The Impact of Workplace and Identity Building on Using Language Case Study: Administrators (Secretaries and Office managers) at AAUP رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

When people communicate, they communicate identities like class, gender, ethnicity and ideas and feelings. Male and female linguistic differences occur in all human societies. Therefore, being born a male or a female can tell us how people are supposed to act and how they will be treated. At workplace, people meet with different kinds of people who come from different social, cultural, career and geographical origin. Working women are considered a minority in the traditional Palestinian society (according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2018). Therefore, presenting an identity based on gender or class can sometimes be considered as anti-society and breaking the norms. Women in particular tend to choose their speech form based on their personal social network. This study aims at investigating the impact of workplace and identity building on using language as perceived by the employees at the American University in Jenin. The sample consists of 29 females and 17 males who work at AAUP were selected randomly. To examine the linguistic variation, three variables are assigned (age, education and gender). Subjects of the study social networks are taken into consideration in the analysis as well. The findings draw on how age, gender and education may affect language use. An independent T-test, One Way ANOVA and Descriptive Statistics are used to analyze and test the study questions and hypothesis. The three hypotheses are tested in order to find out the relation between gender, age and education and language use. The results show that the three identities (age, gender and education) don‟t affect language choice.