What is sociolinguistics and what is discourse analysis?
Sociolinguistics is a field within the broader study of language, linguistics, and it investigates how variations in speech index an individual’s identity in regard to various social factors (i.e. age, socio-economic class, culture, etc) or group memberships.
Discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary approach which relies on analytical frameworks to understand spoken and written language. Broadly, in the words of Tannen (2007), discourse analysis “simply describes the object of study: language beyond the sentence” and “embraces not just two disciplines but at least nine: linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, literature, rhetoric, philology, speech communication, and philosophy” (p. 5-6) Within sociolinguistics, discourse analysis applies a holistic approach to understanding ways communication and miscommunication can be accomplished.
Discourse analysis and military discourse
Within my research, I find discourse analysis to be a powerful tool to elucidating how communication works in a military with 1.6 million active duty service members who arrive from diverse backgrounds. While service members receive similar training during periods of acculturations such as enlisted bootcamp, plebe summer, or officer candidate school, each individual still retains much of their communicative behaviors prior to joining the service.
Within my research, I ask, as individuals from different backgrounds join the military, how does this influence communication in the military work-place? What are the existing language ideologies in the military and how are they challenged by more diverse social constructs in the military? And more specifically, how can understanding these social constructs help leaders communicate more effectively?
A discursive approach to leadership
A “discursive approach” looks at leadership as a performance of a specific identity, i.e. an individual’s “leader identity” through the language used. In sociolinguistics, we sometimes talk about this as “little d” discourse and “Big D” Discourse. On the little d discourse level, individuals and their interlocutors through talk can construct identities, portray cultural ideals, and show subjectivity. At the big D Discourse level, their language may be (dis)aligning with broader ideologies or systems of thought.
So for example, if a supervisor directs an employee what to do – the supervisor is performing their identity as supervisor by virtue of their direction. This then feeds into the idea of what a supervisor is meant to be . Thus, the discourse and Discourse are aligned. However, if the supervisor refuses to direct the employee because they’re friends, then the discourse and Discourse are misaligned. In other words, the supervisor’s behavior (discourse) is not aligned with the expectations (Discourse) of the supervisor position.
In regard to leadership, I think it’s first useful to define what leadership is. Leadership can be thought of as the ability to influence and persuade other individuals to accomplish some task. The U.S. Navy provides an official definition of leadership as, “the sum of those qualities of intellect, of human understanding, and of moral character that enable an [individual] to inspire and to manage a group of people successfully ” (Stavridis, 2000, p. 8). But, how does a person actually “do” leadership?
Fairhurst (2007) borrows Robinson’s (2001) definition of leadership and states, “Leadership is exercised when ideas expressed in talk or action are recognized by others as capable of progressing tasks or problems which are important to them” (p. 93). While the Navy’s definition provides great characteristics of what composes an “ideal” leader, Fairhurst delineates leadership into empirical discursive strategies. In other words, her definition suggests that through language, a leader identity is constructed.
In my research, I’m interested in analyzing the language of leadership and investigate what communicative behaviors make a person in a position of authority into a leader. Further, I’m interested in what other “little d” discourses (i.e. other identities) intersect with the language of leadership.
Robinson, Vivian. (2001) Embedding leadership in task performance. Leadership for quality schooling, ed. by Colin Evers and Kam-Cheung Wong, 90–102. London:
Routledge/Falmer.
Stavridis, James. (2000) Watch Officer’s Guide: A Handbook for All Deck Watch Officers, Fourteenth Edition. Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, MD.
Tannen, Deborah. (2007) Talking voices : repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse,. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
