Gendered Talk at Work

Gendered Talk at Work examines how women and men negotiate their gender identities as well as their professional roles in everyday workplace communication.

• written accessibly by one of the field’s foremost researchers
• explores the ways in which gender contributes to the interpretation of meaning in workplace interaction
• uses original and insightfully analyzed data to focus on the ways in which both women and men draw on gendered discourse resources to enact a range of workplace roles
• illustrates how a qualitative analysis of workplace discourse can throw light on the many ways in which workplace discourse provides a resource for constructing gender identity as one component of our complex socio-cultural identity

“"Gendered Talk at Work offers rich empirical texture to support subtle and careful analysis of gender in workplace talk. Janet Holmes's highly readable yet theoretically sophisticated book will be required reading not just for sociolinguists but for everyone interested in promoting gender equity in employment." Sally McConnell-Ginet, Cornell University”

"Gendered Talk at Work offers rich empirical texture to support subtle and careful analysis of gender in workplace talk. Janet Holmes’s highly readable yet theoretically sophisticated book will be required reading not just for sociolinguists but for everyone interested in promoting gender equity in employment." Sally McConnell-Ginet, Cornell University

"A particular strength of this book is its accessibility to non-linguists: it will assist women and men in the workplace to gain a more sophisticated understanding of how gender interacts with power in producing different ways of speaking." Anne Pauwels, The University of Western Australia

"Janet Holmes’s account of gender and workplace discourse represents sociolinguistic scholarship at its best. Her detailed and wide-ranging analysis of language in interaction provides unique insights into the linguistic culture of the workplace and challenges stereotypical conceptions of gendered speaking styles – an invaluable resource." Joan Swann, The Open University

"Holmes's text is a well-written accessible book that not only gives the reader an understanding of much of the work on gendered workplace talk but advances with equal clarity into Holmes's own subtle and nuanced additions to the field." Discourse & Communication

Janet Holmes holds a personal Chair in Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington. Her publications include The Blackwell Handbook of Language and Gender (2003; co-edited with Miriam Meyerhoff), Power and Politeness in the Workplace (2003; with Maria Stubbe), and Women, Men and Politeness (1995).

How do we talk at work? Are there distinctively ‘feminine’ or particularly ‘masculine’ ways of interacting in the workplace? If so, who uses them, and in what contexts? This book explores the ways in which gender contributes to the interpretation of meaning in workplace interaction, and examines how women and men negotiate their gender identities as well as their professional roles in everyday workplace communication. Using original and insightfully analyzed data, Janet Holmes focuses not on how women and men differ in the ways they communicate power and authority, but rather on the ways in which both draw on gendered discourse resources to enact a range of workplace roles.

How do we talk at work? Are there distinctively feminine or particularly masculine ways of interacting in the workplace? If so, who uses them, and in what contexts? This book explores the ways in which gender contributes to the interpretation of meaning in workplace interaction, and examines how women and men negotiate their gender identities as well as their professional roles in everyday workplace communication. Using original and insightfully analyzed data, Janet Holmes focuses not on how women and men differ in the ways they communicate power and authority, but rather on the ways in which both draw on gendered discourse resources to enact a range of workplace roles.

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