Discourse and Identity in the Professions

Professional identities are not only constructed through discourse, but can also be studied and analysed through discourse and communication behaviour, which is probably the most powerful resource available for the understanding of their nature and function. The present volume investigates the ways in which the discourses produced in a variety of professional contexts, especially in business, legal and institutional spheres of action, shape and manifest professional identities. The focus of the studies in this collection is on whether, and to what extent, the in-group identity of a given professional community and the norms elaborated by it affect the communicative behaviour of the individual participant or whether, and to what extent, the professional communication is also affected by the participant's specific objectives in the performance of that professional practice. Most of the studies reported here employ discourse and genre analytical and corpus linguistics tools to highlight the ways and means by which discourses contribute to the analysis of typical identity traits of various professional communities to provide some account of the way members of these professional communities strategically manipulate linguistic resources to achieve their professional objectives.