1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910337725203321

Autore

Woydack Johanna

Titolo

Linguistic Ethnography of a Multilingual Call Center : London Calling / / by Johanna Woydack

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2019

ISBN

3-319-93323-X

Edizione

[1st ed. 2019.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 214 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Communicating in Professions and Organizations

Disciplina

306.446

Soggetti

Discourse analysis

Ethnography

Linguistic anthropology

Multilingualism

Sociolinguistics

Industrial sociology

Discourse Analysis

Linguistic Anthropology

Sociology of Work

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Getting to know Callcentral: a first encounter -- Chapter 3: The first stage of the script’s career: production of “the master script” -- Chapter 4: The second stage in the script’s career: adaptation of the master script -- Chapter 5: The final stage of the script’s career: enactment and use of the master script -- Chapter 6: Standardization and agency intertwined.

Sommario/riassunto

‘This book provides a fresh and insightful exploration into how call centre agents develop and use language at work. The researcher was able to do this because of her unique position within this workplace: she being one of the agents herself. This allowed her to provide a deep ethnographic account of how agents are recruited, trained and managed in this call centre, where many previous studies have relied on less knowledge and understanding of the actual and nuanced work situation.’ —Jane Lockwood, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University This



book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the textual trajectory of “the life of a calling script” from production by corporate management and clients to recontextualization by middle management and finally to application by agents in phone interactions. Drawing on an extensive original research it provides a behind-the-scenes view of a multilingual call center in London and critiques the archetypal modern workplace practices including extensive use of monitoring and standardization and use of low-skilled precariat labor. In doing so, it offers fresh perspectives on contemporary debates about resistance, agency, and compliance in globalized workplaces. This study will provide a valuable resource to students and scholars of management studies, communication, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology. Johanna Woydack is Assistant Professor at Vienna University of Business and Economics, Austria.