The enactment of biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand has varied greatly over the time since colonial settlement, and it is still a debated and evolving concept. In this article we examine practices adopted by one Māori Chief Executive... more
The enactment of biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand has varied greatly over the time since colonial settlement, and it is still a debated and evolving concept. In this article we examine practices adopted by one Māori Chief Executive Officer in two different workplaces at two different points in time to illustrate this process in action. Our analysis examines the way he opens meetings of his senior management teams, demonstrating the way he adopts flexible and context-sensitive approaches, taking account of exactly where each organisation and each individual, whatever their ethnicity and varied cultural experience, is located along the pathway to biculturalism. His introduction of Māori tikanga (ways of doing things) and practices into both workplaces sends the message that Māori culture and language are valued, while the differences between the two organisations, including a greater focus on bilingualism as part of biculturalism more recently, reflects shifting attitudes in wide...
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Contrastive pragmatics encourages a focus on variation in the ways that different groups enact their distinctive cultural values and norms. In New Zealand, Pākehā (European-based) ways of doing things are the norm, taken-for-granted and... more
Contrastive pragmatics encourages a focus on variation in the ways that different groups enact their distinctive cultural values and norms. In New Zealand, Pākehā (European-based) ways of doing things are the norm, taken-for-granted and rarely questioned or even noted unless someone “breaks the rules”. For minority group members, however, including the indigenous Māori people, Pākehā norms are ever-present reminders of their non-dominant position. In the Māori workplace contexts that we have researched, awareness of these norms is particularly apparent and often attracts explicit comment. This paper explores the insights provided by comments from both Pākehā and Māori about workplace norms in New Zealand and the attitudes of some Māori employees to the hegemonic influence of Pākehā in workplace interaction, as well as providing some indications of seeds of change.
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The School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington conducts research and teaching in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Writing and Deaf Studies. It incorporates a Deaf Studies Research Unit,... more
The School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington conducts research and teaching in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Writing and Deaf Studies. It incorporates a Deaf Studies Research Unit, which undertakes research on topics relating to deaf people and their language in New Zealand, and the New Zealand Dictionary Centre, set up in partnership with Oxford University Press, which provides a base for research into New Zealand lexicography and aspects of language in New Zealand. It also incorporates an English Language Institute, which specialises in teaching English language courses and teacher education programmes. A particular strength of the School's makeup is the opportunity to engage in research which benefits and is benefited by both theoretical and practical approaches to issues in linguistics and applied linguistics. This report describes one of a number of examples of the productive integration of language teaching and lang...
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... Forget Mars and Venus, let's get back to earth! ... positive responses could simply indicate his acceptance of Jan's advice, using such explicitly supportive feedback also assumes a certain level of... more
... Forget Mars and Venus, let's get back to earth! ... positive responses could simply indicate his acceptance of Jan's advice, using such explicitly supportive feedback also assumes a certain level of solidarity between them, and therefore functions as a strategy to put him back on a ...
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Many aspects of the use of the Maori language are highly controversial in New Zealand, and humour is one way in which the sensitivities relating to the language can be negotiated in everyday workplace contexts. This article examines the... more
Many aspects of the use of the Maori language are highly controversial in New Zealand, and humour is one way in which the sensitivities relating to the language can be negotiated in everyday workplace contexts. This article examines the use of the Maori language by Maori and Pakeha participants during humorous episodes at staff meetings in a Maori organisation in New Zealand. The episodes analysed include humour indirectly relating to the Maori language, where the language is not the topic of discussion but its use plays an important implicit role, as well as humour directly focussed on the Maori language, where use of the language is the explicit topic of the humour. Use of the Maori language in these episodes includes Maori greetings, pronunciation of Maori words, the use of Maori lexical items, more extended stretches of Maori, Maori discursive features, and lexical items in English with Maori cultural connotations. The Maori language is used in a humorous context by both Maori and Pakeha staff members, in similar and different ways. Humorous episodes using the Maori language appear to serve a range of functions, including releasing tension (e.g. relating to sensitive issues around the Maori language), marking ingroups and outgroups (and sometimes bonding between the two), referencing Maori cultural norms, and constructing Maori identity.
