Klattenberg
2019 “Does gender matter? A cross-national investigation of primary class-room discipline.” Gender and Education 31: 947–965.
McEntee-Atalianis, Lisa, and Lia Litosseliti
2017 “Narratives of sex-segregated professional identities.” Narrative Inquiry 27 (1): 1–23.
Metge, Joan
1995 New Growth from Old: The Whānau in the Modern World. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
Mondada, Lorenza
2016 “Operating together: The collective achievement of surgical action.” In Communication in Surgical Practice, ed. by Sarah J. White, and John A. Cartmill, 222–249. Sheffield: Equinox.
Murata, Kazuyo
2014 “An empirical cross-cultural study of humour in business meetings in New Zealand and Japan.” Journal of Pragmatics 60: 251–265.
Pomerantz, Anita, and Barbara J. Fehr
1997 “Conversation analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices.” In Discourse as Social Interaction. Discourse studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Vol. 2, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 64–91. London: Sage.
Riddiford, Nicky, and Jonathan Newton
2010 Workplace Talk in Action: An ESOL Resource. Wellington: School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.
Roberts, Celia
2021 Linguistic Penalties and the Job Interview. Sheffield: Equinox.
Roberts, Celia, Tom Jupp, and Evelyn Davies
1993 Language and Discrimination. London: Routledge.
Sacks, Harvey
1995 Lectures on Conversation. Malden: Blackwell.
Salanoa, Honiara
2020 “The communicative competence of Samoan seasonal workers under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme.” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.
Schnurr, Stephanie
2009 Leadership Discourse at Work: Interaction of Humour, Gender and Workplace Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan.
Schnurr, Stephanie, Meredith Marra, and Janet Holmes
2007 “Being (im)polite in New Zealand workplaces: Māori and Pākehā leaders.” Journal of Pragmatics 39: 712–729.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen
2007 “Theories of identity and the analysis of face.” Journal of Pragmatics 39: 639–656.
Stokoe, Elizabeth, Derek Edwards, and Helen Edwards
2016 “ ‘No comment’ responses to questions in police investigative interviews.” In Discursive Constructions of Consent in the Legal Process, ed. by Susan Ehrlich, Diana Eades, and Janet Ainsworth, 289–318. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sue, Derald Wing, Christina M. Capodilupo, Gina C. Torino, Jennifer M. Bucceri, Aisha M. B. Holder, Kevin L. Nadal, and Marta Esquilin
2007 “Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice.” American Psychologist 62 (4): 271–286.
Svennevig, Jan
(ed) 2012 “Interaction in Workplace Meetings.” Special issue, Discourse Studies 14 (1).
Tannen, Deborah
1994 Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work. New York: William Morrow.
Vine, Bernadette
2004 Getting Things Done at Work: The Discourse of Power in Workplace Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Wenger, Etienne
1998 Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, Nick
2018 “Linguistic ethnography.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, ed. by Bernadette Vine, 40–50. Abingdon: Routledge.
Woolard, Kathryn A.
1998 “Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry.” In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, ed. by Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity, 3–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yamada, Haru
1992 American and Japanese Business Discourse: A Comparison of Interactional Styles. Norwood: Ablex.
Yates, Lynda
2005 “Negotiating an institutional identity: Individual differences in NS and NNS teacher directives.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics: Exploring Institutional Talk, ed. by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, and Beverly S. Hartford, 67–98. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Zimmerman, Don H.
1992 “The Interactional Organization of Calls for Emergency Assistance.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 418–469. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.