A huge proportion of workers in Canada utilize at least one language which is not their mother tongue in order to carry out their work. In this course, we will investigate a wide variety of questions and topics related to second language speakers and learners in the workplace. What is workplace communication? Who does it? Why? What impact do factors have on the conversations that occur in the workplace, including:
- second language ability
- sociolinguistic competence
- intercultural communication
- one's institutional role (e.g., employee, employer, supervisor, entry-level worker)
- type of workplace (e.g., medical, legal, university, warehouse, construction, etc.
- types of speech events that occur (e.g., meetings, interviews, email memos, internet chatrooms, lectures, workplace ESL classes, etc.)

We will use sociolinguistic tools to understand workplace settings and to investigate what makes for successful multicultural/intercultural workplace interactions. We will analyze authentic examples of written and spoken language in a variety of workplace settings.