Words and Actions

A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Financial Communication 12/17/2024

Financial Communication How do you talk money without losing trust—or your audience? From quarterly earnings calls to investor pitches, the world of financial communication is a tightrope walk of clarity, persuasion, and credibility. What makes numbers sound good? When does transparent/positive become too transparent/positive? And why does jargon sometimes feel like the best financial armour? Tune in for a lively dive into the art (?) of financial storytelling—with three experts sharing plenty of insights, red flags, laughs, and a nudge to rethink your next fiscal update and/or investment, especially when your are being pandered to with pathos and patriotism. Long notes: In this episode we discuss financial communication and start with readability. A few selected studies are: 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. Huong Dau, N., Van Nguyen, D., & Thi Thanh Diem, H. (2024). Annual report readability and firms’ investment decisions. Cogent Economics and Finance, 12(1). 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. 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 calls of 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. 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. For more details make sure you We will be back in 2025, with some changes to the podcast - stay tuned /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/34455650

Language in Business, Language at Work 02/05/2024

Language in Business, Language at Work 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 table. Tune in if you want answers and more questions on the language game as we are playing it. For more information, references and a full transcript please visit our website: In this 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 . 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! 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. That’s it for this episode - see you next time! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/29800508

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Language Discrimination 04/28/2023

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Language Discrimination 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 in the workplace, which, unless they change the organisational culture, all too often do not have the desired or even an adverse effect. We then move on to the notion of intersectionality, which linguist and writer Kat Gupta has likened to a deck of cards. 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. 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 sentence 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. In the final part of the episode, we use Mats Deutschmann’s 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. /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/26644959

Language awareness in the age of AI 03/10/2023

Language awareness in the age of AI 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 critical citizenship. You can find more information, references and a full transcript on wordsandactions.blog. In this episode 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. Our 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. 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! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/26163648

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Ecolinguistics 01/13/2023

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Ecolinguistics 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 full transcript on . In the introduction, we mention the Yale Programme for Climate. Its most recent of on public attitudes to climate change dates from 2022 and includes the following two maps. The different colours indicates the 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. 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 (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 and runs a free 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 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. The text we analyse is the 2021 CSR report by China Southern Airlines 2021. The complete report is available both in and in . 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! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/25573077

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Responsible Communication 11/11/2022

The Language of Corporate Social Responsibility: Responsible Communication 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 transcript can be found on wordsandactions.blog. In this episode early in the introduction, Erika cites two definitions. She first cites the definition of sustainability in a 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development (a sub-organisation of the United Nations) called “Our Common Future”. It can be found . The second definition is on corporate social responsibility and taken from the website . The examples we give of CSR in action, including attempts that backfired, are body-positive Barbie dolls, the “inclusive” and desexualised M&M candy figures and a now (in)famous Benetton advert. The latter is reproduced in Erika’s and Veronika’s textbook Language in Business, Language at Work (Macmillan Higher Education, 2018; the second edition will have Bernard as the third author. Still in the introduction, we also mention this article on the social responsibility of business, the reference to which can be found on our website. Every summer, the Pride season in Western countries now comes with many examples of “pinkwashing”, where companies claim to be queer-friendly, but either don’t have relevant policies or even have practices that go against LGBT equality. Some examples from 2022 can be found . Towards the end of the introduction, Veronika talks about legitimation as a discourse strategy, based on these works by van Leeuwen and Reyes. We then proceed to the interview with Garrath Williams. On the links between ‘responsible’ and ‘response’, the Oxford English Dictionary has the following to say (shortened – the OED has lots of detail): Etymology: < Anglo-Norman responssable, ressponsable, Anglo-Norman and Middle French responsable answerable, entitled to an answer …, answerable, required to answer …, that responds, that constitutes a reply (15th cent.), apparently < classical Latin respōns- , past participial stem of respondēre … probably < classical Latin respōnsāre to reply While we mention but do not elaborate on the Drink Responsibly campaign in the UK, someone else has, in a 2014 on alcohol and the night-time economy. During our analysis of the ExxonMobil press release, we wonder if the company has a Chief Sustainability Officer. The answer is no but it has had an ex since 2009. In episode 26, we’ll talk about language and the environment – see you then! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/24953343