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The process of apprenticeship is one means of entering a new profession. Along with the technical skills entailed in learning a new job, apprentices need to acquire proficiency in appropriate ways of communicating in order to construct a... more
The process of apprenticeship is one means of entering a new profession. Along with the technical skills entailed in learning a new job, apprentices need to acquire proficiency in appropriate ways of communicating in order to construct a convincing professional identity. Data collected on a New Zealand building site provides evidence of the extent of the situated learning in which building apprentices engage. Becoming an accepted member of the community of practice centrally involves learning to recognize and respond appropriately to a wide range of differently encoded directives, for instance. But membership also entails developing an understanding of more subtle interactional norms, such as acceptable topics of small talk and appropriate forms and quantities of humour on the job. This article examines evidence that suggests these understandings develop gradually as apprentices move from peripheral to core status in their chosen professional community of practice. We also explore t...
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This paper analyses the ways in which professional migrants from different cultural backgrounds, using English as an Additional Language, manage the demands of constructing a positive professional identity while also negotiating the... more
This paper analyses the ways in which professional migrants from different cultural backgrounds, using English as an Additional Language, manage the demands of constructing a positive professional identity while also negotiating the complex relational aspects of workplace talk. The well-established methodology of the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project was used to collect relevant data from migrant workers interacting in professional New Zealand organisations. The analysis focuses on the socio-pragmatic strategies used by two skilled migrants to manage identity construction through social and transactional aspects of workplace interaction. The implications of their different approaches to the challenge are discussed.
ABSTRACTYou know, like the tag question and the parenthetical I think, has been regarded as a linguistic hedging device, and consequently as a “women's language” form. This paper... more
ABSTRACTYou know, like the tag question and the parenthetical I think, has been regarded as a linguistic hedging device, and consequently as a “women's language” form. This paper describes a range of forms and functions expressed by you know, as well as its use by women and men in a corpus of spontaneous speech. While there is no difference in this corpus in the total number of occurrences of you know produced by women and men, there are interesting contrasts in the most frequent functions expressed by you know in female and male usage. Finally, the possibility that negative stereotypes may distort perceptions of women's usage is briefly discussed. (Sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, contextual styles, women's and men's speech)
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... In our Language in the Workplace Project research we use the following definition of verbalhumour. ... A wide range of contextual and linguistic clues are relevant to identifying instances ofhumour, including the speaker's... more
... In our Language in the Workplace Project research we use the following definition of verbalhumour. ... A wide range of contextual and linguistic clues are relevant to identifying instances ofhumour, including the speaker's tone of voice and the ... Journal of Pragmatics 2007;39:29-49 ...
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The analysis identifies three factors, which may contribute to the construction of gender identity in extended jointly constructed humor sequences. Firstly, the pragmatic force of contributions is relevant: a distinction between... more
The analysis identifies three factors, which may contribute to the construction of gender identity in extended jointly constructed humor sequences. Firstly, the pragmatic force of contributions is relevant: a distinction between supportive as opposed to contestive humor sequences ...
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A study investigated the variety of ways in which managers use language in sociolinguistically sensitive ways to get things done at work. Drawing on a database of over 300 interactions in a range of New Zealand workplaces, aspects of... more
A study investigated the variety of ways in which managers use language in sociolinguistically sensitive ways to get things done at work. Drawing on a database of over 300 interactions in a range of New Zealand workplaces, aspects of power (how things are accomplished), politeness (the importance of small talk), and solidarity (the difference humor makes in social relationships) in the workplaces are analyzed. Most of the data come from small, relatively informal workplace meetings and discussions fulfilling a wide variety of work-related purposes: planning; conveying instructions; seeking advice; checking reports; solving problems or accomplishing tasks; providing feedback; and evaluating proposals. Social talk and telephone calls and some longer meetings were also analyzed. Participant background and contextual information was also gathered. Results reveal strategies used by managers, including overt and explicit strategies that both reflect and enact the manager's authority i...
