Words & Actions: Recent Episodes
None
As mentioned in the episode, there is a lot of literature on readability in financial communication and its effects. A few selected studies are:
- Huong Dau, N., Van Nguyen, D., & Thi Thanh Diem, H. (2024). Annual report readability and firms’ investment decisions. Cogent Economics and Finance, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2023.2296230
- Bonsall, S. B., & Miller, B. P. (2017). The impact of narrative disclosure readability on bond ratings and the cost of debt. Review of Accounting Studies, 22, 608-643.
- Li, F. (2008). Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 45 (2-3), 221-247.
Both Bernard and Erika mention PhD work on financial communication. Bernard’s student Nils Smeuninx completed his thesis in 2018; the title is “Dear Stakeholder. Exploring the language of sustainability reporting: A closer look at readability, sentiment and perception”. Erika refers to a PhD study on how small investors respond to plain English as opposed to more complex or less readable text:
- Rennekamp, K. (2012). The complexity of qualitative accounting disclosures: Managers’ choices and investors. Cornell Theses and Dissertations. https://hdl.handle.net/1813/31452
For her part, Veronika co-supervised a student – Xiaoxi Wu, now at Bocconi University in Milan (Italy) – with the Accounting department at Lancaster University (UK), resulting in this article:
- Koller, V., & Wu, X. (2023). Analysts’ identity negotiations and politeness behaviour in earnings callsof U.S. firms with extreme earnings changes. Corporate Communications, 28(5), 769-787. DOI: 10.1108/CCIJ-08-2022-0098
Erika mentions the Juno app, which is designed to explain technical financial language to lay investors. Here is the screenshot of the example she mentions:
Bernard then refers to Veronika’s first foray into financial communication and narrative accounting:
- Merkl-Davies, D. M., & Koller, V. (2012). “Metaphoring” people out of this world: A critical discourse analysis of a chairman’s statement of a UK defence firm. Accounting Forum, 36(3), 178-193.
An agentless passive, the sentence ‘mistakes were made’ helps to avoid blaming anyone for making mistakes. It has become a catchphrase, often used humorously to hint at disaster, including in gifs and memes:
Back to financial communication: Referring to the gendered metaphors that it often features, Erika mentions this book chapter:
- Boggio, C., Fornero, E., Prast, H., & Sanders, J. (2017). Seven ways to knit your portfolio: Is investor communication neutral? In Garzone, G., Catenaccio, P., Grego, K., & Doerr, R. (eds) Specialised and Professional Discourse Across Media and Genres (pp. 137-160). Ledizioni.
A cross-cultural study into accounting language is
- Doupnik, T. S. and Richter, M. (2004), The impact of culture on the interpretation of in-context verbal probability expressions. Journal of International Accounting Research, 3(1), 1-20.
In the first part of the episode, we also discuss tone as an important concept in financial communication. Intriguingly, media studies have shown that coverage in itself is good enough for the so-called “markets” (investors, analysts, fund managers) to have a positive attitude towards a company:
- Engelberg, J. E., & Parsons, C. A. (2011). The causal impact of media in financial markets. Journal of Finance, 66(1), 67-97.
Finally, the 2019 annual report by Lockheed Martin, which includes the CEO statement that we analyse at the end of the episode, can be found here.
We will be back in 2025, with some changes to the podcast – stay tuned!
Listen to the episode hereFull transcription of the episodeWords & Actions episode 30 transcriptDownload
In an episode on business (or is it corporate?) communication textbooks, we cannot help mention the one we wrote ourselves and are currently revising. The first edition of Language in Business, Language at Work is available here.
Other books that we mention in the introduction are:
- Cornelissen, J. P. (2020). Corporate Communication: A guide to theory and practice. (6th ed.) Sage.
- Forman, J. (Ed.). (2022). The Business Communication Profession: Essays on the journeys of leading teacher-scholars. Routledge.
