Speech Act Theory and Business Communication Conventions

Ewald, Helen Rothschild; Stine, Donna

doi:10.1177/002194368302000302

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…A handful of organization theorists have used speech act theory to study organization communication (Drake & Moberg, 1986;Ewald & Stine, 1983;Bilbow, 1998) but, similar to those using conversation analysis techniques (Drew & Heritage, 1992;Boden, 1994), the focus remains on the actions and interactions to determine the rules that made the utterances possible. These studies have emphasized the ordering of a speech act, or conversation, whereas my goal is to show how micro instances of organizing translate to macro organization.…”

Section: Speech Act Theory and Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative importance of stakeholders: analysing speech acts in a layoff

Guild¹

2002

J Organ Behavior

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SummaryGrounded in a participant observation study of a ski resort, this paper explores the (re)production of legitimate discourses through speech acts pertaining to an organizational event, a layoff. Manager's justifications and employees' reactions and critiques put sanctioned discourses into play. And while the stated organizational values include shareholder, customer, and employee concerns, the relative importance of these stakeholders is only made clear through the conversation of the speech acts and their reception. The shape of the conversation, in locution, illocution and perlocution, shifts the relations between managers and the employees and creates longer term consequences for the organization. This focus on language use serves as a micro-foundation for the study of legitimation processes and its consequences within organizations.

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Section: Speech Act Theory and Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative importance of stakeholders: analysing speech acts in a layoff

Guild¹

2002

J Organ Behavior

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“…How do spoken and written texts differ in business writing? Helen Ewald and Donna Stine, applying H. E Grice's speech act theory to business communication, propose a new way to compare spoken and written texts [9]. The researchers demonstrate how the maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner that Grice identifies in conversations are also present in letters, memos, and reports.…”

Section: Speaking/writing Relationships: Needed Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speaking/Writing Relationships and Business Communication

Liggett

1985

Journal of Business Communication

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THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE FROM A CURRENT business writing textbook offers advice that teachers often give: Write like you talk.Your writing style should be an extension of your personality, and your message should read much the same way you would talk to your reader were you communicating face-to-face rather than in writing. Even though one of the main advantages of written communication is its ability to convey complex information better than oral communication, the best writing sounds comfortable to the ear. [2, p. 60]With such instruction, however, texts and teachers alike may mislead students to conclude that writing is recorded speech. On the contrary, recent research shows that speaking and writing are distinct modes of communication. Not only should students learn to deliver oral presentations and to write reports, but they should also study relationships between speaking and writing. To explain why this is so, I will (1) examine ways that speaking/writing relationships both help and hinder effective communication, (2) suggest ways to make business communication students consciously aware of differences between speaking and writing, and (3) identify the kinds of research needed to further an understanding of speaking/writing relationships in business communication. SPEAKING/WRITING RELATIONSHIPS: A HELP OR HINDRANCEA communicator's facility with spoken language can both help and hinder effective communication. Beginning writers in primary school rely on oral language to compose and translate written text [6,28]. Indeed, several studies of ways to teach writing-alementary through college-recommend talk as an effective prewriting strategy [11, 23,27,29]. However, at some point of development, probably between fourth and sixth grades, writers begin to differentiate between the two modes in order to communicate successfully in writing [17]. They learn to provide more explicit information in a clearly organized way and to use conventions such as format, spelling, and punctuation. Indeed, inability to do so distinguishes unskilled writers from skilled ones [3,4,26]. Describing the unskilled college writer, Mina Shaughnessy explains: &dquo;Unaware of the ways in which writing is different from speaking, he imposes the conditions of speech on writing:' [26, p. 79]. Even the work of the more skilled students who enroll in business writing courses sometimes suffers from problems related to differences between speaking and writing.

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“…To what extent can Grice's cooperative principle be applied to facilitate communication? (Hagge & Kostelnick, 1989;Ewald & Stine 1983;Riley, 1986) 4. How can researchers construct historical narratives to analyze organizational knowledge?…”

Section: Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cooperative principle can be used successfully to interrogate and revise texts, as Ewald and Stine (1983) and Riley (1986) While studies such as these argue for using the cooperative principle to evaluate and write texts in organizations, this linguistic approach to such analysis has its critics. In particular, Augustine and Winterowd warn that when Speech Act Theory is used to analyze written and electronic communication, the researcher must recognize the limitations of non-face-to-face communication (1986).…”

Section: Applying the Cooperative Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Initially, I was apprehensive about adding maxims to the cooperative principle since this framework has withstood the test of time and testing, as illustrated by Ewald and Stine (1983) and Riley (1986). However, after working with TW and her DOL supervisor, I discovered firsthand the importance of applying frameworks in context as discussed by Hagge and Kostelnick (1989) and Suchan (2007).…”

Section: Lessons Learned and The Success Of The Revision Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Narrative: An approach to deciphering professional communication challenges in three professional venues

Greer¹

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Speech Act Theory and Business Communication Conventions

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Relative importance of stakeholders: analysing speech acts in a layoff

Relative importance of stakeholders: analysing speech acts in a layoff

Speaking/Writing Relationships and Business Communication

Narrative: An approach to deciphering professional communication challenges in three professional venues

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