Language in Business, Language at Work
Words and Actions
Wait a minute. Why does ‘corporate consultant’ sound more prestigious than ‘business consultant’? Or does it? Do they mean the same thing? How does organizational communication differ from corporate or business communication? And what topics, genres and text types should textbooks on communication in these settings tackle when the genres themselves are blended? Welcome to the challenges of three authors revising a textbook on the power of language in business(?), now turned into a podcast episode and made even more interesting with Wittgenstein and Jonathan Clifton joining the writing...
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The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Language Discrimination
Words and Actions
Raves, poker nights and Marvel movies – no costs or effort were spared in this final episode on CSR to raise awareness about one of the most pervasive manifestations of discrimination: accentism. In the presence of experts, we uncover what is hidden beneath the surface, and just when we thought we would never judge someone based on the sound waves they produce, we dare(d) ourselves and you to eat the pudding… Long Notes: More information, a full transcript and academic references on wordsandactions.blog. We start episode 28 by critically reflecting on anti-discrimination efforts...
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Language awareness in the age of AI
Words and Actions
ChatGPT & company are here to stay. And so are linguists. Find out why in our exploration of the capabilities and shortcomings of generative AI and how it will affect the competences of lecturers, students and practitioners in business communication and beyond. Via tricks and tips on how to integrate these powerful text production tools in and outside the classroom, W&A once again underscores the crucial importance of language awareness and the human touch in the digital era. The discussion will take us past proper prompt engineering, output analysis, digital sweatshops and...
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The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Ecolinguistics
Words and Actions
Prepare to meet some ignorant pigs and silly cows in our second episode on CSR... Together with an expert in ecolinguistics, we will explore the discursive construction of our ideology-laden relationship to nature (and animals in particular!) via the analysis of presuppositions and metaphors, going from tepid COP27 implementation plans on global heating to Chinese self-serving CSR reporting. It will become painfully clear how and why language matters and you'll find out more about your ecosomatic awareness. As always, you can find more information, references to research and a...
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The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Responsible Communication
Words and Actions
All good things come in threes. Or more. Add a Chief Sustainability Officer, a body positive Barbie doll, a purple inclusive M&M and an actual expert in applied ethics and you get a lively discussion on true colours, washings and genuine CSR efforts in the first episode of our new mini-series (it comes in threes) on corporate social responsibility. Have a listen and find out more, including how energy companies account for their profits and your bills via legitimisation strategies. More information about the podcast and a full...
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Selling Hard and Soft
Words and Actions
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. The episode, as always, is accompanied by a blog...
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Language and Identity Online
Words and Actions
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 delve into the different layers and facets of identity construction in digital space. 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!) socially constructed bosses, and walking gods. And we will get started on Marcus Rashford. For...
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Language and Technology
Words and Actions
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...
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Translation and Interpreting When the Stakes are High
Words and Actions
We eavesdrop on police interrogations, wire-tapping and immigration interviews, and sneak on a Keolis bus (on board entertainment: The Interpreter) to explore the 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.
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Multilingualism
Words and Actions
“I’m not hungry. One egg is an oeuf”. Is the author funny? Debatable. Are they multilingual? Ça dépend. In this multi-voiced episode on multilingualism we tackle interrelated aspects ranging from translanguaging over accommodation to effectiveness and proficiency and we cast 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.
info_outlinePlease visit our website at wordsandactions.blog where you can find more data analysis, glossary and the complete transcript.
In the first part of this episode, we introduce different types of crisis as well as communication strategies to deal with them. Two central readings here are:
Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 23(2), 177-187.
Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2012). The Handbook of Crisis Communication. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
This link provides some examples of how broad crisis comms strategies are put into practice in specific messages: http://lirias.kuleuven.be/cv?Username=U0090854
Bernard mentions one communication strategy to head off a crisis, ‘stealing thunder’. It is for instance discussed in this article:
Claeys, A-S., Cauberghe, V., Leysen, J. (2013). Implications of stealing thunder for the impact of expressing emotions in organizational crisis communication. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 41(3), 293-308.
As part of our discussion, Erika cites a study showing that even unnecessary apologies can make others more likely to respond to a request:
Brooks, A.W., Dai, H., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2014). I'm sorry about the rain! Superfluous apologies demonstrate empathic concern and increase trust. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 5(4), 467-474.
Our interview guest for this episode is Matteo Fuoli, whose publications include:
Fuoli, M., & Hart, C. (2018). Trust-building strategies in corporate discourse: An experimental study. Discourse & Society, 29(5), 514-552.
Fuoli, M., & Paradis, C. (2014). A model of trust-repair discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 74, 52-69
Fuoli, M., van de Weijer, J., & Paradis, C. (2017). Denial outperforms apology in repairing organizational trust despite strong evidence of guilt. Public Relations Review, 43(4), 645-660.
Matteo in turn makes reference to this study on regaining trust:
Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D., & Dirks, K. T. (2004). Removing the shadow of suspicion: the effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence- versus integrity-based trust violations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 104–118.
The model of trust that he mentions is explained in
Colquitt, J. A., & Salam, S. C. (2009). Foster trust through ability, benevolence, and integrity. In Locke, E. (ed.) Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 389-404.
In the course of the interview, Matteo provides some detail of his research in:
Fuoli, M. (2012). Assessing social responsibility: A quantitative analysis of Appraisal in BP’s and IKEA’s social reports. Discourse & Communication, 6(1), 55-81.
Fuoli, M. (2015). Trust dynamics in multimodal corporate discourse: the role of metaphor. Paper presented at 13th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC-13), Newcastle/UK.
The video by pharmaceutical company Novartis that Matteo talks about is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzXFugXU33M
In the final part of the episode, we analyse a letter featuring an apology, written in 1928 by artist Thelma Wood to her former lover, the writer Djuna Barnes:
Djuna beautiful - I know I had lost you - I realized every misdeed committed in eight years would come back - that every one in Paris would be against me … The knowing you saw us, I had said such terrible things I hated myself - something I did not care about - It seemed a shame for foolishness to spoil us - I wanted no acknowledged disloyalty and after you came back from N.Y. I loved you so terribly - and my one idea was to wipe out the fact I’d been stupid … As for the rest of our eight years you seemed to have had a pretty rotten time - with my brutishness and I’m sorry - sorry
The letter is quoted in
Weiss, A. (1995). Paris was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank. San Francisco: Harper.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all listeners and readers!