- Mautner, G. (2017). Discourse and Management: Critical perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing. Here is how ChatGPT answered Bernard’s question “Is there a difference between business communication and corporate communication?”:
“Yes, there is a distinction between business communication and corporate communication, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The differences lie in their scope, focus, and the context in which they are applied:
Business Communication:
- Scope: Business communication is a broader term that encompasses all types of communication within a business environment. This includes communication between employees, between different departments, with customers, and with external stakeholders.
- Focus: Business communication focuses on the day-to-day exchange of information, ideas, and messages to facilitate the smooth functioning of a business. It includes various forms of communication, such as emails, memos, reports, meetings, and presentations.
- Audience: The audience for business communication can be internal (within the organization) or external (outside the organization), and the content can range from operational details to marketing messages.
Corporate Communication:
- Scope: Corporate communication is a subset of business communication that specifically deals with the communication strategies and activities of an organization as a whole. It involves managing and conveying a consistent corporate identity and message.
- Focus: Corporate communication is strategic and often focuses on shaping the public image of the organization, maintaining a positive reputation, and managing relationships with external stakeholders, such as investors, customers, the media, and the public.
- Audience: The primary audience for corporate communication is often external stakeholders, but it also includes internal stakeholders. It aims to create a favorable perception of the company and ensure that its values and messages align with its overall business goals.
We also searched for the phrases ‘business communication’, ‘corporate communication’ and ‘organizational communication’ in large corpora of American and British English in general. Here is part of concordance (see glossary) from the British National Corpus 2014:
Still in the introduction, we then look at a critique of economic textbooks, drawing on the work of our interview guest from episode 26 (the language of corporate social responsibility Part 2):
- Stibbe, A. (2020). Ecolinguistics and economics: The power of language to build worlds. WEA Commentaries, 10(3), 2-7.
In the interview, Jonathan Clifton challenges the idea that “in a court of law, or in a civil court, whosoever is right is going to win, and whosoever is wrong is going to lose”. Instead he says, success depends on “how successful lawyers or defendants or witnesses, expert witnesses can marshal resources to make a convincing argument”. This echoes a scene in the film Anatomy of a Fall (2023): when the suspect assures her lawyer that “I did not kill him”, her lawyer replies: “That is not the point.” The film is much recommended – courtroom dramas don’t get better than this!
Jonathan’s book is broad in scope, ranging from legal language to football punditry. As for the latter, he mentions the popular BBC programme Match of the Day, which is hosted by former player and outspoken commentator Gary Lineker.
In the final part of the episode, we first look at advice for email writing from this textbook:
- Hartley, P., Marriott, S., & Knapton, H. (2023). Professional and Business Communication: Personal strategies for the post-digital world. (3rd ed.) Routledge.
The authors of that textbook in turn quote:
- Kelly, S. (2019). Computer Mediated Communication for Business: From theory to practice. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
The AI-generated email is too long to reproduce here (and that’s part of the problem with it), but we can include the anonymised email that Veronika received from her former student:
From: [name and email address]
Sent: 22 September 2023 12:41
To: Koller, Veronika v.koller@lancaster.ac.uk
Subject: Qualified documents for applicationDear Veronika,
Hope you had a wonderful summer break!
First of all, I would like to express my huge gratitude to you for providing substantial support during my postgraduate application season. I really appreciate that you agreed to write a reference letter and this means a lot to my application.
I’m writing to request your help in sending the official transcript to [university] for fulfilling the academic condition. I have been accepted to the [programme] at [university]. However, due to my health issues […] I have to defer my entry to 2024. [University] approved my deferral request and extended the deadline for submitting qualified academic evidence (i.e. my transcript and graduate certificate) to the end of September.
I sent an email a week ago to the department. However, [name of administrator] told me that the department cannot send the documents for me and I should send it by myself. I tried to download my documents from [the] dashboard, but it shows that I have no documents to be downloaded. The [University] require[s] that the documents should be sent by the department. So I am in a dilemma now. Since the deadline is approaching, would it be possible for you to give me some advice on it?
I know you must be very busy at the start of the academic year. Thank you so much for reading this email! I really appreciate your time!
