Language
and Occupation Theories
Eakins
and Eakins 1976:
They
found out that in seven university faculty meetings, men spoke for the longest.
Their turn ranged from 10.66 to 17.07 seconds and the women’s were from 3 to 10
seconds.
Edelsky
1981:
Edelsky’s
(1981) conducted his research in office floors and face to face. On the F1
floors (linear, hierarchical) there was mostly male participants and on the F2
(collaborative, democratic) floors there were an equal amount of male and women
participants. On the F1 floor type, male pre-dominant discussions took place,
however female-predominant discussions took place on a mixed floor type (F1,
F2). A combined account of his findings that were based on the predictable
mapping of gender and floor onto power relations is suggested and raised to
explain singularities that appear inconsistent under a simple floor or gender
based view. In conclusion, the implications of this account for the notion in
the floor in CMC and for floor-based accounts of participation and response
patterns in conversational interaction more generally.
Herbert
and Straight 1989:
People
from a higher status tend to have flowing comments than those people of a lower
status.
Compliments
tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank. They said that
from a young age, children are taught to say thank you to a compliment, whereas
adult speakers think that responding to compliments is embarrassing. They
believe that when people are responding to a compliment they should choose
their strategy carefully so they avoid appearing arrogant, rude or too eager to
please. Regardless of the allegation that adults have been taught to say thank
you, research shows that a huge amount of speakers do whatever they can to
avoid accepting compliments. Gender is analysed as a variable in mainly all compliments,
women give and receive many more compliments than men. This study is especially
concerned with the responses used by women in all female compliment exchanges
in an undergraduate level university setting and uses a cross-cultural
comparison of German and Italian to highlight any similarities or differences
in compliment response strategy preference and compliment function between the
two cultures.
Herring
1992:
Herring
constructed her investigation in an email discussion that took place on a
linguistics distribution list, five women and 30 men took part even though
women make up nearly half of the Linguistic Society of
America. The men’s messages on average were twice as long as women’s. The women
tended to use a personal voice, for example – “I am intrigued by your comment…”
The men dominated the conversation and their tone was confident – “It is
obvious that…”
Holmes
1998 onwards:
Holmes
believes that women use compliments positively affective speech acts to build
relationship. Its absence would be seen as impolite in situations where a
compliment may be expected.
Holmes
and Marra 2002 and Holmes 2005:
Women
use just as much humour as men and they use it for the same functions – to
control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors even though they
are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour. They came to
the conclusion that the use, type and style of humour reflect the unseen
relations to the organizations.
Tracy
and Eisenberg 1990/1991:
Men
showed more concern for the feelings of the person they were criticizing when
in the subordination course when role-playing delivering criticism to a
co-worker about errors in a business letter. Women showed more concern when in
the superior role.
Various theories 1998-2004:
Workers
tend to use more indirect devices such as ‘we’ instead of you, hedged
strictures and modals when giving an instruction to an equal. Workers are often
more direct when giving directions to a subsidiary.
Occupational therapist theory (Melbourne, Australia):
There was a participatory action research study into the
experience and use of occupation, theory and evidence in the everyday practice
of a group of occupational therapists working in a large metropolitan hospital
delivering a range of sensitive services, in Melbourne in Australia. The
occupational therapists decided to change the language they used to describe
their practice to a function focus to an occupation focus. The therapist’s
confidence levels were improved from this change and their professional
identities where strengthened and a sense of renewed empowerment within the organisation was provided. In
conclusion, these findings suggest that in sensitive settings occupational
therapists can develop their language more successfully to expand their ability
to promote the vital and unique contribution that occupational therapy has to
make. These small, powerful changes can allow occupational therapist to address
long standing dilemmas of representation and allow life forming practices.
