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Workplace Discourse: Constructing Social Identity of Lecturers Through WhatsApp Group

Received: 25 November 2018     Accepted: 10 January 2019     Published: 31 January 2019
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Abstract

This paper discusses how WhatsApp (WA) group can be used to maintain social and workplace relationship. In the presence of positive mediation of WA, people may have a sense of belonging as WA is a written discourse community. A WhatsApp group of lecturers was used as the source of data. Based on the results of analysis, it was revealed that the lecturers who join this WA group generally attempt to assert their individuality. Yet, they put their efforts to join others by maintaining their sense of status or self-esteem as they are members of the group by doing some imposition. It was also found that rich communication can be realized through WA group. The members’ use of greetings and the use of directives are reported. The syntactic and lexical choices made by the lecturers are consciously or subconsciously interpreted by the members of the group. The messages in WA group also revealed that the lecturers in the group show they are able to contribute freely, avoid conflict and create harmonious working relationships via the WA chat forum. The study described here is a case study of a written workplace discourse in an educational institution. Hence no statistical tests have been carried out since it is regarded as exploratory. Further study based on different workplaces and in different contexts needs to be conducted to see how these findings hold for other workplaces.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 7, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13
Page(s) 13-22
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Discourse Community, Workplace Discourse, Social Identity, WhatsApp Group

References
[1] Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C. and Sorensen, C. K. (2010). Introduction to Research in Education: Sixth Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth.
[2] Church, K. and de Oliveira, R. (2013). What’s up with WhatsApp? Comparing Mobile Instant Messaging Behaviors with Traditional SMS. Retrived 10 July 2015 from http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliveira/doc/MHCI2013_Whats-up-with-whatsapp.pdf.
[3] Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. SAGE Publication.
[4] Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[5] Heivadi, T. and Khajeheian, D. (2013). Construction of Social Identity in Social Media: An investigation of Iranian Users’ Appearance in Facebook. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, Vol. 4, No. 12.
[6] Koester, A. (2004). Investigating Workplace Discourse. New York: Routledge.
[7] Lin, C., Sun, Y., Lee, Y., and Wu, S. (2007). How Instant Messaging Affects the Satisfaction of Virtual Interpersonal Behaviour of Taiwan Junior High School Students. Adolescence, 42 (166), 417-430.
[8] Markus, T. And Cameron, D. (2002). The Words between the Spaces –Buildings and Language. London: Routledge.
[9] Ochs, E. (1993). Constructing Social Identity: Language Socialization Perspective. Lawrence Elbraum Associate.
[10] Rose, K. R. (2005). On the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics. System, 33(3), 385-399.
[11] Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[12] WhatsApp Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved on June 10, 2015 from www.whatsapp.com.
[13] Yeboah, J. and Ewur, G. D. (2014). The Impact of Whatsapp Messenger Usage on Students Performance in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana. Retrieved 10 July 2015 from iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/download/11241/11555.
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  • APA Style

    Yana Shanti Manipuspika, Tantri Refa Indhiarti, Emy Sudarwati. (2019). Workplace Discourse: Constructing Social Identity of Lecturers Through WhatsApp Group. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 7(1), 13-22. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13

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    ACS Style

    Yana Shanti Manipuspika; Tantri Refa Indhiarti; Emy Sudarwati. Workplace Discourse: Constructing Social Identity of Lecturers Through WhatsApp Group. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2019, 7(1), 13-22. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13

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    AMA Style

    Yana Shanti Manipuspika, Tantri Refa Indhiarti, Emy Sudarwati. Workplace Discourse: Constructing Social Identity of Lecturers Through WhatsApp Group. Int J Lang Linguist. 2019;7(1):13-22. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13,
      author = {Yana Shanti Manipuspika and Tantri Refa Indhiarti and Emy Sudarwati},
      title = {Workplace Discourse: Constructing Social Identity of Lecturers Through WhatsApp Group},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {7},
      number = {1},
      pages = {13-22},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190701.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20190701.13},
      abstract = {This paper discusses how WhatsApp (WA) group can be used to maintain social and workplace relationship. In the presence of positive mediation of WA, people may have a sense of belonging as WA is a written discourse community. A WhatsApp group of lecturers was used as the source of data. Based on the results of analysis, it was revealed that the lecturers who join this WA group generally attempt to assert their individuality. Yet, they put their efforts to join others by maintaining their sense of status or self-esteem as they are members of the group by doing some imposition. It was also found that rich communication can be realized through WA group. The members’ use of greetings and the use of directives are reported. The syntactic and lexical choices made by the lecturers are consciously or subconsciously interpreted by the members of the group. The messages in WA group also revealed that the lecturers in the group show they are able to contribute freely, avoid conflict and create harmonious working relationships via the WA chat forum. The study described here is a case study of a written workplace discourse in an educational institution. Hence no statistical tests have been carried out since it is regarded as exploratory. Further study based on different workplaces and in different contexts needs to be conducted to see how these findings hold for other workplaces.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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    AB  - This paper discusses how WhatsApp (WA) group can be used to maintain social and workplace relationship. In the presence of positive mediation of WA, people may have a sense of belonging as WA is a written discourse community. A WhatsApp group of lecturers was used as the source of data. Based on the results of analysis, it was revealed that the lecturers who join this WA group generally attempt to assert their individuality. Yet, they put their efforts to join others by maintaining their sense of status or self-esteem as they are members of the group by doing some imposition. It was also found that rich communication can be realized through WA group. The members’ use of greetings and the use of directives are reported. The syntactic and lexical choices made by the lecturers are consciously or subconsciously interpreted by the members of the group. The messages in WA group also revealed that the lecturers in the group show they are able to contribute freely, avoid conflict and create harmonious working relationships via the WA chat forum. The study described here is a case study of a written workplace discourse in an educational institution. Hence no statistical tests have been carried out since it is regarded as exploratory. Further study based on different workplaces and in different contexts needs to be conducted to see how these findings hold for other workplaces.
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