With warmest wishes,
[first name]
That’s it for this episode – see you next time! In the meantime, have a look at Jonathan’s new book: Talking for success!
Listen to the episode hereFull transcription of the episodeWords and Actions transcript for episode 29Download
After this episode, we will take a break for the rest of the year to write the second edition of Erika’s and Veronika’s textbook Language in Business, Language at Work. The revised edition will have Bernard as the third author, and we anticipate it to be available for the start of the 24/25 academic year.
We start episode 28 by critically reflecting on anti-discrimination efforts in the workplace, which,unless they change the organisational culture, all too often do not have the desired or even an adverse effect. A study providing evidence for this is:
- Täuber, S. (2019). Undoing gender in academia: Personal reflections on equal opportunity schemes. Journal of Management Studies, 57(8), 1718-1724.
We then move on to the notion of intersectionality, which linguist and writer Kat Gupta has likened to a deck of cards.
Acronyms for diversity, equality (or, confusingly, equity) and inclusion, plus belonging and/or justice, keep changing, but the idea that belonging is the effect of DEI (to use one acronym) are often represented in a Venn diagram.
The fascinating finding that feelings of non-belonging are neurologically similar to physical pain is reported here:
- Eisenberger, N. I. (2012). The pain of social disconnection: examining the shared neural underpinnings of physical and social pain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(6), 421-434.
Moving on to the language aspect of workplace discrimination, Bernard entions Erin Carrie’s and Rob Drummond’s Accentism Project, which, among other things, is a real treasure trove of testimonials.
For a light touch, we look at how film characters are stereotyped through their accents – who could forget Babs and Rocky from Chicken Run?
In another corner of the cinematic universe, the villain with a British Received Pronunciation accent is so common that he has sparked parodies in advertising. Some thoughts on the stereotypes and intercultural relations involved can be found here. In real life, however, this particular accent is nearly extinct:
- Lindsey, G. (2019). English after RP: Standard British pronunciation today. Springer.
Linguistic stereotyping and accentism can have harsh consequences, for how competent someone is perceived to be to how much investor money they can attract or the severity of court sentences:
- Levon, E., Sharma, D., Watt, D. J., Cardoso, A., & Ye, Y. (2021). Accent bias and perceptions of professional competence in England. Journal of English Linguistics, 49(4), 355-388. See also the authors’ project website: https://accentbiasbritain.org
- Huang, L., Frideger, M., & Pearce, J. L. (2013). Political skill: Explaining the effects of nonnative accent on managerial hiring and entrepreneurial investment decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 1005.
- Romero-Rivas, C., Morgan, C., & Collier, T. (2022). Accentism on trial: Categorization/stereotyping and implicit biases predict harsher sentences for foreign-accented defendants. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 41(2), 191–208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X211022785
As is usually the case, language-based stereotyping and discrimination, too, diminishes the more familiar an accent becomes:
- Rovetti, J., Sumantry, D., & Russo, F. A. (2023). Exposure to nonnative-accented speech reduces listening effort and improves social judgments of the speaker. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 2808.
Our second guest, Annelise Ly, mentions the metaphor of culture as an onion with layers. This idea goes back to Geert Hofstede’s work on national cultures in the workplace:
- Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International differences in work-related values. London: Sage.
While still influential, Hofstede’s work has been the subject of much criticism, and other metaphors have been proposed:
- Fang, T. (2005). From “onion” to “ocean”: Paradox and change in national cultures. International Studies of Management & Organization, 35(4), 71-90.
The complete report is available both in Chinese and in English.
In the final part of the episode, we use Mats Deutschmann’s RAVE resource to test our own stereotypes around accents. Mats and his colleague Anders Steinvall have written about how to use the resource to counter prejudice:
- Deutschmann, M., & Steinvall, A. (2020). Combatting linguistic stereotyping and prejudice by evoking stereotypes. Open Linguistics, 6(1), 651-671.
We encourage you to give it a go yourself, it’s quite an eye-opener.
