Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 1 Critical Issues in Information Systems BUSS 951 Supplementary 5 Tenor: Whose involved in the Text?

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 2 Tenor Defined the social role relationships played by interactants examples: student/lecturer, customer/salesperson, friend/friend you know instinctively that the social role you are playing has an effect on how you use language

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 3 Tenor Defined you are unlikely do speak to the greengrocer the way you speak to a priest SFL suggests a number of ways for finding out in texts ‘whose involved in the social activity’

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 4 Tenor Defined three different continua are used: power affective involvement contact

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 5 Tenor Power Continuum power continuum is used to classify situations according to whether the roles we are playing are those in which we are equal or unequal power POWER equal unequal boss/employee lecturer/student parent/child friend/friend

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 6 Tenor Contact Continuum contact continuum is used to classify situations by whether the roles we are playing bring us into frequent or occasional contact CONTACT frequent occasional grocer/customer lecturer/student spouses

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 7 Tenor Affective Involvement Continuum affective involvement is used to classify situations by whether the roles we are playing bring us into high or low affective involvement (high or low emotional levels) AFFECTIVE INVOLVEMENT high low grocer/customer work situations friends lovers family

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 8 Tenor these aspects are more than just interesting descriptions of interpersonal aspects of situations there is a direct claim being made about language and situational context

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 9 Tenor these aspects of our role occupation in a given situation will have an impact on how we use language in management and information systems we often use terms like formal and informal but SFL enables us to theorise these terms...

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 10 Formal -vs- Informal Situations informal situations include: equal power frequent contact high affective involvement formal situations include: unequal, hierachical power infrequent, or one-off, contact low affective involvement

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 11 Formal -vs- Informal Situations the language that we use can vary quite significantly from informal to formal situations informal situations: vocabulary used that expresses attitude- fantastic, shitty, unbelievable attitudinal lexis used for positive or negative evaluation ‘purr’ or ‘snarl’ words

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 12 Formal -vs- Informal Situations formal situations: tend to keep attitudes to ourselves when we express feelings we use ‘objective language’: unfortunate, surprising lexis varies in its degree of standardization: chokies (informal- slang or abbreviations used) or chocolates (formal- neutral or acronyms) politeness markers used

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 13 Tenor Vocatives vocatives are terms of address- the words that people call each other when for example, they wish to get each others attention: Dear Sir Your Royal Highness Hey You! choice of vocative reveals important tenor dimensions

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 14 Tenor Vocatives when power is equal, vocative use is reciprocal- eg. if I call you by your first name, you will call me by mine where power is unequal, vocative use will be non-reciprocal eg. you may call your Doctor, Dr. Jones, but he’ll call you by your first name

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 15 Tenor Nicknames; Vocatives when contact is frequent, nick-names are often used Johnno [Johnathon], Pete [Peter], Shirl [Shirley] where contact is infrequent, often no vocatives are used buying bread- no vocatives used

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 16 Tenor Vocatives when affective involvement is high- terms of endearment may be used Georgie-Porgy, Petie-Pie, Honey Bunch, Darl where affective involvement is low, we use formal ‘given’ names

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 17 Example 1 Hey, Freddie! Get off your butt and give me a hand here. Shove that chair over closer to the desk

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 18 Example 2 Oh, Dr. Smith. I’m just trying to tidy my office up a bit and I wondered if you’d mind maybe giving me a quick hand to move some furniture? If you’ve got time, I mean. It won’t take a moment. Now if we could just move this chair over a bit nearer to the desk there. Thanks very much

Clarke, R. J (2001) X951-5: 19 Why bother? during analysis we could apply these ideas to transcripts of user interaction, systems design, and management decision making gives us the ability to work out a lot about the social arrangement of situations and the roles people play in them