SYLLABUS
Course name: Language and the Workplace
Academic department: Humanities
Codigo:120102
Academic semester: 2015 -I
Professor (s): Cecilia Montes
E-mail: montes_c@up.edu.pe
I.
Course outline
This course is about language and the workplace, and it is also about diversity. It
helps students become aware of the significant role communication plays in
institutional settings and how different variables such as power, gender and cultural
background express themselves through language, and the way in which they
shape and impact on the organizational culture and environment. A central issue will
be the way in which language can contribute to maintaining, promoting or changing
reality.
To achieve the learning outcomes of the course, students will start out by learning
about the structure and functions of language. Special emphasis will be placed on
language at the discourse level. Secondly, theoretical approaches to conversational
analysis, discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis will be presented and
discussed in class. Issues that play an important role in the way people interact in
the workplace will be presented through real institutional data. These include
gender, small talk, humor, the use of English as a lingua franca, and power and
politeness, among others. Finally, students will learn linguistic tools for text analysis.
This course aims to contribute to the formation of professionals and entrepreneurs
with good communication skills by helping students develop the observational and
analytical capabilities required to identify appropriate ways of interacting in the
workplace.
II. Learning outcomes of the course
At the end of the course it is expected that students be able to:

Have a better understanding of human language and of its structure,
especially at the discourse level.

Gain comprehension of workplace related issues such as gender, power and
politeness and cultural diversity.

Apply their understanding of theoretical approaches to conversational
analysis (CA), discourse analysis (DA), and critical discourse analysis (CDA)
to the analysis of communication data.

