View Content #19320

By Ben Pearson, Al Ullman and Tiffany VanPelt, University of Oregon graduate students in the LTS program.

Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) courses aim to prepare students for real-world contexts. Interacting with a superior is a potentially tricky situation where students need sound communication skills and pragmatic competence. This week's activity utilizes an excerpt from the video game Culpa Innata to exemplify a possible interaction between employer and employee.  The video serves as a prompt for observation and analysis purposes, and to engage students in some critical thinking about the pragmatic implications in the given scenario. The students then carry out role plays in different workplace situations where there's a power difference between the interlocutors.

Objectives:

• Students will be able to recognize power relationships in the workplace.
• Students will be able to formulate a response to superiors.
• Students will be able to use hedging or softening language in the workplace.
• Students will be able to recognize when this language is appropriate and/or necessary.

Resources and Materials:

• Transcript of the video, critical thinking questions and role play rubric can be found here.
• The video can be found here (excerpt used is 6:01–7:14).

Procedures and Notes: the procedures and resources can all be found here in one document.