Cheyenne Bowley, Grace Ernst, Sally Jebory, Brandon Ngo
This study analyzes how UCLA students utilize code switching and slang in various workplace settings. Our initial hypothesis anticipated that higher level staff would use more formal language, whereas peers would use more informal language. Our findings supported this idea to a certain extent. While some interactions succeeded this pattern, we observed that the environment frequently had a larger role in forming how people talked. Formality and use of slang was influenced by various factors, including who was present, familiarity between co-workers, and whether these interactions were in or out of a workplace. Our findings suggest that situational context can influence one’s use of language more effectively than job hierarchy alone. Both informal and formal language appear in various interactions, even in settings that are commonly considered professional, showing that code switching is often more common in workplace settings than anticipated. This study has many limitations, as data derives from the experiences of our work spaces and self reporting observations. Future research with samples of a larger and more variety of workplace settings could further explore how environment, familiarity, and hierarchy form use of language.
Keywords: UCLA students, professional settings, slang, power dynamics, authority, workplace culture
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Introduction/Background
Language plays an important role in the workplace because the way someone talks can indicate professionalism, familiarity, and authority with others. In various professional settings, it is expected to use formal language, especially when interacting with higher level staff and supervisors. People often use more informal language, slang, or jokes when talking with co-workers or peers. Workers naturally change the way they speak, based on who they are talking to and the setting they are in, known as code switching, where speakers shift between distinct language styles to match different social situations. Past research has displayed that language in workplaces is often formed by hierarchy and power relationships. Although, the idea on how everyday situations within the workplace influencing these language choices often gets overlooked. Factors including who is present, familiarity between co-workers, or whether conversations take place in or out of work may also play a crucial role. Our findings suggest that language use is not shaped only by job position but everyday context and social situations often influencing how people choose to speak.
Methods
For our project, we analyzed the language patterns of staff within our four different work spaces at UCLA: The Hammer Museum, Gogobop, UCLA Cleanroom Labs, and Airtasker Corporate. Each environment focuses on a different type of service/experience and ranges from very social and informal/semiformal (The Hammer Museum and Gogobop) to more formal or business-like (Cleanroom Labs and Airtasker Corporate) which provided us with a larger variety of data and settings to analyze. The methods we used included observational fieldwork, interviews, and collecting data samples from Slack, messages, and email. We went about our fieldwork by entering a normal work day or shift, and taking notes on the interactions between individuals inside the workplace. We would note their position in the hierarchy (student worker, supervisor, boss, shift lead, etc.), the position of who they talked to/interacted with, the topics of discussion, and their language use. We chose to focus on language patterns such as slang usage, tone of voice, formality and diction of speech, pitch shifting, pauses, markers of authority, and body language. The four of us also conducted interviews with at least 2-3 people from our workplace each, and a predetermined set of questions covering topics such as personal life, their jobs, and code-switching. Samples were taken of staff exchanges both during and outside of work hours. This data collection was conducted over the course of a month.
Results/Analysis
We found that formal and informal language was used to some extent by all levels of job hierarchy in each of the work environments. A majority of the informal speech, tone, and slang usage we heard came from student workers or lower level staff positions. That is not to say that the higher ups did not engage in informal or casual language patterns. In their case, the extent of informal language usage varied between the four work environments, from extensive use to rarely heard, but was still present within each space. Formal language patterns also seemed to be connected with the presence of higher up staff. We saw a trend in which it occurred most often between higher up staff or when lower level or student workers interacted with higher ups. Rarely did we observe super formal language use between student workers of the same level. This seemed to correlate with how close coworkers were to one another and if their work environment promotes them working together or separately during work shifts. We noted that environments that had more collaborative coworker interactions had heavier slang and casual language use. It is likely that collaborative work promotes more familiarity, and therefore, more informal conversation patterns.
In our interviews, we noted a variation of reactions to the act or experience of being asked questions. A pattern that we observed was that when interviewing our coworkers, they tended to strictly stick to the questions being asked and looked towards us as interviewers often to almost check in if they answered correctly or gave the response we wanted. This contrasted to what we saw during interviews with our higher ups in which a good amount of them seemed to show comfort or confidence in directing or almost taking charge of the interview or conversation. We think maybe it’s linked to their job hierarchy position and either how they believe they are expected to act, or the types of interactions they are used to in the workplace created by holding this job title. In our analysis of workplace online communication, we noticed that staff tend to vary in their language use and formality from inside to outside workplace settings, regardless of if the topic being discussed is personal or work related. Many of our message exchanges with staff during work hours are seen to lean towards being more formally worded and tend to be mostly structured around work but may be about other topics. However, outside of work hours, exchanges with the same person or people can be seen to take on much more casual and informal patterns and have much more variety in terms of slang use, structure, and emotion. An important thing to note is that we observed that a more informal or social work place, such as the Hammer Museum, experienced much less formality variation inside vs outside work. We found that conversation between coworkers in this environment stayed mostly informal compared to labs or airtasker, however, it still experienced the difference in formality from inside to outside work hours to some extent.
Discussion/Conclusions
Our findings suggest that language use in UCLA student workplaces is highly flexible and shaped by multiple social factors rather than hierarchy alone. While workers often used more formal language when interacting with supervisors or managers, situational context such as the pace of work, familiarity with coworkers, and the presence of customers also played an important role in shaping how people spoke. As workers switched between formal and informal speech within seconds, showing how natural and automatic code switching can be in everyday interactions. These patterns highlight that workplace communication reflects speakers continually adjusting their speech to fit social roles, expectations, and relationships rather than a simple division between professional and casual language. Yet this study has several limitations, as our observations were limited to a small number of workplaces and relied partly on self-reported experiences. Future research examining a wider range of workplace environments could further explore how different industries, workplace cultures, and forms of communication influence style and code switching in professional communication.
References
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