Selling Hard and Soft 08/12/2022

Selling Hard and Soft 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 post on wordsandactions.blog, where we publish additional resources, and importantly for this episode, the images we discuss. In this episode on ‘selling, hard and soft and everything in between’, we want to raise advertising literacy by showing and identifying how language and semiotics are used in marketing to influence people’s buying behaviour. In the introductory chat, it soon becomes obvious that advertising is everywhere in different shapes and forms and that all three hosts have succumbed to it: we even shamelessly do it on the podcast itself (can you spot all instances?) and we have to admit to having bought clothes, paintbrushes and ice-cream ourselves, fuelled by subtle and less subtle advertising. In the introduction, Erika refers to Arran Stibbe’s work, in which he analyses the discourse in textbooks on economics. We then move on to elusive types of advertising, where the genre is bended and blended with others so it is harder to spot. Veronika starts with an example of so-called native advertising. Later, Bernard mentions the study below about the phenomenon: Apostol, N.-E. (2020). What is known about native advertising in editorial contexts? A descriptive literature review. Journal of Media Research 37, 59-81. Veronika also refers to product placement and illustrates how the appearance of the Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses in the Tom Cruise blockbusters Top Gun and Maverick boosted sales (and US Navy applications). Non-conventional and blended advertisements are often referred to with blended (or ‘portmanteau’) words as well: advertorials, infomercials, shopatainment. The last of these includes live sellers on video channels. A recent MA dissertation at Lancaster University addresses the phenomenon from a language point of view Tan, K. (2021). A corpus-based analysis on the language in Chinese livestream sales. MA dissertation, Lancaster University. This case study of one live seller shows that, unsurprisingly, verbs and nouns closely related to purchase and discount are frequently used in livestream sales (‘buy’, ‘get’, ‘coupon’). In addition, live sellers use evaluative nouns (‘beauties’) and personal pronouns like ‘everybody’, ‘we’, etc. to address the customers. Repetitions or interactions with audiences can also be noticed. Hard and soft advertising strategies are applied in livestream sales together, to attract and persuade customers. In the run-down of advertising types, we also refer to basic distinctions that are often made, such as hard selling and soft selling (see title of this episode) and reason vs. tickle, which are also covered in Bernstein’s and Cook’s works. Bernard refers to the typical features of hard selling as the very recognizable aggressive tactics that centralise the product and its features and benefits, while playing on the scarcity principle and fear of missing out. Veronika’s son, Feranmi Ayo Omoniyi, would like to be given full credit for all his research into hard-selling tactics in computer games – thank you! Erika mentions that soft selling plays more on emotions, stories, atmosphere and associations, with the possessor reflecting the possessed. Still in the introduction, we also mention Bhatia’s colony of promotional genres, which features both central and more peripheral members. We then move on to the interview with Joe McVeigh, who is a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki in Finland. You can also find him on Twitter: @EvilJoeMcVeigh (ignore the account handle, he is very nice!). In the analysis we look at an example each that we brought - these can be found at wordsandactions.blog! And that’s it - see you next time for the start of season 4! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/24002097

