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Formality shifts in management meetings

Studies on Business English (BE) are becoming a growing interest with the trend in past studies moving from the importance of BE to improving it. The main objective of this study is to analyze formality shifts in management meetings. It’s specific objectives include the analysis of linguistic devic...

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Main Author: Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2016
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/1/FBMK%202016%2070%20IR.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/
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spelling my.upm.eprints.689072019-06-17T02:04:19Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/ Formality shifts in management meetings Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis Studies on Business English (BE) are becoming a growing interest with the trend in past studies moving from the importance of BE to improving it. The main objective of this study is to analyze formality shifts in management meetings. It’s specific objectives include the analysis of linguistic devices, language strategies, and the effects of power-play in order to see how all of these contribute to formality shifts in the meetings. Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) provided a theoretical framework to analyze the overall formality of a setting but lacked sufficient explanation on the factors of formality. This study adapted their framework and also from past studies on formality such as by Rogerson-Revell (2007). Conversational Analysis (CA) was used to analyze the transcribed data. Findings revealed that informality is caused by an increased in shared context which creates shorter and more casual turn takings as seen through the use of small talk and humour caused digression during a meeting. Furthermore, discourse markers were used to shift the meeting to being formal. Interestingly, the shift from formal to informal in a meeting was dependent on the manager’s participation. Meetings had more formality when the manager was present as lower ranked participants were less informal in the attempt to manage rapport. In conclusion, the participants’ position in the company determines the manner of speech being used in a meeting which results in the linguistic devices that cause change in a meeting’s formality. 2016-08 Thesis NonPeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/1/FBMK%202016%2070%20IR.pdf Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis (2016) Formality shifts in management meetings. Masters thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia.
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description Studies on Business English (BE) are becoming a growing interest with the trend in past studies moving from the importance of BE to improving it. The main objective of this study is to analyze formality shifts in management meetings. It’s specific objectives include the analysis of linguistic devices, language strategies, and the effects of power-play in order to see how all of these contribute to formality shifts in the meetings. Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) provided a theoretical framework to analyze the overall formality of a setting but lacked sufficient explanation on the factors of formality. This study adapted their framework and also from past studies on formality such as by Rogerson-Revell (2007). Conversational Analysis (CA) was used to analyze the transcribed data. Findings revealed that informality is caused by an increased in shared context which creates shorter and more casual turn takings as seen through the use of small talk and humour caused digression during a meeting. Furthermore, discourse markers were used to shift the meeting to being formal. Interestingly, the shift from formal to informal in a meeting was dependent on the manager’s participation. Meetings had more formality when the manager was present as lower ranked participants were less informal in the attempt to manage rapport. In conclusion, the participants’ position in the company determines the manner of speech being used in a meeting which results in the linguistic devices that cause change in a meeting’s formality.
format Thesis
author Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis
spellingShingle Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis
Formality shifts in management meetings
author_facet Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis
author_sort Mohd Johari, Muhammad Danis
title Formality shifts in management meetings
title_short Formality shifts in management meetings
title_full Formality shifts in management meetings
title_fullStr Formality shifts in management meetings
title_full_unstemmed Formality shifts in management meetings
title_sort formality shifts in management meetings
publishDate 2016
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/1/FBMK%202016%2070%20IR.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/68907/
_version_ 1643839341461504000
score 13.211869

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