Re: TALKING WORK vs TALKING AT WORK

[Emilia Djonov <e.djonov@optushome.com.au>]

Dear Chiara,

It certainly makes sense to distinguish between professional vs casual talk at work, but the setting can also lead to overlaps, I imagine. I wouldn't classify talking at work as "talking to coordinate non-discursive activities", however, because talking is always a form of discourse (I'm using discourse, in this context, to signify the use of language or other semiotic systems to create meaningful, cohesive and coherent, texts). You probably meant "non-professional discursive activities"?

A good reference on organisational discourse (which includes professional meaning-making at work - talking at meetings, planning, writing reports, designing buildings, etc., etc.) is: 

Iedema, R. 2003. Discourses of Post-Bureaucratic Organization. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Many casual conversation text types in a work setting are discussed in:
Eggins, S. and D. Slade. 1997. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell.
(The book is on casual conversation in general, but Diana Slade's phd thesis focussed on casual conversation genres used in work settings, so many examples in the book come from her work. Unfortunately, I don't have the reference handy, but it can be found at www.library.usyd.edu.au.)

In both books you would be able to find reference to work more closely related to your question.

Best wishes,
Emilia

At 09:56 AM 10/11/2004, you wrote:

Hi! Does it make sense to you distinguishing between TALKING WORK vs TALKING ATWORK?
 
where TALKING WORK  is a discursive professional activity (such as teaching, or a medical consultation or a problem solving meeting, etc.)
while TALKING AT WORK is any talk occorring in workplaces (talking to coordinate non discursive activities, chatting during the coffee break, etc.)
Shall I use a better terminology to address such a distinction? Does anybody know a collection of studies specifically on what I call TALKING WORK ?
Thanks!
Chiara




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Emilia Djonov
PhD student in English and Linguistics

Address: Linguistics Dept.
School of Modern Language Studies
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

email: e.djonov@unsw.edu.au

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