Teaching Conversation Analysis to Business Communication Students
Teaching Conversation Analysis to Business Communication Students

Summary/Abstract: This paper is an attempt to make a case for an introductory theoretical Conversation Analysis (CA) and pragmatic component in a course on advanced oral communication for our MA students in international communication in business. For this purpose, first, we briefly describe conversation as a prototypical speech genre; then, we outline the fields of study of CA and pragmatics and provide a selection of course and seminar activities, namely the introduction of sequential relationships within conversation, the description of business talk as a variation of ordinary conversation, and an application that focuses on the notion of cognitive planning in work-related verbal interaction. In conclusion, we assert that by familiarising the students with the inner workings of ordinary conversation as the baseline template of the speech exchange system, they will be able to understand the idiosyncracies of the various sub-genres of oral business discourse and, ultimately, to handle the linguistic and conversational resources in order to perform effectively in the workplace.

• Details
• Contents