Universal teacher- language and occupation

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/occupation.htm

• Occupations could not really exist without language, especially those in which many people work together, and need to pass on information about how to do things, or about current tasks.
• Occupations develop their own special language features, and use those of the common language in novel or distinctive ways.
•  We can understand forms
  • in an explicit sense as those kinds of activity that we can name (job interview, team briefing, disciplinary tribunal, conference, marriage ceremony) or
  • in a looser descriptive sense (discussing a problem, telling a manager about an incident, asking an expert for guidance).
• Language interactions may occur between or among those within a given occupation, or between those inside and those outside (customers, clients, the “general public”). This distinction will affect significantly a speaker's (or writer's) language choices.
• Some uses are exclusive, because they shut out people who do not know them. This happens when doctors share a common lexicon (think of things like ECG, CAT-scan, myocardial infarction, prima gravida).
• You should also look at how speech interactions reveal hierarchies, and changing attitudes to these.
•  Almost every occupation has its own special lexicon - a vocabulary that is specific to the occupation.
• New media and technology have created new forms (or radically adapted old forms) of communication. These are fascinating to linguists (they are quite easy to study - the data are readily available, and already in computer text form) and a popular subject for students to investigate. You should certainly consider electronic mail (e-mail), instant messaging and net meetings.
• "Face" (as in "lose face") refers to a speaker's sense of linguistic and social identity. Any speech act may impose on this sense, and is therefore face threatening. And speakers have strategies for lessening the threat. Positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee (but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party). Negative politeness is found in ways of mitigating the imposition:
  
  • Hedging: Er, could you, er, perhaps, close the, um , window?
  • Pessimism: I don't suppose you could close the window, could you?
  • Indicating deference: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I asked you to close the window?
  • Apologizing: I'm terribly sorry to put you out, but could you close the window?
  • Impersonalizing: The management requires all windows to be closed.