Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T14:09:52.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Negotiating the culture order in New Zealand workplaces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2018

Janet Holmes
Janet Holmes*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
*
Address for correspondence: Janet Holmes, Department of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealandjanet.holmes@vuw.ac.nz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In many societies the relative social status of different social and cultural groups results in hegemonic relationships or an ‘order’ which manifests itself as sets of taken-for-granted societal norms or ideologies which influence behavior, including linguistic behavior. I label this concept the culture order, and propose it as a potential sociolinguistic universal. Drawing on the research of the Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) team, I provide evidence of some of the complex components of the New Zealand culture order. Using a social realist theoretical framework, and an interactional sociolinguistics approach, I identify a number of areas of contrast in the discourses instantiating the Māori and Pākehā culture orders (e.g. meeting norms, ways of criticising others), as well as discourse norms apparently shared by both groups (e.g. the Modesty Maxim; see Leech 2014). The complexities of these similarities and differences are discussed as well as their implications for hegemonic relationships. (Culture order, workplace discourse, sociolinguistic universals, egalitarianism, meeting norms)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 33 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to all those who have allowed us to record their interactions. I also owe a big debt to the Language in the Workplace team, and especially Meredith Marra and Bernadette Vine, for invaluable advice and support. Mary Boyce, Julia de Bres, Keely Kidner (LWP Associates), and Emily Greenbank and Māmari Stephens also provided valuable advice, feedback, and assistance. Finally, I am especially indebted to the constructive comments of the two reviewers and the editor which pushed me to make my arguments more explicit.

References

Agha, Asif (2003). The social life of cultural value. Language and Communication 23:231–73.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan (2016). Succeeding waves: Seeking sociolinguistic theory for the twenty-first century. In Coupland, Nikolas (ed.), Sociolinguistics: Theoretical debates, 391–416. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blank, Arapera (1980). The role and status of Māori women. In Bunkle, Phillida & Hughes, Beryl (eds.), Women in New Zealand society, 34–51. Auckland: G. Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Bönisch-Brednich, Brigitte (2008). Watching the Kiwis: New Zealanders’ rules of social interaction. Journal of New Zealand Studies 6(7):3–15.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah (2009). Theoretical issues for the study of gender and spoken interaction. In Pichler, Pia & Eppler, Eva M. (eds.), Gender and spoken interaction, 1–17. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Connell, Raewyn W. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person, and sexual politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas (2016). Sociolinguistics: Theoretical debates. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
de Bres, Julia (2008). Planning for tolerability in New Zealand, Wales and Catalonia. Current Issues in Language Planning 9(4):464–82.Google Scholar
de Bres, Julia (2015). The hierarchy of minority languages in New Zealand. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36(7):677–93.Google Scholar
Diamond, Paul (2003). A fire in your belly: Māori leaders speak. Wellington: Huia Press.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope, & McConnell-Ginet, Sally (2013). Language and gender. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, & Mauranen, Anna (1997). The conversationalisation of political discourse. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 11:89–119.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Grin, Francois (1995). Combining immigrant and autochthonous language rights. In Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (eds.), Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination, 31–48. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hirst, John (2009). Sense and nonsense in Australian history. Melbourne: Black.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet (2006). Gendered talk at work: Constructing gender identity through workplace discourse. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet (2014). Language and gender in the workplace. In Ehrlich, Susan, Meyerhoff, Miriam, & Holmes, Janet (eds.), The handbook of language, gender and sexuality, 433–51. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet (2017a). Intercultural communication in the workplace. In Vine, Bernadette (ed.), Routledge handbook of language in the workplace, 335–47. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet (2017b). Sociolinguistics vs. pragmatics: Where does the boundary lie? In Norrick, Neal R. & Ilie, Cornelia (eds.), Pragmatics and its interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, to appear.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, & Chiles, Tina (2010). ‘Is that right?’ questions as control devices in workplace meetings. In Freed, Alice F. & Ehrlich, Susan (eds.), ‘Why do you ask?’: The function of questions in institutional discourse, 187–210. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, & Marra, Meredith (2004). Leadership and managing conflict in meetings. Pragmatics 14(4):439–62.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, & Marra, Meredith (2011a). Relativity rules: Politic talk in ethnicised workplaces. In Davies, Bethan L., Haugh, Michael, & Merrison, Andrew John (eds.), Situated politeness, 27–52. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, & Marra, Meredith (2011b). Leadership discourse in a Māori workplace: Negotiating gender, ethnicity and leadership at work. Gender & Language 5(2):317–42.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Marra, Meredith & Lazzaro-Salazar, Mariana (2017). Negotiating the Tall Poppy Syndrome in New Zealand workplaces: Women leaders managing the challenge. Gender and Language 11(1):1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Marra, Meredith & Vine, Bernadette (2011). Leadership, discourse, and ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Marra, Meredith & Vine, Bernadette (2012). Politeness and impoliteness in ethnic varieties of New Zealand English. Journal of Pragmatics 44(9):1063–76.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Marsden, Sharon, & Marra, Meredith (2013). Doing listenership: One aspect of socio-pragmatic competence at work. Pragmatics and Society 4(1):26–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet, & Stubbe, Maria (2015). Power and politeness in the workplace. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Brad, & Parry, Ken (2001). The hero manager: Learning from New Zealand's top chief executives. Auckland: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Jackson, Brad, & Parry, Ken (2011). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership. 2nd edn. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam (1993). The power of silence: Social and pragmatic perspectives. London: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kell, Susan, Marra, Meredith, Holmes, Janet, & Vine, Bernadette (2007). Ethnic differences in the dynamics of women's work meetings. Multilingua 26(4):309–31.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Jeffrey C. (2007). Leadership and culture in New Zealand. In Chhokar, Jagdeep S., Brodbeck, Felix C., & House, Robert J. (eds.), Culture and leadership across the world: The GLOBE book of in-depth studies of societies, 397–432. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey (2014). The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marra, Meredith (2003). Decisions in New Zealand business meetings: A sociolinguistic analysis of power at work. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington dissertation.Google Scholar
Marra, Meredith (2008). Recording and analyzing talk across cultures. In Spencer-Oatey, Helen (ed.), Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures, 304–21. 2nd edn. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Marra, Meredith (2012). Disagreeing without being disagreeable: Negotiating workplace communities as an outsider. Journal of Pragmatics 44:1580–90.Google Scholar
May, Stephen (2000). Accommodating and resisting minority language policy: The case of Wales. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 3(2):101–128.Google Scholar
McLeod, Alan L. (1968). The pattern of New Zealand culture. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Hirini Moko, & Grove, Neil (2003). Nga pepeha a nga tipuna: The sayings of the ancestors. Wellington: Victoria University Press.Google Scholar
Metge, Joan (1995). New growth from old: The whanau in the modern world. Wellington: Victoria University Press.Google Scholar
Metge, Joan, & Kinloch, Patricia (1978). Talking past each other: Problems of cross-cultural communication. Wellington: Victoria University Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, John (1992). Exploring Māori values. Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press.Google Scholar
Peeters, Bert (2015a). Language and cultural values: Adventures in applied ethnolinguistics. International Journal of Language and Culture 2(2):133–41.Google Scholar
Peeters, Bert (2015b). Tall poppies in the land down under: An applied ethnolinguistic approach. International Journal of Language and Culture 2(2):219–43.Google Scholar
Salmond, Anne (1975). Hui: A study of Māori ceremonial greetings. Auckland: Reed & Methuen.Google Scholar
Salmond, Anne (1991). Two worlds: First meetings between Māori and Europeans 1642–1772. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie, Marra, Meredith, & Holmes, Janet (2007). Being (im)polite in New Zealand workplaces: Māori and Pākehā leaders. Journal of Pragmatics 39(4):712–29.Google Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie, & Zayts, Olga (2017). Language and culture at work. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen (2000). Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth (2008). Controversial issues in feminist critical discourse analysis. In Harrington, Kate, Litosseliti, Lia, Sauntson, Helen, & Sunderland, Jane (eds.), Gender and language research methodologies, 193–210. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Wong, Helena (2016). Being Chinese: A New Zealander's story. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.Google Scholar