If you would like to know more about accentism and language discrimination, in the workplace and elsewhere, you could watch back this webinar that Veronika gave together with sociolinguist and consultant Maame Nikabs in November 2022. We also recommend the Lexis podcast, which often discusses accentism, e.g. in their episode 26.
Although we are now off to write the new version of the textbook, we will still be on Facebook and Twitter – and of course you can explore our by now quite substantial back catalogue. See you for episode 29 next year!
Listen to the episode hereFull transcription of the episodeWords and Actions transcript_s4e28Download
In the introduction, we mention a number of language-related AI applications, including DALL-E, which generates images from language prompts; Scite, which identifies references supporting or questioning research findings; ELSA, which stands for English Language Speech assistant and is meant to help language learners; Wordtune, which can rewrite texts i different “tones”; and the codings apps Copilot and CodeWhisperer, which convert language inputs into code.
Some examples of how the AI-powered version of the Bing search engine produces answers that are troubling or face-threatening are mentioned in this article.
AI (Dall-e) generated imageOur interview guest, Andreas van Cranenburgh, refers to how OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, uses low-paid content moderators in developing countries, often exposing them to traumatic content. This practice was described in Time Magazine.
Following the interview, we talk about how the notion of communicative competence needs to be extended for interactions with chatbots. Dell Hymes published his seminal paper back in the early seventies:
- Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In I. B. Pride & J. Holmes (eds), Sociolinguistics (pp. 269-293). Penguin.
He revisited the idea twenty years later:
- Hymes, D. (1992). The concept of communicative competence revisited. In M. Pütz (ed.) Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution (pp. 31-57). Benjamins.
Hymes’ original formulation of communicative competence dates from six years after the first ever chatbot, Eliza, was developed. (It is not known if he was aware of it.) The creator of that application, Joseph Weizenbaum, named it after Eliza Doolittle, the character in Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion (later made into the musical and film My Fair Lady). In that modern take on the Greek myths of the sculptor Pygmalion, who falls in love with one of his statues, a linguistics professor teaches a working-class woman how to sound upper-class. Are chatbots the malleable female creations of male developers? And why does Erika, a female user, think of ChatGPT as a man?
As they say, there is a paper in that.
And finally, here is the ChatGPT-generated text we analyse in the last part of the episode:
Dear [Customer Name],
Thank you for reaching out to us. We understand that high energy prices can be frustrating and we want to help. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Our company’s energy prices are affected by a number of factors, including changes in the global energy market and increasing demand for energy. However, we are committed to finding ways to help our customers manage their energy costs.
We recommend some simple steps to conserve energy, such as turning off lights when they’re not in use, adjusting your thermostat, and using energy-efficient appliances. Additionally, we offer a number of energy-saving programs that could help you save money on your energy bills.
We value your feedback and appreciate your loyalty. If you have any further concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best regards,
[Your name]
Our next episode will conclude the mini-series in CSR – see you then!
Listen to the episode hereFull transcription of the episodeWords and Actions_transcript_s4e27Download
In the introduction, we mention the Yale Programme for Climate. Its most recent survey of on public attitudes to climate change dates from 2022 and includes the following two maps:
Here, dark red indicates a higher percentage of the population worrying about climate change.
Dark blue indicates a low percentage of the population thinking that climate change will have a direct impact on them.
The article on metaphors in climate change discourse is
- Atanasova, D., & Koteyko, N. (2017). Metaphors in Guardian Online and Mail Online opinion-page content on climate change: War, religion, and politics. Environmental Communication, 11(4), 452-469.
This article gives a good overview of war metaphors more generally:
- Flusberg, S. J., Matlock, T., & Thibodeau, P. H. (2018). War metaphors in public discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 33(1), 1-18.
We also talk about a chapter in the following book:
- Goatly, A. (2007). Washing the Brain: Metaphor and hidden ideology. Benjamins.
The cue for our discussion about presuppositions in proverbs about pigs is taken from this article by our interview guest:
- Stibbe, A. (2003). As charming as a pig: The discursive construction of the relationship between pigs and humans. Society & Animals, 11(4), 375-392.
