Discourses of Leadership and Collaboration

The chapter discusses the notion of discourse, something deployed extensively in the book, before turning to the consideration of the potential constituents of the elusive discourses of collaboration and leadership. First, I review the ways in which discourse has been conceptualised in linguistics to date before clearly outlining the means of understanding the notion in this book. The chapter then turns to a more detailed discussion of the conceptual frameworks for accounting for how collaboration and leadership become textualised at work. The focus here is placed on these domains of language use where leadership and collaboration are most likely to be seen. In the case of leadership, the discussion revolves around the delegation and evaluation of tasks, as realised via speech acts of directives and expressives. In the case of collaboration, we discuss the notions of humour and small talk. Finally, the chapter considers also how the analysis of these domains of language use can be supplemented by the evaluation of specific communicative practises observed within their remit. This constitutes the discursive approach to leadership and collaboration adopted in this book.