Introducing ‘How to Read Your Boss’

Hi there. A very warm welcome to the University of Nottingham and to this course, How To Read Your Boss. I’m Louise Mullany, associate professor of sociolinguistics in the School of English. I spend my time researching and teaching how the language strategies that we use encode a significant amount of information about our identities, our culture, and the societies where we live and work. I’m particularly interested in professional communication in businesses and organisations. This short course explores some of the most important current developments in this field. You’ll be introduced to a range of cutting-edge linguistic approaches. These include samples from a set of linguistic tool kits for analysing your own talk, your boss’s talk, and the talk of your colleagues.

No previous knowledge of linguistics is required for you to be able to study this course. It has been designed for you to complete all of the different stages even if you’ve never heard of sociolinguistics or professional communications before.

The majority of language choices that we make in our workplace conversations tend to take place below the level of our conscious awareness. The key aim of this course is to provide a short introduction to some basic techniques to help raise your awareness of the language strategies that are used in your own workplaces.

This will enable you to begin to read your boss more effectively, as well as analysing yourself and other colleagues, too. It is designed to help you enrich the communication strategies that you use in your professional lives.

Throughout the course, you’ll be encouraged to take the time to reflect upon your own language styles and the styles of others so that we can begin to pinpoint exactly how we communicate with one another at work.

We’ll be sharing stories and analysing your own examples of workplace conversations. We’ll give you the tools you need to identify the different types of communication cultures that operate in your workplace. We’ll also spend some time doing hands-on practical analysis derived from real-life business talk.

It’s really great to see so many of you signed up for How to Read Your Boss. I’m really looking forward to engaging with you throughout the course.