24.1488, Diss: Anthro Ling/Discourse Analysis/Socioling: Clark: 'Safety Talk and Service Culture...'

Tue Apr 2 17:31:51 UTC 2013

LINGUIST List: Vol-24-1488. Tue Apr 02 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.1488, Diss: Anthro Ling/Discourse Analysis/Socioling: Clark: 'Safety Talk and Service Culture...'

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Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:31:32
From: Barbara Clark [barb at you-say-tomato.com]
Subject: Safety Talk and Service Culture: Flight attendant discourse in commercial aviation

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Institution: Queen Mary, University of London 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2013 

Author: Barbara L. Clark

Dissertation Title: Safety Talk and Service Culture: Flight attendant discourse 
in commercial aviation 

Dissertation URL:  https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7651480/B_Clark_thesis_final.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis
                     Sociolinguistics

Dissertation Director(s):
Erez Levon
Colleen Cotter

Dissertation Abstract:

The discourse of commercial aviation flight attendants has historically received 
no sociolinguistic attention. To address this gap, this thesis explores how flight 
attendants use language in workplace-related contexts to construct their 
professional identity and community. I draw on interactional sociolinguistics 
(Goffman 1981; Schiffrin 1994; Tannen 1993) and sociological research 
(Marschall 2002; Van Maanen and Barley 1984; Williams 1986) to address how 
flight attendants use language to orient to occupationally related knowledge and 
practices which contribute to the discursive construction of community.

Data come from two sources: 1) A corpus of 150 textual incident reports 
submitted by flight attendants to a US government agency which include 
summaries and proposed causes of the incidents in flight attendants’ own words. 
2) A corpus of 105 unique discussion threads containing 4,043 posts to a 
website hosting several discussion forums aimed primarily at flight attendants. 
The forums are not affiliated with either government bodies or airline employers 
and are a virtual space for flight attendants to discuss aspects of their job away 
from occupational demands.

Following Bucholtz and Hall (2004), I show how identity is contextually related 
and situationally constructed, and emerges from discursive orientations to 
professional practice, indexicality, ideology, and performance. Moreover, there 
are certain intersubjective relationships embedded in the discourse which 
emerge from and add detail to the situational identity constructed through flight 
attendant discourse. Indexical stances and ideologies which are grounded in 
institutional training frame and are heightened in the discursive performances of 
the reports and forum posts. These ideologies motivate and enhance the existing 
institutional, physical, and sociocultural divisions between flight attendants and 
pilots, which may have consequences for intercrew cohesion in emergency 
situations.

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