Language in the Workplace. Interactions and Miscommunication

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,8, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Pragmatics, language: English, abstract: This essay deals with language describing important patterns of interactions which are commonplace in the world of work. The central focus lies on the description of the different kinds of speech acts and their functions. This also involves analysing certain social relations, cultural or gender differences and variations between workplaces which influence the interactions. The essay is based upon a research about intercultural workplace communication in Australia that was published in 'Inter-cultural Communication at Work', written by M. Clyne. In our multi-lingual world language plays an important role in creating a particular kind of working atmosphere. Especially the workplace combines the talents of many people with different traditions, habits, ideas, cultures and languages. But no matter if foreigner or not - when joining a new company new technical terminology and group jargon have to be learned in order to keep up the acquired norms for interaction. This is an important issue when wanting to become an accepted colleague.