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Workplace Discourse provides an overview of the rapidly developing field of spoken and written workplace interaction, taking a fresh perspective on research methods and key issues in the field.. It examines discourse in a wide variety of workplace contexts using both genre analysis and a corpus-driven approach. The book draws on Koester''s previous research, but examines the current state of workplace discourse more widely. It provides a descriptive account of the linguistic characteristics of workplace discourse within their social and organizational contexts, with illustrative extracts from real texts and naturally occurring spoken interactions. It showcases specific issues at the forefront of current research and practice in this area: the use of English as a lingua franca, the importance of relationship building and the teaching applications of research.
List of contents
Part I: Describing workplace discourse \ 1. What is workplace discourse? \ 2. Workplace Genres: Activities and Texts in Workplace Discourse \ 3. What can a corpus tell us about workplace discourse? \ 4. Working together and getting people to do things: directives, procedural discourse and training \ Part II: Issues and applications in Workplace Discourse \ 5. Relationship-building at work \ 6. Communicating across cultures: English as a lingua franca and communication in the multi-ethnic workplace \ 7. Teaching English for professional, occupational and business purposes \ Bibliography \ Index
About the author
Almut Koester is Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Birmingham, UK
She is author of Investigating Workplace Discourse (London, Routledge, 2006) and The Language of Work (London: Routledge, 2004)