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It can be argued that one important criterion for evaluating leadership is the management of innovation and change. But there are many different ways of accomplishing organisational change and effective leaders select strategies that are... more
It can be argued that one important criterion for evaluating leadership is the management of innovation and change. But there are many different ways of accomplishing organisational change and effective leaders select strategies that are sensitive to the specific sociocultural contexts in which they are operating. Conceptualised within a social realist framework, this chapter examines the way leadership is discursively constructed in workplace meetings, with specific consideration of how each of three leaders responds to the challenge of managing innovation and change in their particular workplace environment. The three case studies provide material which facilitates consideration of ways in which society-wide gender and culture stereotypes interact with traditional ‘hero leader’ stereotypes (Jackson and Parry, The hero manager: Learning from New Zealand’s top chief executives, Penguin NZ, Auckland, 2001) in specific contexts. The data is drawn from the Wellington Language in the Workplace Corpus, focussing on interviews and recorded meetings in three different New Zealand organisations where the CEO or Managing Director is present, and where there is evidence of forward planning. The analysis focuses on potentially gendered and cultural dimensions of leadership behaviour, and challenges the stereotype of the ‘hero leader’ with evidence of dynamic distributed leadership.
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Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra Introduction1 Humour is a multi-functional and Xexible discourse strategy which pervades every-day talk. This paper illustrates some of the... more
Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra Introduction1 Humour is a multi-functional and Xexible discourse strategy which pervades every-day talk. This paper illustrates some of the complex functions of humour in talk ...
Research Interests: Sociology and Small Talk
... Though it occurs in a few names (Josephine and Caroline), the only well-established form is heroine. Baron (1986, 123) mentions landgravine and margravine (forms from the Dutch and German suffix -in referring to the wife of a... more
... Though it occurs in a few names (Josephine and Caroline), the only well-established form is heroine. Baron (1986, 123) mentions landgravine and margravine (forms from the Dutch and German suffix -in referring to the wife of a nobleman) and Lehnert (1971) adds palsgravine. ...
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... Women, men, and politeness. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Holmes, Janet (b. 1947, d. ----. PUBLISHER: Longman (London and New York). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1995. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0582063620 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES... more
... Women, men, and politeness. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Holmes, Janet (b. 1947, d. ----. PUBLISHER: Longman (London and New York). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1995. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0582063620 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): viii, 254 p ...
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Page 1. Doubt and Certainty in ESL Textbooks JANET HOLMES ... 9, No. 1 © Oxford University Press 1988 Page 2. 22 DOUBT AND CERTAINTY IN ESLTEXTBOOKS difficult area. ...
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... Item Type, Book Item. Title, Language and gender. Authors, Wareing, Shân. Uncontrolled Keywords, language, gender. ... Coates, Jennifer (1993) Women, Men and Language, 2nd edn, London: Longman. Mills, Sara (1995) Feminist Stylistics,... more
... Item Type, Book Item. Title, Language and gender. Authors, Wareing, Shân. Uncontrolled Keywords, language, gender. ... Coates, Jennifer (1993) Women, Men and Language, 2nd edn, London: Longman. Mills, Sara (1995) Feminist Stylistics, London: Routledge.
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We are happy to present the Proceedings of the 5th Biennial International Gender and Language Association Conference, IGALA5. The Conference was held at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand from 3 to 5 July 2008. The... more
We are happy to present the Proceedings of the 5th Biennial International Gender and Language Association Conference, IGALA5. The Conference was held at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand from 3 to 5 July 2008. The International Gender and ...
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... when when Ben and Madeline had taken Deb to the crematorium 16. ... norms for appropriate interaction derive ultimately from the norms which characterize interaction in Māori communities and on the marae (Salmond, 1974, 1975; Metge,... more
... when when Ben and Madeline had taken Deb to the crematorium 16. ... norms for appropriate interaction derive ultimately from the norms which characterize interaction in Māori communities and on the marae (Salmond, 1974, 1975; Metge, 1976, 1995; Metge and Kinloch, 1978). ...