Here are the collocations he found:
The origin of the German phrase ‘Schwein gehabt’ meaning having been lucky is not entirely clear, but may go back to a mediaeval custom to give a pig as a consolation prize to someone who had lost in a competition.
The idea that pigs are filthy is also expressed in the film Pulp Fiction (1994), where animals consumed by humans are compared to pets. The different ways in which humans relate to animals are put into stark contrast in this row of shops in a small English town:
Our discussion of presuppositions draws on
- Polyzou, A. (2015). Presupposition in discourse: Theoretical and methodological issues. Critical Discourse Studies, 12(2), 123-138.
Our interview guest, Arran Stibbe, is the founder of the International Ecolinguistics Association and runs a free online course called The Stories We Live By. During the interview, Veronika mentions Buy Nothing Day in Britain, which is on the last Friday in November (but feel free to buy nothing on any day of the year!).
The seminal work in ecofeminism was
- Daly, M. (1978). Gyn/Ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Beacon Press.
while a recent article focuses on the language angle is
- Appleby, R., & Pennycook, A. (2017). Swimming with sharks, ecological feminism and posthuman language politics. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 14(2-3), 239-261.
In the analysis part of the episode, we report on the work on CSR reporting by a number of researchers from China. We mention some recent work that a previous interview guest, Matteo Fuoli, has done with Annika Beelitz, on the discourse of energy companies.
- Fuoli, M. and Beelitz, A. (2022). Framing the path to net zero: A corpus analysis of carbon disclosures by the world’s largest corporate emitters, 2011-2020. Paper presented at the 6th Corpora and Discourse international conference. 26-28 August, Bertinoro/Italy.
Here is a two-page spread from the text we analyse, the 2021 CSR report by China Southern Airlines 2021:
The complete report is available both in Chinese and in English.
Finally, we’d like to mention that Erika, Veronika and Bernard are working on the second edition of the Language in Business, Language at Work textbook (Bloomsbury, 2018), which will feature a new chapter on CSR.
See you again for the third and final part of this mini-series!
Listen to the episode hereFull transcription of the episodeWords and Actions transcript_s4e26Download
All good things come in threes. Add a Chief #Sustainability Officer, a body-positive Barbie doll, some inclusive candy and an expert in applied ethics and you get a discussion on true colours, washings and genuine #CSR efforts. Have a listen to the first episode of our new three (!)-part mini-series on corporate social responsibility and find out more, including how energy companies account for their profits and your bills via legitimisation strategies.
Are you one of those people who is always tricked into doing or buying things you don’t want? Do you want to find out how they do it or how to do it yourself? You’re in luck! If you listen to this episode, you will find out all about it! You will even get free access to all the other W&A episodes on language in business, politics and beyond and you’ll discover that your current annoyance and reluctance by reading this is caused by genre awareness. Do it now or regret it later! #hardselltacticsshamelesslybroughttoyoubuyW&A.
Your identity is a right old mess. As is ours, mind you - and don‘t get us started on Marcus Rashford. In this episode we will delve into the different layers and facets of identity construction in digital spaces. Via small stories, solo selfies and networked narratives, we offer ways to inspect different senses of selves as they are created in online environments. The journey will take us past talking dogs, overpowering teacher personas (yes, we are talking about ourselves!), experts and non-experts. And we will get started on Marcus Rashford.
Yesterday’s sci-fi has become today’s reality. Join us as we venture our way into the ever-growing domain of Language Technology in which we discover and discuss current and future developments in speech recognition, automated literary translation, opinion mining and open domain chatbot applications. Not only do we find ourselves having cheeky chats with clever cars and critical conversations with experts, we also ponder over the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence and assess our position as linguists (and one alleged Professor of Disco Studies) in view of these developments.
In this episode we eavesdrop on police interrogations, wire-tapping and immigration interviews, and sneak on a Keolis bus (on board entertainment: The Interpreter) to explore the ever so complex processes of translation and interpreting in high stakes contexts. Joining us are a forensic linguist, an expert in asylum seeking procedures and a researcher on multimodal translation, who illustrate the pervasive impact of translators as important decision-makers that may affect the future, safety and prosperity of people and businesses.
