Module description
What is the module about?
Language is absolutely fundamental to organising and organisations. Take some of the basic features of management, such as negotiating, persuading, or resolving problems – they are all done using language. Furthermore, distinctive patterns of language and social interaction emerge in different organisational settings, and these patterns shape how we understand and experience work, organisations, and, indeed, products and services. As a result, an interdisciplinary research field has emerged to explore this perspective on ‘language as action’, and to interrogate the unique properties of ‘organisational discourse’ and ‘institutional talk.’
This module engages with some of the key approaches and findings from this research field to consider how language and social interaction underpin organisational life. The module is structured around studies of organisational texts (e.g., recruitment brochures, mission statements and adverts), as well as studies of social interaction in organisational settings (e.g., business meetings, call centres and sales encounters). Lectures focus on the key issues, studies and perspectives. In the tutorials, students will participate in the analysis of a range of organisational texts and recordings. A feature of the module that students most value is the opportunity to develop their own study of organisational discourse or institutional talk.
Who should do this module?
The module will help you to see how studying language and social interaction can inform our understanding of work and organisations, and give you the tools to do it yourself in practice.
The module will also:
- Provide practical research training in qualitative studies of organisational language, interaction and discourse
- Develop analytic skills to deal with rich and complex qualitative data
- Encourage creative thinking to identify and pursue innovative research topics
- Enhance presentation skills (both oral and written) to develop systematic, persuasive and evidence-based arguments
Provisional Lecture Outline
Lecture 1: Introduction to Communication in Organisations
Lecture 2: Organisational discourse
Lecture 3: Institutional talk
Lecture 4: Power and discourse
Lecture 5: The language of call centres
Lecture 6: Discourses of advertising
Lecture 7: Sales and economic interactions
Lecture 8: Multimodality and multisensoriality at work
Lecture 9: Video-mediated work
Lecture 10: Assessment: Student oral presentations
Lecture 11: Feedback and preparation for the written component of the coursework
Assessment details
90% Project
10% Presentation
Teaching pattern
Weekly Lecture
Weekly Tutorial
Suggested reading list
There is no single text that covers all the issues addressed in the module; instead, you will be given a collection of key readings. The following books provide useful background materials:
Tietze, S., L. Cohen and G. Musson (2003) Understanding Organizations through Language. London: Sage.
Mautner, G. (2015) Discourse + Management: Critical perspectives. London: Palgrave.
Llewellyn, N. and J. Hindmarsh (Eds.) (2010) Organisation, Interaction and Practice: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.