Gendered Communication and Interpersonal Dynamics in Reality-Workplace Discourse: A Study of “The Apprentice”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55885/jprsp.v6i2.810Keywords:
Gender, Communication, Leadership, Conversations, LanguageAbstract
Workplace communication is a kind of interpersonal communication with peculiar features and complexities because communication manifests based on the individual idiosyncratic features such as gender, education, backgrounds and prior experiences. Also, the United Kingdom work environment attests to diversity and inclusivity at workplaces, which have implications for leadership style and effective communication. The paper attempts to highlight the use of gendered language in interpersonal communication with the objective of identifying gendered language in ‘The Apprentice”; analysing the identified language to portray interpersonal dynamics; and relating the implications of the gendered language to effective leadership at workplaces. By relying on Handford’s (2010) theory, the two transcribed discussions are analysed on the basis of male and female. The gender-related content is analysed and supported with a frequency description. It is concluded that gender influences speech patterns at workplaces differently, and leaders need to understand the role and influence of gender in speech patterns to be effective and successful.References
Abalogu, D. M., Okafor, C. G., & Nwokedi, G. O. (2024). The Impact Of Effective Communication On Human Relations In The Workplace: A Study Of Dangote Group Nigeria. Nigerian Journal Of Arts And Humanities (NJAH), 4(3).
Afnan, A., & Mohammad, M. A. (2014). Language use as an institutional practice: An investigation into the genre of workplace emails in an educational institution (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Utara Malaysia).
Alfalla-Luque, R., Medina-Lopez, C., & Schrage, H. (2013). A study of supply chain integration in the aeronautics sector. Production Planning & Control, 24(8-9), 769-784. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2012.666868
Bargiela-Chiappini, F., Nickerson, C., & Planken, B. (2013). Research Cases. In Business Discourse (pp. 244-307). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137024930_8
Bateman, J. A. (2017). The place of systemic functional linguistics as a linguistic theory in the twenty-first century. In The Routledge handbook of systemic functional linguistics (pp. 35-50). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315413891
Brown, O., Paz-Aparicio, C., & Revilla, A. J. (2019). Leader’s communication style, LMX and organizational commitment: A study of employee perceptions in Peru. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 40(2), 230-258. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-03-2018-0129
Coffelt, T. A., Grauman, D., & Smith, F. L. M. (2019). Employers’ Perspectives on Workplace Communication Skills: The Meaning of Communication Skills. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 418-439. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329490619851119
Crossan, M. M., Byrne, A., Seijts, G. H., Reno, M., Monzani, L., & Gandz, J. (2017). Toward a framework of leader character in organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 54(7), 986-1018. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12254
Darvin, R. (2017). Social class and the inequality of English speakers in a globalized world. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 6(2), 287-311. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2017-0014
Feller, J., Parhankangas, A., Smeds, R., & Jaatinen, M. (2013). How companies learn to collaborate: Emergence of improved inter-organizational processes in R&D alliances. Organization Studies, 34(3), 313-343. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840612464758
Frunză, S. (2017). Ethical leadership, religion and personal development in the context of global crisis. Journal for the Study of Religions & Ideologies, 16(46).
Handford, M. (2010). The language of business meetings. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Handford, M., Garrett, P., & Cots, J. M. (2019). Introduction to language awareness in professional communication contexts. Language Awareness, 28(3), 163-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2019.1654647
Hay, J. (2000). Functions of humor in the conversations of men and women. Journal of pragmatics, 32(6), 709-742. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00069-7
Holmes, J. & Stubbe, M. (2003). ‘Feminine’ workplaces. Stereotypes and reality. The Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell.
Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2014). The complexities of communication in professional workplaces. The Routledge handbook of language and professional communication, 112-128. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315851686
Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2014). The complexities of communication in professional workplaces. The Routledge handbook of language and professional communication, 112-128. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315851686
Humaidan Al-Moussawi, N. H., Ismaile, S., Megawer Abdelalim, A., Eid, G., A. Alibraheim, E., M. Essa, I. A., ... & A. Aljerian, K. (2026). Knowledge, attitudes, and interest in electronic mental health services among medical students at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 31(1), 2652511. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2026.2652511
Jelani, F., & Nordin, N. S. (2019). Barriers to effective communication at the workplace. Journal of Modern Language and Applied Linguistics, 3(2), 7-18. https://doi.org/10.24191/ijmal.v3i2
Khan, R. Z., Razak, L. A., & Premaratne, G. (2025). Literature Review of Green Management and Advanced Technologies for Firm Performance. Green Engineering for Optimizing Firm Performance, 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003626527
Kulbayeva, A. (2020). Balancing power and solidarity through indirectness: A case study of Russian and Kazakh meeting chairs. Journal of Politeness Research, 16(2), 159-191.