ABSTRACT Power and Politeness in the Workplace has become established as a seminal text for courses in language and professional communication. This Routledge Linguistics Classic is here reissued with a new preface from the authors,... more
ABSTRACT Power and Politeness in the Workplace has become established as a seminal text for courses in language and professional communication. This Routledge Linguistics Classic is here reissued with a new preface from the authors, covering the methods of analysis, an update on the Language in the Workplace project and a look at the work in the context of recent research. This text provides insights into the way we all talk at work, including a wealth of material illustrating the way people communicate with each other in their ordinary everyday encounters in their workplaces. The analysis focuses, in particular, on how and why people "do" power and politeness in the workplace, and examines the discourse strategies involved in balancing the competing demands of meeting workplace objectives and getting things done on time with maintaining good collegial workplace relationships. Drawing on a large and very varied corpus of data collected in a wide range of workplaces, the authors explore specific types of workplace talk, such as giving advice and instructions, solving problems, running meetings and making decisions. Attention is also paid to the important contribution of less obviously relevant types of workplace talk such as humour and small talk, to the construction of effective workplace relationships. In the final chapter some of the practical implications of the analyses are identified. Power and Politeness in the Workplace continues to be a vital read for researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of applied linguistics and communication studies.
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“A woman’s place is in the home”, famously declared Aeschylus in 467 B.C. And while this dictum is robustly rejected by women in many societies, the “gender order” continues to exert inexorable pressure to conform to gendered societal... more
“A woman’s place is in the home”, famously declared Aeschylus in 467 B.C. And while this dictum is robustly rejected by women in many societies, the “gender order” continues to exert inexorable pressure to conform to gendered societal norms (Connell 1987, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2014). In addition, particular societies have specific ideologies which impose further societal constraints. In New Zealand, one such constraint is the egalitarian ethic, often described as the “tall poppy syndrome” (Lipson 1948 [2011], Jackson and Parry 2001), which demands that “everyone should be the same and if they are not they should, at the very least, pretend to be” (Bonisch-Brednich 2008: 6). We argue that both these constraints require women in particular to play down any superior abilities, knowledge or skills, and to avoid self-promotion.
So how do New Zealand women leaders deal with societal pressures to stay in their gendered, i.e. typically subordinate, place, and avoid self-promotion, whilst enacting an effective leadership identity? As Coupland (2001: 16) notes, participants “orient variably and creatively” to normative institutional constraints and thus case studies are an effective exploratory methodology. Adopting a critical realist framework, and drawing on data from three very different professional contexts, we use an interactional sociolinguistic approach to discourse analysis to identify a range of strategies used by three New Zealand women leaders to juggle these pressures in their everyday workplace interactions. The results suggest that the discursive ways in which these women and their colleagues orient both to the gender order and to the egalitarian ethic are heavily influenced by the particular values of the communities of practice and the specific contexts in which they work. We conclude that detailed discourse analysis of authentic interaction in context is essential to identify and appreciate the diverse strategies used by individuals to negotiate complex societal norms.
References
Bönisch-Brednich, Brigitte, 2008. Watching the Kiwis: New Zealander’s rules of social interaction – an introduction. Journal of New Zealand Studies Special Issue: Watching the Kiwis, 3-15.
Connell, Robert W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Coupland, Nikolas. 2001. Introduction: Sociolinguistic theory and social theory. In Sociolinguistics and social theory, ed. Nikolas Coupland, Srikant Sarangi and Christopher N. Candlin, 1-26. London: Longman.
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet 2014. (2ed.) Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, Brad and Ken Parry. 2001. The hero manager: Learning from New Zealand's top chief executives. Auckland: Penguin.
