Andrew Moore - Language and Occupation

Language and Occupation 

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/occupation.htm

Language interactions may occur between or among those within a given occupation, or between those inside and those outside (customers, clients, the “general public”). This distinction will affect significantly a speaker's or writer's language choices.

Context is important for understanding meaning, especially the kind of special meanings that you will meet in occupational language. 

The forms of talk in occupational contexts 

-in an explicit sense as those kinds of activity that we can name (job interview, team briefing, disciplinary tribunal, conference, marriage ceremony) or

-in a looser descriptive sense (discussing a problem, telling a manager about an incident, asking an expert for guidance).

 Some examples of general functions of language in occupational contexts

 -communicating information

-requesting help

-confirming arrangements

-instructing employees or colleagues to do something

-making things happen or enacting them.

Lexis in an occupational context 

Every occupation has its own lexicon which is specific to the occupation generally or more narrowly to the personal practice. Example...

-forms used only in the occupation, or

-forms in the common lexicon but used with meanings which are special to the occupation: justify means very different things to a printer or typesetter and to a priest.