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Annotation The linguistic study of workplace language is a new and exciting area of research. This book explores the expression of power in a New Zealand workplace through examination of 52 everyday interactions between four women and their colleagues. The main focus of this research is the expression of three types of "control acts", i.e., directives, requests and advice. The women include two managers who demonstrate an interactive participative style of management. They tend to minimise rather than exert power, although their status is still evident in their speech. The study is original in its combination of a quantitative and a qualitative approach, as well as in its combination of a detailed categorisation of head acts and an analysis of context and role relationships. Through the design of the study and the methodology used, the results which are brought forward challenge earlier research both on power and control acts. The data analyzed is drawn from the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project

Many aspects of the use of the Maori language are highly controversial in New Zealand, and humour is one way in which the sensitivities relating to the language can be negotiated in everyday workplace contexts. This article examines the use of the Maori language by Maori and Pakeha participants during humorous episodes at staff meetings in a Maori organisation in New Zealand. The episodes analysed include humour indirectly relating to the Maori language, where the language is not the topic of discussion but its use plays an important implicit role, as well as humour directly focussed on the Maori language, where use of the language is the explicit topic of the humour. Use of the Maori language in these episodes includes Maori greetings, pronunciation of Maori words, the use of Maori lexical items, more extended stretches of Maori, Maori discursive features, and lexical items in English with Maori cultural connotations. The Maori language is used in a humorous context by both Maori and Pakeha staff members, in similar and different ways. Humorous episodes using the Maori language appear to serve a range of functions, including releasing tension (e.g. relating to sensitive issues around the Maori language), marking ingroups and outgroups (and sometimes bonding between the two), referencing Maori cultural norms, and constructing Maori identity.

Despite the fact that women are increasingly reaching the highest levels of management in business organisations, negative stereotypes persist concerning their ability to handle the discourse of leadership. Drawing on a large database of recorded material collected from women in a variety of New Zealand workplaces by the Victoria University of Wellington Language in the Workplace Project, this paper illustrates the value of both qualitative and quantitative analysis in challenging such stereotypes. The analysis indicates that effective women managers adapt their style with sensitivity and skill to the specific setting and refutes misconceptions about the ability of women chairs to handle workplace humour, making them sociolinguistically very proficient communicators in the workplace.

W artykule omówiono wkład pięciu różnych podejść w ramach analizy dyskursu w interpretację i zrozumienie tego samego materiału empirycznego. Podejścia wybrane do porównania to analiza konwersacyjna, interakcyjna socjolingwistyka, teoria grzeczności, krytyczna analiza dyskursu i psychologia dyskursywna. Dane empiryczne stanowi dziewięciominutowe nagranie dźwiękowe nieformalnej interakcji w miejscu pracy. W artykule zostaną ze sobą zestawione różne sposoby analizy, zostaną również omówione teoretyczne i metodologiczne implikacje używania poszczególnych podejść.