Constructing Identities at Work

This edited collection presents cutting edge research on the process of identity construction in professional and institutional contexts, from corporate workplaces, to courtrooms, classrooms, and academia. The chapters consider how interactants do identity work and how identity is indexed (often in subtle ways) in workplace discourse. Through language we show who we are and where we belong. In the workplace context this includes the way we construct ourselves as the team leader, meeting chair, a good colleague, the judge, a teacher orresearcher. Constructing Identities at Work presents cutting edge research on the process of identity construction in professional and institutional contexts, from corporate workplaces, to courtrooms, classrooms, and academia. The authors illustrate the range of foci, methodologies and approaches prevalent in the newly established field of workplace discourse, demonstrating how interactants do identity work and how identity is 'indexed' (often in subtle ways) in workplace discourse. Moving beyond unhelpful static universalities about how all women, all English-speakers, or all old people behave linguistically, each of the authors emphasises the contextualised nature of our everyday lives and the ways in which we negotiate and renegotiate our emerging identities with others. Among the chapters there are examples of a range of different theoretical approaches to identity in linguistics, from the prevalent social constructionist lens to the micro-level detail accessible through Conversation Analysis, and the quantitative analysis offered by corpus linguistics Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Investigating the Negotiation of Identity: A View from the Field of Workplace Discourse....Pages 1-14 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Leadership Style in Managers’ Feedback in Meetings....Pages 17-39 Be(com)ing a Leader: A Case Study of Co-Constructing Professional Identities at Work....Pages 40-60 Chairing International Business Meetings: Investigating Humour and Leadership Style in the Workplace....Pages 61-84 ‘OK one last thing for today then’: Constructing Identities in Corporate Meeting Talk....Pages 85-100 Front Matter....Pages 101-101 ‘Hard-working, team-oriented individuals’: Constructing Professional Identities in Corporate Mission Statements....Pages 103-126 “Yes then I will tell you maybe a little bit about the procedure” — Constructing Professional Identity where there is not yet a Profession: The Case of Executive Coaching....Pages 127-148 Front Matter....Pages 149-149 Teachers, Students and Ways of Telling in Classroom Sites: A Case of Out-of-(Work) Place Identities....Pages 151-174 Identity-Work in Appellate Oral Argument: Ideological Identities within a Professional One....Pages 175-199 Engaging Identities: Personal Disclosure and Professional Responsibility....Pages 200-222 “We are not there. In fact now we will go to the garden to take the rain”: Researcher Identity and the Observer’s Paradox....Pages 223-245 Back Matter....Pages 246-248 Through language we show who we are and where we belong. In the workplace context this includes the way we construct ourselves as the team leader, meeting chair, a good colleague, the judge, a teacher or researcher. Constructing Identities at Work presents cutting-edge research on the process of identity construction in professional and institutional contexts, from corporate workplaces, to courtrooms, classrooms and academia. The authors illustrate the range of foci, methodologies and approaches prevalent in the newly established field of workplace discourse, demonstrating how interactants do identity work and how identity is 'indexed' (often in subtle ways) in workplace discourse