Analysing Workplace Interaction

Abstract

In this chapter, the analytical frameworks designed to analyse workplace interaction are outlined. Whilst these frameworks are utilized in particular to focus on workplace meeting interaction, in principle they can be applied to interactional data in a range of institutional settings. As part of the centralist, interdisciplinary approach outlined in Chapter 1, analytical frameworks from interactional sociolinguistics are integrated with tools from pragmatics and critical discourse analysis (CDA). This aligns with Sarangi and Roberts’s (1999) point that, in order to produce a ‘thick description’, researchers need to draw upon a combined analytical approach. Furthermore, Holmes et al. (1999) argue that an integrated analytical approach is essential in order to account for the fundamental role that power plays in governing workplace talk: