Professional Discourse Book

Acknowledgements viii

Section 1 Introduction

1 Introducing the topic and the book 3

1.1 Why is it important to analyse professional discourse? 3

1.2 What is professional discourse? 5

1.3 What distinguishes professional discourse from other types of discourse? 5

1.4 What is the purpose of the book? 11

1.5 How is the book organized? 12

2 A theoretical model for contextual analysis of professional discourse 16

2.1 The construction of professional discourse 16

2.2 The contextual dependence of professional discourse 20

2.3 Model for the contextual reconstruction of professional discourse 26

2.4 Conclusions 27

3 Methodology to explore the dynamic relationship between text and context 29

3.1 Cognitive analysis 30

3.2 Pragmatic analysis 38

3.3 Macrothematic analysis 43

3.4 Conclusions 49

Section 2 Scientific Discourse

4 The socio-historical construction of medical discourse 55

4.1 A constructivist approach to medical discourse 55

4.2 Excerpts from medical articles from different periods 57

4.3 Stages in the development of medical science 61

4.4 Scientificality in medical articles from 1730 to 1985 62

4.5 The relationship between text and context for scientific medical writing 69

4.6 Conclusions 70

5 Non-verbal representation in articles within technology, medicine and economics 72

5.1 Theoretical background 72

5.2 Non-verbal representation in scientific articles 74

5.3 Discussion 79

5.4 Conclusions 80

6 From a national to an international writing community: The case of economics in Sweden 81

6.1 The Swedish economics community over three centuries 82

6.2 The change from a journal in Swedish to a journal in English 84

6.3Homogenization of article patterns 88

6.4 Discussion 91

6.5 Conclusions 94

Section 3 Legislative Discourse

7 The functional comprehensibility of legislative texts 99

7.1 Comprehension and comprehensibility 99

7.2 Pilot studies 103

7.3 Pragmatic analysis of legislative texts 104

7.4 Law-texts for different functions 108

7.5 Schema for function-centred analysis of laws 109

7.6 The alternative law-text 111

7.7 Test on functional comprehensibility 114

7.8 Discussion 121

7.9 Conclusions 122

8 The legislative writing process 123

8.1 Introduction 124

8.2 Societal constraints on lawmaking 126

8.3 The case of Swedish lawmaking 130

8.4 The legal writing process 132

8.5 The process and its product 137

8.6 Conclusions 141

Section 4 Workplace Discourse

9 Communication at work: A sociolinguistic perspective on workplace discourse 145

9.1 A sociolinguistic framework 145

9.2 Communication in a local government office 151

9.3 Conclusions 170

10 The multilingual workplace: Discourse in a hospital and a large company 173

10.1 Theoretical approaches 174

10.2 Presentation of the research project 177

10.3 The organizational structure of text and talk at work 179

10.4 Workplace languages 181

10.5 Foreign language users at work 183

10.6 Workplace interaction from a diversity perspective 188

10.7 Conclusions 191

Section 5 Discourse in Large Business Organizations

11 The multilayered structure of enterprise discourse: The case of banks and structural engineering firms 195

11.1 The sociolinguistic order of communication in a close-knit working group 196

11.2 A model of communication in large enterprises 197

11.3 Presentation of the research project 199

11.4 Discourse in European banks and structural engineering companies 200

11.5 The construction of an 'organizational self': The case of European banks 208

11.6 Conclusions 217

12 Business discourse in the globalized economy: A diversity perspective on company websites 220

12.1 The construction of an 'organizational self' on the internet 221

12.2 The balance between local and global concerns 222

12.3 The balance between economic concerns and social/societal values 224

12.4 Discussion 233

12.5 Conclusions 235

Section 6 Conclusions

13 Professional discourse in the twenty-first century 239

13.1 Professional discourse in different domains 239

13.2 Large organizations in the twenty-first century 241

13.3 The multilingual workplace 244

13.4 Workplace discourse in the 'new work order' 249

13.5 Topics for future research 251

13.6 Conclusions 252

References 255

Index 267