Language and Identity Online 06/24/2022

Language and Identity Online 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 further info and a full transcript please head over to: wordsandactions.blog In this episode,right at the beginning, we reminisce about previous episodes. You may want to listen (again) to episodes on crisis communication (S1E6) and on negotiations (S2E19). Later we mention two other episodes S1E7 on storytelling and S1E11 on impression management. We start our topic, computer-mediated communication and identity, with Erika telling us about the very early days of the Internet. We also mention Peter Steiner’s 199 cartoon “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”, which has become so famous that it has its own Wikipedia . We then go on to introduce the theory for this episode, namely Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall’s work on identity construction through spoken interaction: Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse studies, 7(4-5), 585-614 Erika gets due credit from Bernard and Veronika for her work on constructing identities in digital spaces, e.g.: Darics, E., & Gatti, M. C. (2019). Talking a team into being in online workplace collaborations: the discourse of virtual work. Discourse Studies, 21(3), 237-257. Still in the introduction, Bernard mentions a study on whether women prefer female bosses. We contrast this global study with one that addresses very specific contexts. Talking about how identity can be indexed in online interaction, Veronika mentions a recent PhD thesis completed at Lancaster University. A bit later, Bernard refers to influencers and mentions the case of Dotan, a Dutch singer and influencer podcaster who was less than authentic. Veronika’s current research on how online identity construction works in political discourse is part of a multi-authored book on which she is lead author and that is currently under review with the publisher (so fingers crossed!). The title is Voices of Supporters: Populist parties, social media and the 2019 European elections. The interview guest for this episode is Alexandra Georgaopoulou, a professor at King’s College London who is known for her work on so-called “small stories” and their function in constructing identities, including online. Information on the Ego Media project, which studied the impact of new media on forms and practices of self-presentation, can be found at . There is a forthcoming digital publication from the project with Stanford University Press. Moving on to the analysis part of the episode, we look at the social media profiles of footballer, author and campaigner Marcus Rashford: @MarcusRashford (Twitter), marcusrashford (Instagram), _marcusrashford (TikTok). The fan account in TikTok is rashford10marcus. All three accounts feature a logo based on his initials: In analysing the posts, we draw on a matrix first proposed for how CEOs present themselves online: Jameson, D. A. (2014). Crossing public-private and personal-professional boundaries: How changes in technology may affect CEOs’ communication. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 77(1), 7-30. And that’s it for this episode - see you again next time! /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/23495960

Language and Technology 03/11/2022

Language and Technology 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. For more information, references and a full transcript please visit wordsandactions.blog In this episode we start our discussion of language and technology with voice recognition. Bernard mentions a general bias towards female voices, as discussed in this paper: Edworthy J., Hellier E., & Rivers J. (2003). The use of male or female voices in warnings systems: a question of acoustics. Noise and Health, 6(21): 39-50. Pitch range is also important, as demonstrated in the experiment on using different voices for sat navs that Erika mentions: Niebuhr, O., & Michalsky, J. (2019). Computer-generated speaker charisma and its effects on human actions in a car-navigation system experiment: or how Steve Jobs’ tone of voice can take you anywhere. In Misra S. et al. (eds) Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11620: 375-390. Springer, Cham. Moving from acoustics to culture, the following paper discusses how male voices are perceived as more authoritative: Anderson R.C., & Klofstad, C.A. (2012). Preference for leaders with masculine voices holds in the case of feminine leadership roles. PLoS ONE, 7(12): e51216. It is worth sharing a few more auto-captioning gems in the lectures of Veronika and her colleagues at Lancaster University: "my grammar is leaving me" → "my grandma is leading me" “n-sizes” → “incisors” “Hardaker and McGlashan” → “heartache and regression” “institutional” → "it's too slow" (truth!) “masculine” → "mass killer" (bit harsh) On readability, Bernard mentions an example from accounting, namely the obfuscation hypothesis. The following paper on the topic is considered the first accounting study that uses automated textual analysis with a very large sample to address readability: Li, F. (2008). Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence. Journal of Accounting & Economics, 45: 221–247. doi:10.1016/j.jacceco.2008.02.003 We then go on to talk about sentiment analysis, which is used to find out about, for example, brand perceptions or patient satisfaction. Here is an example of the latter: Hopper, A. M., & Uriyo, M. (2015). Using sentiment analysis to review patient satisfaction data located on the internet. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 29(2): 221-233. DOI 10.1108/JHOM-12-2011-0129 In the context of this episode, we want to distinguish between corpus linguistics and computational linguistics. Although language corpora are used to train systems in machine learning, corpus linguists engage in the computer-assisted analysis of large text collections, often combining automated statistical analysis with manual qualitative analysis. A company using such mixed corpus linguistic methods to provide their customers with insights about their products and services is . (We did not receive any funding from them for this episode, but they are a spin-off company that started at Lancaster University.) A critical evaluation of another area of computational linguistics, topic modelling, written by two corpus linguists is: Brookes, G., & McEnery, T. (2018). The utility of topic modelling for discourse studies: A critical evaluation. Discourse Studies, 21(1): 3-21. (Incidentally, the above paper is also based on data about patient satisfaction.) The PhD thesis on automatic irony detection that Bernard mentions was written by Cynthia Van Hee and is available . The second interview quest is another one of Bernard’s colleagues from Ghent University, Orphée De Clercq. Her recent publications include: De Bruyne, L., De Clercq, O., & Hoste, V. (2021). Annotating affective dimensions in user-generated content. Language Resources and Evaluation, 55(4): 1017-1045. De Clercq, O., De Sutter, G., Loock, R., Cappelle, B., & Plevoets, K. (2021). Uncovering machine translationese using corpus analysis techniques to distinguish between original and machine-translated French. Translation Quarterly, 101: 21-45. And finally, we talk to Doris Dippold from the University of Surrey in the UK. Her work on chatbots can be found in: Dippold, D., Lynden, J., Shrubsall, R., & Ingram, R. (2020). A turn to language: How interactional sociolinguistics informs the redesign of prompt: response chatbot turns. Discourse, Context & Media, 37. /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/22390610

