HR Magazine Article Extract

Employers Etiquette - Why you should value different types of speech in the workplace

Angelica King, 05 October 2014

It is inevitable that the workplace will be composed of people from a variety of backgrounds, so why would we expect them to all speak the same? http://www.housingea.co.uk/new_course_equality_diversity_for_contractors_getting_it_right

For years, employees and employers have been told that in order to work together they must “speak the same language” despite our (gender) differences. However, this article should help battle the common misconceptions of speech and help make employers understand that “different” doesn't equal bad.  

Ladies First

Studies into gender differences in language has led to theories being produced that could be applied to the workplace which has highlighted issues, especially in terms of communication - thank you Robin Lakoff. One major difference in communication, inside and out of work, is between men and women. It’s the age old story; boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy and girl cannot understand each other. This arguably biological variation has meant that for years the genders have not been able to communicate effectively which can be seen in your workplace - if you look hard enough. This is a major contributing factor to why there is a perceived gender based power inequality in the workplace, one which men have the advantage. A classic example being women’s use of tag questions. Theory suggests that women’s use of them is to convey avoidance of commitment, that the speaker is unsure of their opinions, that they are looking for confirmation from the listener and possibly have no views of their own. However, there are serious flaws in this theory. One, male readers will no doubt realize that they also use tag questions in their speech and research has shown that they even use them more women do at times. Secondly, tag questions can be used to  help involve others in discussion which can be a helpful tool for company discussion and help make dialogue more cooperative and could potentially lead to more changes for the better and more diverse voices being heard within the organisation.      

Commentary

In the extract from my article on diverse speech I used the phrase “(gender) differences” in the strap line because the whole article would discuss different types of people and their different types of speech but I wanted to make it apparent that gender differences would feature mostly in the article and that it would be the first issue that would be discussed in the article. I made this explicit by putting the word “gender” in parentheses, hopefully conveying to the audience that although there are other differences, e.g. your racial background, gender is still a hot topic in terms of “differences” especially when linked to the working environment. Also, in some companies sexism may still evident but more covert today so by focuses on gender employers would be more likely to read the article because it could give them some advice about women in the workplace linguistically speaking.

Also, I decided in my article not to gloss the term “tag question” because I think that my target audience of employers and employees, although they may not be linguistic experts, may know what the term means. I thought that if I tried to explain the term, I might be patronizing the readers. Also, even if glossing the term “tag question” would not patronize the audience, it is unlikely that they will need to know the term so glossing in unnecessary. However, in the re-drafting process I might find out that the term “tag question” is not actually self-explanatory and I will change the article so that the first time the term is mentioned there is information afterwards in parenthesis so that everyone reading the article will understand what is being discussed in the article.