Kusbandono, D., Zaakiyyah, H., & Junaidi, A. (2024). The role of interpersonal communication in building leadership that positively impacts business performance in the entrepreneurial context. Technopreneurship and Educational Development Review (TENDER), 1(2), 68–75. https://doi.org/10.61100/tender.v1i2.187
Lee, M. T., & Wellinghoff, B. (2024). Love and Flourishing in a Business Organization: The Practical Wisdom of Barry-Wehmiller, Inc. Humanistic Management Journal, 9(2), 167-182. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-024-00177-9
Lexander, K. V., & Thyness, H. (2024). Innovative methods in collaborative research: mediagrams in the study of digital multilingual workplace communication and home-school interaction. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2334745
Lindhout, P., & Reniers, G. (2022). The “transparency for safety” triangle: developing a smart transparency framework to achieve a safety learning community. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(19), 12037. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912037
Mautner, G., & Rainer, F. (Eds.). (2017). Handbook of business communication: Linguistic approaches (Vol. 13). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614514862-026
McGuire, G. M. (2007). Intimate work: A typology of the social support that workers provide to their network members. Work and Occupations, 34(2), 125-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888406297313
Merchant, K. (2012). How men and women differ: Gender differences in communication styles, influence tactics, and leadership styles.
Mullany, L. (2013). Discourse, gender and professional communication. In The Routledge handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 509-522). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203809068
Noorian, M., & Biria, R. (2010). Interpersonal metadiscourse in persuasive journalism: A study of texts by American and Iranian EFL columnists. Journal of Modern Languages, 20(1), 64-79.
Pavla, V., Hana, U., Zuzana, P., & Dominika, K. (2024). Symmetrical communication: An intra-organisational system to support conflict and crisis resolution in organisations. Cogent Business & Management, 11(1), 2421414.
Phillips, M. J. (2023). Towards a social constructionist, criticalist, Foucauldian-informed qualitative research approach: Opportunities and challenges. SN Social Sciences, 3(10), 175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-023-00774-9
Phillips, S. (2020). Working through the pandemic: Accelerating the transition to remote working. Business Information Review, 37(3), 129-134. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382120953087
Rappaport, J. (2008). Beyond participant observation: Collaborative ethnography as theoretical innovation. Collaborative anthropologies, 1(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1353/cla.0.0014
Reichelt, J., Sievert, J., & Jacob, F. (2014). How credibility affects eWOM reading: The influences of expertise, trustworthiness, and similarity on utilitarian and social functions. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1-2), 65-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2013.797758
Roy Douglas, S., Doe, C., & Cheng, L. (2020). The role of the interlocutor: Factors impeding workplace communication with newcomers speaking English as an additional language. Canadian Modern Language Review, 76(1), 31-49. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.2018-0161
Semsadi, M. S. (2020). The Ineluctable Verbal/Nonverbal Dichotomy in Social Interaction. Revue plurilingue, Etudes des langues, littératures et cultures, 4(1), 91-102.
Sugianto, A. (2022). 'Is the picture worth a thousand words?': The interpersonal meanings of a dialogue in an EFL textbook. Journal of Languages and Language Teaching (JOLLT). https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v%vi%i.4510
Tao, M., Shoham, A., Alam, F., & Khan, J. (2024). Do self-reliance and patriotism influence indian consumer unwillingness to buy chinese products? The role of consumer animosity. Journal of international consumer marketing, 36(5), 443-462. https://doi.org/10.1080/08961530.2024.2301937
Vallas, S. P., & Cummins, E. R. (2015). Personal branding and identity norms in the popular business press: Enterprise culture in an age of precarity. Organization Studies, 36(3), 293-319. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614563741
Villena, V. H., & Dhanorkar, S. (2020). How institutional pressures and managerial incentives elicit carbon transparency in global supply chains. Journal of Operations Management, 66(6), 697-734. https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1088
Wahid, R., Halim, S., & Halim, T. (2024). Positive communication skills in the workplace. Migration Letters, 21(S8), 59-70.
Wichmann, P., Brintrup, A., Baker, S., Woodall, P., & McFarlane, D. (2020). Extracting supply chain maps from news articles using deep neural networks. International Journal of Production Research, 58(17), 5320-5336. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2020.1720925
Zappavigna, M. (2011). Ambient affiliation: A linguistic perspective on Twitter. New media & society, 13(5), 788-806. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810385097
Zelter, D., Rațiu, I., & Tocalachis, T. (2025). Business or Professional? A Context-Based Approach on Discourse and Communication. Scientific Bulletin of the Politehnica University of Timisoara: Transactions on Modern Languages/Buletinul ştiinţific al Universităţii Politehnica din Timişoara: Seria Limbi Moderne, 24(1).
Zhou, K. Z., Zhang, Q., Sheng, S., Xie, E., & Bao, Y. (2014). Are relational ties always good for knowledge acquisition? Buyer–supplier exchanges in China. Journal of Operations management, 32(3), 88-98.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Journal of Public Representative and Society Provision
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
