Singapore University of Social Sciences

Language in the Workplace

Language in the Workplace (ELG368)

Synopsis

ELG368 Language in the Workplace introduces students to the central topics and current trends surrounding the use of language in organisations. It examines workplace discourse to understand workplace interaction and the role of language in everyday organisational activity, such as communicating tasks, establishing and maintaining rapport with co-workers, exercising leadership, negotiating power relations, and the construction of individual and collective identities. The course will equip students with analytical tools that can be applied to the examination of workplace communication, and help students understand and interrogate the contextual and cultural constraints surrounding communication in organisational and professional settings.

Level: 3
Credit Units: 5
Presentation Pattern: Every July

Topics

  • Introducing language in the workplace
  • Approaches to exploring language in the workplace
  • Analysing workplace discourse
  • Examining interpersonal aspects of interaction
  • Directives and requests at work
  • Social talk, humour and narrative at work
  • Complaints, disagreement and conflict talk at work
  • Enacting identity in the workplace
  • Leadership and language at work
  • Gender and language at work
  • Language, social and cultural practices and processes
  • Language, culture and communication at work

Learning Outcome

  • Examine concepts relating to the construction of texts in workplace settings.
  • Discuss the multiple functions of language in the workplace.
  • Deconstruct issues relating to gender, culture and language in the workplace.
  • Analyse professional and corporate discourse in terms of its key features.
  • Apply discourse analysis to workplace and professional communication.
  • Appraise the construction of spoken and written workplace discourse.
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