“I’m not hungry. One egg is an oeuf”. Is the author funny? Debatable. Is the author multilingual? Ça dépend. In this multi-voiced episode on multilingualism we tackle different interrelated aspects ranging from translanguaging over accommodation to effectiveness and proficiency and we cast more light on multilingual settings and the role of BELF in them. In the process, we make Bernard eat humble pie by interviewing a very, very multilingual person and we raise multilingual voices to stop cruelty against animals, topped off with nice examples on language accommodation. Bon appétit!
What is the key to successful negotiations? Which mammal has the biggest heart? And how on earth are the two questions related? Find out more in our latest episode, featuring the insights of a former international peace negotiator and an academic expert. Due to popular demand, we also take you to the backstage of the Words & Actions podcast when we analyse our own negotiation in a prep meeting. And you’ll find out whether you have been lowballed in a negotiation, if somebody got a foot in the door with you and why words are sometimes in the order wrong.
Are you suffering from zoom fatigue, meeting migraines or the occasional shark bite? Have a listen to our next episode and find out more about office diary sweet spots, biochronology, meeting categorizations and how to deal with sharks in conflict resolution. As always, we bring in the expert advice of an academic and we’ll discuss the added value of the Quaker peace testimony with a workplace mediator. In the analysis, we’re heading for the deep waters of the notorious Handforth parish council meeting. There will be blood.
Fancy an escapist trip? Join us in this episode on linguistic creativity and find yourself headbanging at a metal concert, city hopping in the UK, bear spotting in Switzerland and hot tubbing in Iceland. In the process, you’ll learn more about the psychology of logos and colours, the personality of fonts and the impact of creative language use in entrepreneurship. Our fellow traveller is a consultant, semiotics teacher and poet whose insights turn him into a multi-millionaire at the end of the recording.
Yes, we are glad to see the back of 2020. But so much happened over those 12 months that we think it warrants a special New Year’s episode. We invited four guests to come with us on a tour of the year, from Brexit Day to university strikes, Black Lives Matter and the US elections. Oh, and we also mention that pandemic that just went and upended everyone’s lives.
In the second part of our mini-series on the language of entrepreneurship, we enter the dragon’s den, meet an angel and look for gold among the crowds. Episode 15 is all about business pitches and how (not) to use language to find investors. We talk to an expert about how to pitch across cultures, get helpful advice from a venture capitalist and analyse a crowdfunding video.
Talking about entrepreneurship We begin the first episode of the new mini-series on the language of entrepreneurship by discussing associations with, and definitions of, entrepreneurs. Bernard quotes one definition from Investopedia, a website for investors. We then go on to talk about local businesses and what they call themselves. If you read German, you may […]
In this first episode of the new series we talk about change management and the role of language in successfully bringing this change about. In the introduction, we underscore the importance of language in terms its potential to construct and mold reality, which was also addressed in episodes 1 and 2 of season 1. We […]
In the introduction, Bernard mentions the finding that employers give lower ratings to candidates who interview on video. This is reported in
Blacksmith, N., Willford, J. C., & Behrend, T. S. (2016). Technology in the employment interview: A meta-analysis and future research agenda. Personnel Assessment and Decisions, 2(1), Article 2. Available at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/pad/vol2/iss1/2
The first part of the episode also features a short interview with Dorottya Cserző, whose recently completed PhD thesis was on video chats. Her relevant publications are:
Cserzo, D. (2016). Nexus analysis meets scales: An exploration of sites of engagement in videochat interviews. In Singh, J. N., Kantara, A., & Cserző, D. (eds) Downscaling Culture: Revisiting intercultural communication. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 337-365.
Cserzo, D. (2020). Intimacy at a distance: Multimodal meaning making in video chat tours. In Thurlow, C., Durscheid, C., & Diemoz, F. (eds) Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, institutional and ideological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter, pp. 151-169.