Lipson, Leslie, 1948, [2011]. The Politics of Equality: New Zealand’s Adventures in Democracy. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
So how do New Zealand women leaders deal with societal pressures to stay in their gendered, i.e. typically subordinate, place, and avoid self-promotion, whilst enacting an effective leadership identity? As Coupland (2001: 16) notes, participants “orient variably and creatively” to normative institutional constraints and thus case studies are an effective exploratory methodology. Adopting a critical realist framework, and drawing on data from three very different professional contexts, we use an interactional sociolinguistic approach to discourse analysis to identify a range of strategies used by three New Zealand women leaders to juggle these pressures in their everyday workplace interactions. The results suggest that the discursive ways in which these women and their colleagues orient both to the gender order and to the egalitarian ethic are heavily influenced by the particular values of the communities of practice and the specific contexts in which they work. We conclude that detailed discourse analysis of authentic interaction in context is essential to identify and appreciate the diverse strategies used by individuals to negotiate complex societal norms.
References
Bönisch-Brednich, Brigitte, 2008. Watching the Kiwis: New Zealander’s rules of social interaction – an introduction. Journal of New Zealand Studies Special Issue: Watching the Kiwis, 3-15.
Connell, Robert W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Coupland, Nikolas. 2001. Introduction: Sociolinguistic theory and social theory. In Sociolinguistics and social theory, ed. Nikolas Coupland, Srikant Sarangi and Christopher N. Candlin, 1-26. London: Longman.
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet 2014. (2ed.) Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, Brad and Ken Parry. 2001. The hero manager: Learning from New Zealand's top chief executives. Auckland: Penguin.
Lipson, Leslie, 1948, [2011]. The Politics of Equality: New Zealand’s Adventures in Democracy. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
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Este artículo ofrece una introducción a la presente entrega de Language in Society que explora la relación del concepto de comunidad de práctica (CP) con términos y marcos teóricos relacionados. Se examinan las características que... more
Este artículo ofrece una introducción a la presente entrega de Language in Society que explora la relación del concepto de comunidad de práctica (CP) con términos y marcos teóricos relacionados. Se examinan las características que constituyen criterios y los rasgos constitutivos de una CP; el artículo apunta a cómo un marco de CP se distingue de otros marcos sociolingüísticos y de psicología social, incluyendo la teoría de identidad social, comunidad de habla, red social y aproximaciones sociales constructivistas. PALABRAS CLAVE: comunidad de práctica, comunidad de habla, género, sexo, práctica social, sociolingüística etnográfica, análisis del discurso El término "comunidad de práctica" (CP) recientemente ha asumido su forma dentro del léxico sociolingüístico. El propósito del tema de Language in Society es dar un análisis a la variación de la lengua, al discurso y al uso de la lengua que ilustra la potencialidad de este concepto (y también los límites) como base teórica y metodológica para la investigación. Generalmente, no es de gran ayuda añadir un término a un campo a menos que se dedique a alcanzar algún propósito cuya utilidad sea demostrable. El término "comunidad de práctica" tiene una fuerte similitud al término "comunidad de habla"-un concepto que ha demostrado ser una herramienta útil y productiva para la investigación de la heterogeneidad ordenada de la lengua en su escenario social-; así, se debe mostrar cómo la CP de alguna manera nos acerca más a nuestra meta de entender las restricciones sobre la naturaleza de la variación del lenguaje. Además, algunos sociolingüistas pueden ver en la CP una herramienta para la descripción de la variación de la lengua que tiene una fuerte semejanza a los principios fundamentales de la teoría de la identidad social. La distinción entre las identidades intergrupales e interpersonales ha sido la base para la investigación en psicología social por más de dos décadas. Por lo tanto, debe demostrarse que la noción de CP nos proporciona algo más que la teoría de la identidad social y que puede ser una ayuda directa para comprender el comportamiento humano y, particularmente, el comportamiento lingüístico. Quienes escriben para esta entrega presentan un trabajo que puede ser caracterizado como investigación de la relación entre lengua y género, y todos ellos trabajan con datos conversacionales; sin embargo, los grupos con los que trabajan difieren cualitativamente. Esas diferencias cualitativas iluminarán la contribución de lo que un análisis de CP puede hacer por el estudio sobre lengua y sociedad. Los propósitos principales de este artículo introductorio son * Artículo tomado de Language in Society, Cambridge University Press, 28, jun. 1999: 173-183.