language in the work place with males and female

The workplace we use has become more and more diverse with immigration into the UK bringing a richness of different cultures. Historically, some members have complained that some workers are not always using English in the workplace and similarly, some migrant workers complain that they have been prevented from speaking in their mother tongue to their compatriots anywhere in the workplace. This can become a problem if representatives are unsure of how to advise members; can lead to resentment in the workplace and can fuel racism and racial harassment.

 

Employers generally regard communication skills in employees as the most important set of soft skills. Use of appropriate workplace language aligns with good communication. Profanity, excessive slang or other crude or vulgar language may seem acceptable with friends, it but doesn't support your image as a good communicator at work. Using vulgar or sexual language could lead to a sexual harassment claim by a colleague. Body language also affects your communication. Your entrance and carriage, posture and handshake all project a level of confidence, respect and professionalism that help or hinder your verbal language. Workplaces have become more diverse; some employees speak native languages that are not English. Workplace human rights speaker and author Stephen Hammond identifies co-workers who speak different languages as one of the greatest workplace challenges in 2012. Employees should not be offended if colleagues engage in casual conversation in another language. Some employers hire translators to help global colleagues interact effectively. Being a bilingual speaker can significantly increase your value to employers in many instances. It can also help you build better relationships with colleagues and clients.

In Edelsky’s data, most participants in F1 floors were male, while F2 floors were participated in equally by males and females. Moreover, “men took more and longer turns and did more of the joking, arguing, directing, and soliciting of responses in F1's, while women “outstripped men in the increase of certain language functions in F2's (joking, arguing, suggesting, soliciting responses, validating, directing) and thus [were] more proactive and on center stage in F2's and reactive and on the sidelines in F1”.

Other researchers have proposed that more than two floor types exist. Schultz, Florio, and Erickson (1982) identified four types of floor at family dinners. Hiyashi (1991) created a taxonomy of eight floor types based on analysis of conversations among native Japanese and among native English speakers, including “prime-time-at-a-time” floors such as lectures, “speaker and supporter” floors, and “non-propositional” floors, or self-centred floors of speakers entirely preoccupied with their own thoughts, all under the broad heading of “single-speaker” floors. These were contrasted with “collaborative” floors, including “ensembles,” “joint floors,” and “multiple floors.” Similarly, Jones and Thorn borrow (2004) argue for the existence of multiple flexible and locally-negotiated floors in classroom discourse, ranging from “tight” or “constrained” floors, such as when the teacher calls the roll, to “loose” floors, such as when the teacher and a group of students are walking along a street, conducting an outdoor activity. The authors also identify “incipient” floors, in which silence is the main activity but some talking occurs, and “multiple floors,” in which multiple activities are taking place in a single setting, each with their own floor organization, “and with some fluidity among conversational groups”. None of these studies considered gender as a variable in relation to floor type.

Researcher(s)	Date	Key findings
Eakins & Eakins	1976	In seven university faculty meetings, the men spoke for longer.  The men’s turns ranged from 10.66 to 17.07 seconds, the women’s from 3 to 10 seconds.
Edelsky	1981	In a series of meetings of a university department faculty committee, men took more and longer turns and did more joking, arguing, directing, and soliciting of responses during the more structured segments of meetings.  During the ‘free-for-all’ parts of the meetings, women and men talked equally, and women joked, argued, directed, and solicited responses more than men.
Herbert & Straight	1989	Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank.
Herring	1992	In an email discussion which took place on a linguistics ‘distribution list’, five women and 30 men took part, even though women make up nearly half the members of the Linguistic Society of America and 36% of subscribers to the list.  Men’s messages were twice as long, on average, as women’s.  Women tended to use a personal voice, e.g. ‘I am intrigued by your comment …’.  The tone adopted by the men who dominated the discussion was assertive: ‘It is obvious that …’.

Holmes	Various studies from 1998	Women managers seem to be more likely to negotiate consensus than male managers, they are less likely to just ‘plough through the agenda’, taking time to make sure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided.
Holmes Holmes and Marra	2005 2002	Contrary to popular belief, women use just as much humour as men, and use it for the same functions, to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors, although they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour.
Hornyak	1994?	The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.
Tracy and Eisenberg	1990/1991	When role-playing delivering criticism to a co-worker about errors in a business letter, men showed more concern for the feelings of the person they were criticizing when in the subordinate role, while women showed more concern when in the superior role.
Various cited on http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/lwp/research/directives.aspx	Various 1998–2004	When giving a directive to an equal, workers tend to use more indirect devices (such as we instead of you, hedged structures and modals).  When giving directions to a subordinate, workers are often more direct.