Course overview
This course will develop students' understanding of communicative expertise in professions, workplaces and organisations. This course focuses on the role of communicative expertise in professions, workplaces and organisations. This expertise is increasingly recognised as crucial to work across all sectors, including media, health, management, technology, publishing, government, education and law. The course is organised around ideas and issues that are fundamental to research in this area, with examples drawn from a wide range of international contexts, and opportunities for students to develop and pursue their own interests. Along the way, students are introduced to scholars in the field, explore the implications of their work and develop its relevance to their own experience and aspirations. The assignments then provide students with opportunities to investigate and evaluate communication in their choice of workplaces and organisations.
Course learning outcomes
- understand how language constitutes the roles, practices and institutions which characterise different professional cultures including, for example, health, medicine, education and law
- apply linguistic resources in researching how language and culture are used and interpreted in professional interactions
- analyse the nature and consequences of professional/client communication from interpersonal, interactional and institutional perspectives
- reflect on and develop their own language in professional interactions related to their particular vocational choices