As Bernard mentions during the interview, the surge in video interactions due to the Covid-19 pandemic has brought much well-meaning advice on Zoom backgrounds and the like (e.g. https://twitter.com/bcredibility), which in turn have spawned critical reflections: https://academicirregularities.wordpress.com, http://musicfordeckchairs.com/blog/2020/05/09/background/
In reply, Dorottya cites research on sound vs image problems in video chats:
Rintel, S. (2010). Conversational management of network trouble perturbations in personal videoconferencing. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 304–311. https://doi.org/10.1145/1952222.1952288
Rintel, S. (2013). Video Calling in Long-Distance Relationships : The Opportunistic Use of Audio / Video Distortions as a Relational Resource. The Electronic Journal of Communication, 23(1 & 2).
Still in the first part, we introduce the cooperative principle and conversational maxims (see glossary). The series Big Bang Theory includes lots of examples where the main character breaks one or several of those maxims, e.g. in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEM8gZCWQ2w Can you identify which maxim(s) he breaks?
The second part of the episode features an interview with linguist Cellia Roberts. (There is also a sociologist of the same name, and a colleague of one of the hosts once declared that he would like to supervise a PhD student who could be examined by both Celias.) As an emerita professor, she can look back on a number of projects and publications; the ones most relevant to the topic of job interviews are (in chronological order):
Roberts, C. (1985). The Interview Game and How It’s Played. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.
Roberts, C., & Sarangi, S. (1999). Hybridity in gatekeeping discourse: Issues of practical relevance for the researcher. In Sarangi, S., & Roberts, C. (eds) Talk, Work and Institutional order. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 473-503.
Roberts, C., & Campbell, S. (2005). Fitting stories into boxes: Rhetorical and textual constraints on candidates’ performances in British job interviews. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 45-73.
Campbell, S., & Roberts, C. (2007). Migration, ethnicity and competing discourses in the job interview: Synthesizing the institutional and personal. Discourse & Society, 18(3), 243-271.
Roberts, C. (2011). ‘Taking ownership’: Language and ethnicity in the job interview. In Pelsmaekers, K., Rollo, C., Von Hout, T., & Heynderickx, P. (eds) Displaying Competence in Organizations: Discourse perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 10-26.
Roberts, C. (2013). The gatekeeping of Babel: Job interviews and the linguistic penalty. In Duchêne, A., Moyer, M., & Roberts, C. (eds) Language, Migration and Social Inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 81-94. [A summary by Ingrid Piller can be found here: https://www.languageonthemove.com/linguistic-penalty-in-the-job-interview/]
In the interview, Celia refers to the notion of the ‘entrepreneurial self’, which was advanced both by Paul Du Gay and, in German, by Ulrich Bröckling:
Bröckling, U. (2013). Das unternehmerische Selbst: Soziologie einer Subjektivierungsform. [The entrepreneurial self: Sociology of a form of subjectivation] Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Du Gay, P. (1996). Organizing identity: Entrepreneurial governance and public management. In Hall, S., & Du Gay, P. (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SAGE, pp. 151-169
She also mentions the STAR structure for job interviews. This is indeed widely used and advice on it abounds online (e.g. at https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/how-to-use-the-star-interview-response-technique).
Celia uses a number of metaphors to talk about the interview process and the positions of interviewer and interviewee. One is that of the Roman god Janus, who is depicted with two faces looking in different directions.
Unfortunately, the FAQ video that she mentions is not publicly available.
The episode of “The Job Interview” that we analyse in the third part of the episode was broadcast on Channel 4 on 19 March 2018. Listeners outside the UK can view it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esLbDihhtfY (starts at 31:25). If you live in the UK, you can register with Channel 4 for on-demand programmes and watch the second half of series 2 episode 5 at https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-job-interview/on-demand/66105-005. Alternatively, if you work in education, your school, college or university may have access to Best of Broadcasts at https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand
We hope you enjoyed the mini-series and indeed the whole of our first season. See you again for the start of our new season in October!
Listen to the episode here
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/wordsandactions/Words_and_Actions_Ep12_Mixdown_1.1.mp3
Full transcription of the episode Words and Actions Episode 12Download