Spontaneous Talk,Linguistic Capital,and Diversity

Abstract

In knowledge-based organizations, talk is more than just talk. Verbal ability plays a key role in career mobility in the workplace. Every worker is also expected to have good listening and interpretive skills. These skills are essential because the communication system in such organizations contains linguistic codes that allow several different messages to be sent in a single transmission. As minorities and women move into white-collar positions, they must be able to decipher the linguistic codes within these messages. Organizations are reluctant to teach them the code because so much of the existing power arrangement is organized around the receptive and interpretive skills of White males. This article discusses how codes are used to maintain the status quo and inhibit the career mobility of minorities and women.

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