Analyze discourse data from different scenarios applying linguistic tools in
order to achieve a better comprehension of the way in which people interact
in institutional settings.
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III.
Competencies developed in the course
The course will contribute to students’ development of the following competencies
considered in the General Profile of UP Graduates:
Comprehensive view
Understanding the way in which cultural diversity, gender, and other aspects of
reality are expressed through language and at the same time constituted by
language will contribute to students’ ability to value diversity and to observe a
situation from different perspectives and analyze it in its multiple dimensions.
Teamwork
Recognizing the value of communication in achieving common goals makes
students more aware of the way in which they can participate constructively in
teamwork, be it in a classroom or in an institutional setting.
Leadership
Developing awareness of the impact of language and communication in the way
humans think and behave will help students establish their goals with more
confidence and inspire others to pursue them as well.
IV.
Course contents
UNIT I: Language
General principles of human language
Beliefs about language
The structure of language
The meaning of language
Language and cognition (language determinism and conceptual metaphors)
UNIT II: A theoretical framework and linguistic tools for the analysis of
discourse
Defining discourse
The structure of conversation and Conversational Analysis (CA)
Discourse Analysis (DA)
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): Norman Fairclough’s social theory of discourse
and the tridimensional model of CDA
UNIT III: Language, diversity and the workplace
Discourse and racism
Gender issues at work
Cultural diversity and language in the working environment
UNIT IV: Language in the workplace
The use of English in the workplace: three cases. BELF, the enforcement of
‘English-only’ rules, and language use in the workplace in Canada
Power and politeness in the workplace
Small talk and humor at work
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Miscommunication and problematic talk in the office
V.
Didactic strategies
A combination of strategies will be used: lecturing, class discussions, collaborative
work, in-class exercises and projects.
VI.
Course assessment
Activity
Class participation
Weighing
and 10% (5% first half
of
semester/5%
second half)
In-class activities 1, 2 Analytic reasoning
15
(5%
each
and 3
exercise)
Mid- term case analysis
Analytic
reasoning,
logical 10%
argumentation, and conceptual
understanding, clear writing.
In-class activities 4,5 Analytic
reasoning,
logical 30 % (10% each
and 6
argumentation, and conceptual exercise)
understanding
Final case analysis
Analytic
reasoning,
logical 35%
argumentation, and conceptual
understanding, clear writing.
VII.
Course assessment dates
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
Mid-term
Activity 4
Activity 5
Activity 6
Final
VIII.
Assessment criteria
Logical
argumentation
conceptual understanding
April 6
April 20
April 29
May 11 or May 13
May 25
June 8
June 22
July 6 or July 8
Reading materials
UNIT I: Language
Obligatory readings
Language Files. Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 8th
Edition. (2001) Thomas W. Stewart and Nathan Vailette (eds.) Department of
Linguistics, The Ohio State University. File 8.1 Speech Acts. 221-226.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press. 3-13.
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Additional readings
Lan, L. and MacGregor, L. (2009) Colour Metaphors in Business Discourse. In
Language for Professional Communication: Research, Practice and Training. V. K
Bhatia, W. Cheng, B. Du-Babcock and J. Lung (eds.) Hong Kong: The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University. 11-24.
Montalbetti, M. and Montes, C. (2009) La crisis financiera y sus metáforas. In
Punto de Equilibrio. Revista de Economía y Negocios de la Universidad del
Pacífico. Año 18. Número 100. Lima: Universidad del Pacífico.
Other sources
Los castellanos del Perú
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsDi5T9Zu_A
UNIT II: A theoretical framework for the analysis of discourse
Obligatory readings
Fairclough, N. L. (1993). Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of
Public Discourse: The Universities. Discourse & Society 4(2), 133-68.
Tannen, D. (1986) That’s not what I meant. How Conversational Style makes or
Breaks Relationships. New York: Ballantine Books.
van Dijk, T. A. (2001) Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and
H. E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers. 352-371.
Additional readings
Fairclough, N. L. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity. Chapter
3: A Social Theory of Discourse. 62-100.
Schiffrin, D. (2001) Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context. In D.
Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse
Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 54-75.
Zavala, V. (2012) El análisis crítico del discurso. In S. de los Heros and M. NiñoMurcia (eds.) Fundamentos y modelos del estudio pragmático y socio pragmático
del español. Washington: Georgetown University Press. 163-186.
UNIT III: Language, diversity and the workplace
Obligatory readings
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Kendall, S. and Tannen, D. (2001) Discourse and Gender. In D. Schiffrin, D.
Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers. 548-567.
Kendall, S. and Tannen, D. (1997) Gender and Language in the Workplace. In R.
Wodak (ed.) Gender and Discourse. Sage Publications. 81-105.
Spencer-Oatey, H. and Xing, J. Managing Rapport in Intercultural Business
Interactions: A Comparison of Two Chinese–British Welcome Meetings.
University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap Electronic
version of article published in Journal of Intercultural Studies. Spencer-Oatey, H. et
al. (2003), Vol. 24, pp. 33-46.
Additional readings
Gumperz, J.J. (2001) Interactional Sociolinguistics: A Personal Perspective.
The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 215-228.
Holmes, J. and Marra, M. (2004) Relational practice in the workplace: Women’s
talk or gendered discourse? Language in Society 33. 377–398.
Scollon, R. and Wong Scollon, S. (2001) Discourse and Intercultural
Communication. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (eds.) The
Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 538-547.
Wodak, R. and Reisigl, M. (2001) Discourse and Racism. In D. Schiffrin, D.
Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers. 373-397.
UNIT IV: Language in the workplace
Obligatory readings
Holmes, J. & Stubbe, M. (2003). Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A
Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk at Work. London: Longman.
Additional readings
Ching-yee Tsang. S. (2008) Is small talk in the workplace really “trivial”? LCOM
Papers 2 69 – 83
Holmes, J. (2000) Doing collegiality and keeping control at work: small talk in
government departments. In J. Coupland (ed.) Small Talk. England: Pearson
Eductaion Limited. 32-61.
Tracy, K. and Naughton, J. M.(2000) Institutional identity-work: a better lens. In
J. Coupland (ed.) Small Talk. England: Pearson Eductaion Limited. 62-83.
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