1. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 1 Critical Issues in Information Systems BUSS 951 Supplement 3 Language in the Workplace

2. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 2 Agenda this supplement examines a major case study establishing the importance of communication in the workplace use the results of a study conducted into a motor repair in Denmark and the Postal Giro in Sweden we will then look at a Simple Payroll system and try to look deduce what texts might be occurring from a SFL perspective

3. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 3 Work Language Theoretical & Methodological Issues

4. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 4 Work Language Classification: Speech vs Writing we know that language patterns are different if we are using written or spoken texts! written and spoken texts use different linguistic resources and encode different types of meanings (that is why we have writing as well as speech in most cultures) spoken texts are especially bound to the situation in which they are found- the material setting or physical space in which a text occurs is very important for speech

5. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 5 Work Language How are texts related to each other (1) in order to make sense of the language activity we also need to know how texts relate to each other or are associated to each other in the workplace eg. how does a spoken text such as a service encounter with a customer relate to a written text in the form of a bill! what language or action glues these together

6. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 6 Work Language How are texts related to each other (2) their might be direct references to texts- intertextuality links between different texts in workplaces or texts might be directly implicated with each other by the actions that people perform in workplaces

7. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 7 Work Language at the Postal Giro

8. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 8 Work Language the following classification of work language is based on a work langauge study of the Postal Giro in Sweden by colleagues (Berit Holmqvist and Peter Andersen)

9. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 9 Work Language for work situations in general, the following properties are important: the organisational tasks the means of production: tools, raw materials, the social relations, the roles: authority or skill based, profitability, efficient exploitation of resources

10. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 10 Work Language Classification we can classify the kinds of language that we see in the workplace based on purpose this would be not much different to what an analyst might do when doing this kind of analysis in workplaces we need to know:

11. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 11 Work Language Classification based upon the purpose of communication, related to: work organization, task, and social relations the roles of the speakers the economic aspects are also important in understanding work communication.

12. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 12 Work Language Organization of Work (1) establishing and maintaining specific types of cooperation. allocating tasks to the employees work distribution aims at dividing a task or set of tasks among several persons, some of the employees are idle the amount of work is too large to be finished within the deadline utterances used to organise workers to take over a part of a job for some reason work coordination on the same task changing work priority of tasks

13. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 13 Work Language Organization of Work (2) control language aims at verifying that the task is carried out correctly or in the manner ordered supervisory language aims at controlling the manner and speed of the work reporting language aims at informing the person in charge about the current the work state

14. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 14 Work Language Problem Solving; Teaching and Instruction task-problem solving denotes utterances that are used to solve an unexpected problem in the workplace formalized teaching and casual instruction occurring among employees on the shopfloor instruction aims at giving an employee knowledge about tasks or work organization

15. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 15 Work Language Talk-in-the-work (1) reproduction of Social Relations, Common Knowledge, and Solidarity does not refer to the actual work in which it is embedded, but its topic is still events in the place of work serves to reproduce common knowledge and social relations

16. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 16 Work Language Talk-in-the-work (2) Examples include: Greetings aim at reproducing social relationships and keeping the channels of communication open Comments on a specific problem serve to establish a common understanding of what is the problem or its solution Exclamations are used as outlets for emotions and at the same time as signals to co-workers about work progress.

17. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 17 Work Language Work Machinery and Tools; Questions Requesting tools serves to give information about the availability and location of tools. Warnings serve to protect tools, raw materials, or humans from damage or accidents. how to account for these various modes of language use? we need to account for these many different forms of language activity we need to understand that language changes situationally and culturally

18. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 18 Some theory behind Language in the Workplace

19. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 19 Context of Situation we understand that field, tenor and mode are related to the immediate situation- the so called Context of Situation linguists refer to the kind of language patterns associated with Context of Situation as Register

20. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 20 Register versus Dialect (1) Register is related to, but distinct from, Dialect Register is an important aspect of what Systems Analysts do (although they are completely unaware of it) Register can be used to formally identify different groups in organisations

21. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 21 Register versus Dialect (2) language variety according to use what you are doing, the nature of activity in which language is functioning language variety according to user what you habitually speak determined by who you are geographically and socially

22. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 22 Register versus Dialect (3) reflects social order in the sense of social process (types of social activity) registers differ according to semantics, therefore lexico-grammar (but rarely phonology) reflects social order in the sense of social structure (types of hierarchy) dialects differ according to phonetics phonology vocabulary (lexis) grammar (slighly)

23. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 23 Simple Payroll Example Source: Walker 1994, 131

24. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 24 Simple Payroll Example to give us an idea of how detailed an work language analysis might be we can attempt to deduce the kinds of texts which might be collected associated with a simple system strictly speaking this is an invalid way of conducting an analysis because we should be actually collecting texts and analysing them! but we can use our knowledge of what these systems are like in order to come to some conclusions

25. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 25 Amend Pay Awards Amend Employees Details Produce Group Certificate Calculate Wages Pay Taxes Pay Health Insurance Arrange Payment Record Times Arbitration Court Bank Health Fund Taxation Office 6 Employee Pay Awards Amend Tax Scales New Tax Scales New Tax Scales Tax Payments Insurance Payments Withdrawal New Award New Award Pay Payments Made Changed Details Changed Details Group Certificate Tax Scales Wage Rate, Deductions Employee Times Worked Checked Times Payroll Wages and Taxes Paid Payroll

26. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 26 Simple Payroll Example Locate Texts, Identify Field, Tenor & Mode our aim is to infer or deduce the kinds of texts that are involved in each part of the DFD we will apply the definition of a text, and field, tenor and mode introduced in the tutorials

27. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 27 Simple Payroll Example also identify Material Setting for each Text to these terms we add another- each text occurs in a material setting this can be defined as the place where a text is either produced and/or consumed a simple example of a material setting for a tax payment enquiry (spoken language text) is the tax office

28. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 28 Simple Payroll Example Functional Segmentation of DFD in order to be able to discuss the texts associated with the Payroll DFD we need to break into smaller units- a procedure called functional segmentation each segment is numbered using Roman Numerals I-VI and colour code the DFD accordingly

29. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 29 Simple Payroll Example Functional Segmentation of DFD IPay Awards IIEmployee Wage Payments IIIPay Government Charges IVGroup Certificates VEmployee Amendment VITax Scales

30. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 30VI II III IV Amend Pay Awards Amend Employees Details Produce Group Certificate Calculate Wages Pay Taxes Pay Health Insurance Arrange Payment Record Times Arbitration Court Bank Health Fund Taxation Office 6 Employee Pay Awards Amend Tax Scales New Tax Scales New Tax Scales Tax Payments Insurance Payments Withdrawal New Award New Award Pay Payments Made Changed Details Changed Details Group Certificate Tax Scales Wage Rate, Deductions Employee Times Worked Checked Times Payroll Wages and Taxes Paid Payroll V VI

31. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 31 Simple Payroll Example I Pay Awards: MS, Texts,F,T,M Arbitration Court (1/5) Pay Hearings Agenda: F: what is to be discussed in forthcoming Pay Hearing T: union representatives, managers, industrial relations personnel, lawyers M: written language Minutes F: record of what was discussed in the specified Pay Hearing T: union representatives, managers, industrial relations personnel, lawyers M: written language

32. Clarke, R. J (2001) S951-03: 32 Simple Payroll Example I Pay Awards: MS, Texts,F,T,M Arbitration Court (2/5) Pay Hearings Contracts Recommendations Negotiations Judgements