Palgrave Studies in Professional and Organizational Discourse

Digital Business Discourse

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Proposal Submission Deadline: 26 May 2013

 

Book editor Dr Erika Darics (University of Portsmouth) invites submissions for a volume entitled Digital Business Discourse, to be published by Palgrave in the series Palgrave Studies in Professional and Organizational Discourse. The main aim of the volume is to bring together research on computer-mediated or digital business discourse, specifically studies that include language or discourse-focused analysis of naturally occurring digital business interactions. The manuscripts sought are 7,000-9,000 words long, containing original, previously unpublished research.

 

Rationale

In spite of the prevalent use of computer-mediated communication modes in today’s professional workplaces, up till now the language and language use of these mediated modes have only received scant attention, particularly if compared to publications on computer-mediated business communication within cognate fields of business communication, information and organizational sciences. Although discourse-focused research of organisational or business communication has become more prevalent in the last decade following the realisation that the close, language-centred analysis of naturally occurring interactions is a fruitful method to shed light on the complexities of interactions in the professional workplace, business discourse research up till now seemed to have neglected interactions that take place via mediated communication channels.

Recent publications on business discourse either only scarcely register computer-mediated discourse, or struggle to meaningfully combine the findings of the scholarship of organizational studies and linguistic/computer-mediated discourse studies. The proposed volume of Digital Business Discourse is aimed to fill this gap by bringing together research addressing the interactional practices enabled by the various mediated communication modes currently used in the professional workplace or virtual work teams.

 

Aims

The general aim of this volume is threefold:

1. to further the field of business discourse research by shedding light on how computer-mediated communication technologies affect institutional discourse practices and meaning-making in the professional workplace
2. to contribute to the field of business communication studies, by providing a deeper insight into computer-mediated workplace interactions and highlighting the role of language and language use in the achievement of workplace-specific communicative goals
3. to contribute to the burgeoning field of computer-mediated communication/computer-mediated discourse studies by exploring linguistic phenomena and discursive strategies used in mediated interactions in a specific setting

The specific aim of the book is to bring together research focusing on empirical data, in particular naturally occurring mediated interactions from professional workplaces and virtual work teams, and provide a critical synthesis of language and discourse-focused research in order to gain an insight into the emerging communicative practices enabled by mediated communicative modes.

 

Structure and topics

Proposals are invited for the following broad topics:

Part One. Digital Business Discourse Genres

e.g. e-mail, IM, forums/collaboration tools/knowledge depositories, videoconferencing,

social media

Part Two. Approaches and Methodological Perspectives

e.g. Politeness, Conversation/Discourse analysis, Pragmatics, Ethnomethodology,

Rhetorical Analysis

Part Three. Digital Business Discourse in Organizational Contexts

Relational communication (e.g. humour, expletives, etc.)

Transactional goals (negotiation, task delegation)

Professional identities, leadership, interactional construction of hierarchy

 

Chapter Proposal Submission Guidelines

Please submit a 500 word proposal by 26 May 2013. The proposal should also contain the following information

- Proposed chapter title

- Author name(s) and affiliation(s)

- Overview of chapter with 3-5 keywords

- How the proposed topic relates to the book’s main aims and the main part it would fit into

- Brief biography of author(s)

 

Notification of acceptance

Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 07 June 2013.

Full chapters (7,000-9,000 words) are to be submitted by 30 October, 2013. Chapters should be original and should not be submitted for publication or published elsewhere.

Contributors may be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. If you are happy to act as a reviewer, please let the editor know.

 

Schedule

26 May 2013 Proposal Submission Deadline

07 June 2013 Notification of Proposal Acceptance

30 October 2013 Full Chapter Submission

14 February 2014 Comments/Revisions due

30 June 2014 (Revised) Final drafts due

September 2014 Delivery of final typescript to publisher