Discourse, Interpersonal Relations and the Workplace in the Spanish-Speaking World

Abstract

This final part of Spanish at Work examines the role played by task and interpersonal oriented discourse in several workplace settings and activity types, ranging from business meetings and university group work discussions (Chapter 14), to‘small talk’ in bars (Chapter 15) and service-providing calls within call centres (Chapter 16). In one case (Chapter 13) attention is paid to the impact on psychotic patients’ discourse, some of whom live in conditions of extreme poverty, of the health (psychiatric hospitals) and social care (shelters for the homeless) institutions that care for them as part of their day-to-day activities. Unlike Parts I and II, therefore, this part of the book is not focused on one, however heterogeneous, institutional domain (the media, politics) but on individuals’ negotiation of different interactional goals within varied workplace settings.