Language and Culture at Work

Language and Culture at Work provides an overview of the complex role that culture plays in workplace contexts. Eight chapters cover the core aspects of culture at work, comprising: - Face and politeness - Decision making - Leadership - Identity - Gender - Work-life balance The authors draw on a significant corpus of authentic workplace data collected in numerous professional and medical settings involving participants from a variety of different socio-cultural backgrounds (including Chinese, Filipino, Indian, British, Dutch, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Australian). Using in-depth analyses of authentic interactions and interviews, the book proposes a new integrated framework for researching culture at work from a sociolinguistic perspective. This is key reading for researchers and recommended for those working in the areas of sociolinguistics, communication studies, discourse analysis and applied linguistics. It will be of particular interest to students of professional and workplace communication, intercultural communication and intercultural pragmatics.

Schnurr, Stephanie; Zayts, Olga

1. Language and culture at work. An introduction 2. Making it work. Negotiating face and politeness at work 3. The complexities of decision making. A question of culture1? 4. Leadership. A 'cultural' activity? 5. Moving beyond stereotypes. Constructing and negotiating identities at work 6. Gender. The interplay between the 'local' and the 'global' 7. Work-life balance. Juggling different expectations 8. Understanding language and 'culture' at work. Taking stock and looking ahead Appendix