Translation and Interpreting When the Stakes are High 12/03/2021

Multilingualism 10/15/2021

Negotiations 06/11/2021

Meetings and Conflicts 04/23/2021

Meetings and Conflicts 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. For more info and a transcript head over to . Episode 18 is on meetings and conflicts, so for the academically minded among our listeners, here are three sources of linguistic and conversation analytical research into meetings: Handford, M. (2010). The language of business meetings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Incidentally, Michael Handford was our first ever interview guest, way back in episode 1.] Handford, M., & Koester, A. (2019). The construction of conflict talk across workplace contexts: (Towards) a theory of conflictual compact. Language Awareness, 28(3), 186-206. Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2004). Leadership and managing conflict in meetings. Pragmatics, 14(4), 439-462. The study about “collaboration overload” that Bernard cites at the beginning of the episode is reported on . The second study he refers to, by online scheduling service When Is Good, is reported on . (Note that the article also mentions the Quaker practice of starting a meeting with silence, which anticipates our first interview later in the episode.) Erika follows up on this with a study that demonstrates how the time of day when an earnings conference call is scheduled can influence the positivity (or lack thereof) of analysts’ and managers’ tone: Chen, J., Demers, E., & Lev, B. (2018). Oh what a beautiful morning! Diurnal influences on executives and analysts: Evidence from conference calls. Management Science, 64(12), 5461-5959. It’s important to note that meetings take very different forms, involve different people and have different purposes. We describe a diagram which can be found on our website . Moving on to conflicts, Erika and Veronika have written about types and stages of conflicts, and about people’s conflict styles, in chapter 9 of their textbook: Darics, E., & Koller, V. (2018). Language in Business, Language at Work. London: Palgrave Macmillan Education. You can test your own conflict resolution style with the Thomas-Kilmann . In the first interview, with coach and workplace mediator Allegra Stone, we talk about how her Quaker beliefs influence her work. Quakers in Britain have published a about engaging with conflict that is based on their peace testimony. Our second interview guest, Bernadette Vine, is a member of the at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Te Herenga Waka, Aotearoa). A few of her recent publications are: Lazzaro-Salazar, M., Marra, M., Holmes, J., & Vine, B. (2015). Doing power and negotiating through disagreement in public meetings. Pragmatics and Society, 6(3), 444-464. Vine, B. (ed.) (2018). The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace. Abingdon: Routledge. Vine, B. (2020). Introducing Language in the Workplace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In the last part of the episode, we analyse the now infamous Handforth parish council from February 2021. In the next episode, we’ll be looking at the related topic of negotiations. /episode/index/show/wordsandactions/id/18805886