Linguistic strategies for professional politeness among aspiring managers: An analysis of organizational psycholinguistics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/eejpl.2023.10.1.vlaKeywords:
politeness, professional communication, manager, language means of politenessAbstract
In order to effectively communicate in a professional setting, it is essential for managers to have a mastery of the language specific to their field. One tool that can be used for professional communication is verbal politeness, which involves using appropriate words and phrases to show respect for the listener and soften unfavourable information. These linguistic units promote a culture of professionalism and ethical business relationships and are a key indicator of a manager's speech competence. A psycholinguistic study examined the usage of polite language by aspiring managers. The participants were 218 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Management program across various universities in Ukraine's oblasts. The organizational psycholinguistics research aimed to assess the extent to which aspiring managers incorporate professional language units such as polite words and phrases in their speech. We analyzed the references of 1,308 respondents to determine how politeness language units corresponded to the structural parts of the document. By studying 928 selected language units of politeness, we could assess the level of politeness markers. This indicator reflects future managers' skill level in applying synonymous ranges of politeness. The analysis found that respondents used various linguistic units to soften the impact of unfavourable information when conveying it to others. These units formed synonymous ranges based on context and semantic content. Only half of the students showed a wide range of knowledge and skills in appropriately using polite language. Thus, aspiring managers need to improve their knowledge and practical skills in using a variety of linguistic units of politeness in business documents. Therefore, we recommend implementing programs to improve communication levels for those pursuing higher education in management.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
* Corresponding author: Olena Vlasenko,
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Brown, Р. (2015). Politeness and Language. In J. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd Ed. pp. 326-330). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53072-4
Freytag, V. (2019). Exploring Politeness in Business Emails: A Mixed-Methods Analysis. Multilingual Matters.
Halbe, D. (2011). Language in the military workplace-between hierarchy and politeness. Text & Talk, 31(3), 315-334. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2011.014
Halmarim, H. (1993). Intercultural Business Telephone Conversations: A Case of Finns vs. Anglo-Americans. Applied Linguistics, 14(4), 408–430. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/14.4.408
Kim, S. H., Lee, H. (2017). Politeness in power-asymmetrical e-mail requests of Korean and American corporate employees. Intercultural Pragmatics, 14(2), 207–238. https://doi.org/10.1515/IP-2017-0010
King, J. (2011). Power and indirectness in business correspondence: Petitions in Colonial Louisiana Spanish. Journal of Politeness Research, 7(2), 259–283. https://doi.org/10.1515/JPLR.2011.013
Myskin, S. V. (2022). Introduction to organizational psycholinguistics. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 51(3), 437–453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09785-0
Orwig, M. L. (2020). Rethinking soft skills through front-stage and back-stage genres. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 83(2), 223–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329490620905905
Pearson, B. (1988). Power and politeness in conversation: Encoding of face-threatening acts at church business meetings. Anthropological Linguistics, 30(1), 68–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30028924
Pilegaard, M. (1997). Politeness in written business discourse: A text-linguistic perspective on requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 28(2), 223-244. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(96)00084-7
Ronan, Р. (2022). Directives and Politeness in SPICE-Ireland. Corpus Pragmatics, 6, 175–199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-022-00122-x
Schnurr, S., Chan, A. (2009). Politeness and leadership discourse in New Zealand and Hong Kong: A cross-cultural case study of workplace talk. Journal of Politeness Research-Language Behaviour Culture, 5(2), 131-157. https://doi.org/10.1515/JPLR.2009.009
Vettorel, P. (2019). Communication strategies and co-construction of meaning in ELF: Drawing on "Multilingual Resource Pools". Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 8(2), 179-210. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2019-2019
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