‘I’m not a tech person’

This study contributes to existing research on polymedia by probing into what we call academic polymedia, investigating the constant availability of interpersonal, professional, and social media for constructing scholarly personas. Drawing on the technobiographical narratives of a group of Hong Kong bilingual academics, we analyze academics’ perceptions of their media choices as situated in their professional polymedia environments. In particular, we examine how choices between public and private media shape academic persona development, and the way polymedia engagement impacts the participants’ language choice for academic purposes. This study sheds light on existing research on workplace discourse and identity in sociolinguistics by offering a polymedia dimension that draws on people’s media ideology in developing their professional identities.

Legal Effects of Language Issues in Workplace Discourse: Evidence from Australia’s Fairwork Commission

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between law and language in workplace discourse. To this end, a number of pronouncements issued by Australia’s Fair Work Commission – which mostly deals with employment litigation – are examined to see to what extent language-related problems affect both the employment relationship and the decision handed down by lawmakers when evaluating the cases submitted.

An Analysis of Mood and Modality in Workplace Discourse and the Impact of Power Differentials: Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

This qualitative study examines the interpersonal meaning of Mood and modality, specifically within the context of workplace discourse, and the influence of power on communication strategies. Its focus is to investigate the Mood structures used by interlocuters and to understand how a speaker’s choice of Mood demonstrates various interpersonal meanings. In addition, the paper explores the concept of modality, assessing the different ways in which speakers communicate to express their attitudes and judgments by employing the grammatical resources of modalization (probability) and modulation (inclination and obligation). Data were collected from an episode of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, a popular television series filmed in the U.S., in which Gordon Ramsay, a well-known professional chef, visits failing restaurant establishments. The data were transcribed verbatim before being analyzed to identify the use of Mood structures and modality, as well as whether the speakers’ power levels and social roles influenced their use of language. The results showed that interlocutors with a higher level of power, i.e., superiors in the work setting, typically used different Mood structures of the clause and different types of modality compared to those with less power, i.e., subordinates. These findings indicate that those in power play the role of instruction-givers, while those with less power are instruction-receivers. Interlocutors who are in power appear to have more opportunities to express their attitudes and judgments than their subordinates. As a result, they can influence workplace and business communication by making it more or less formal.

Balancing power and solidarity through indirectness: A case study of Russian and Kazakh meeting chairs

The study combines Brown and Levinson’s (1987) work on politeness techniques and Tannen’s (1981, 1993) work on indirectness and power-solidarity dynamics to extend research on workplace discourse. I examine how two female Russian-speaking chairs (one of Russian and another of Kazakh origin) differently perform face-threatening acts (FTAs) of criticisms and directives during teacher meetings at a community college in Kazakhstan. Specifically, the Russian chair employs fewer politeness techniques (e. g., hedging with “please”), issuing criticisms and orders with no mitigation, thereby foregrounding the power asymmetry within the group. The lack of mitigation surfaces through explicit usage of pronouns (“I” vs. “you”); action verbs inflected for the 2nd person plural and imperative mood; words with a negative and moral connotation; and phonological modifications for emphasis. Differently, the Kazakh chair utilizes a larger number of politeness techniques, including hedging (e. g., “please”, “unfortunately”), impersonalizing negative actions (through indefinite pronouns and agentless verbs), and manipulating of tense and space. Thus, she performs indirect FTAs that highlight the solidarity aspect of group relations. I relate these findings to studies of management leadership in post-Soviet states that have revealed the tendency of Kazakh managers to use a nurturing leadership style.

“What we do and don’t do”

Academic language and learning advisers are employed by many Australasian universities to help students develop their academic literacies, that is, the knowledge and skills needed to be successful at university both within and beyond disciplinary contexts. At the Academic Skills and Learning Centre of the Australian National University, a team of Learning Advisers spend a third of their time consulting students individually, often about a piece of writing to be submitted for assessment. There is much concern in the literature about the pedagogical effectiveness of the one-to-one session, yet little that examines it and its discourses as sites of identity genesis. This study examines Advisers’ post-consultation notes, and through a community of practice approach to workplace discourse finds that discussion of “what we do and don’t do” is the nexus at which Advisers negotiate the discourses of their organization, define boundaries around their work, and develop their professional identities.