Investigation #2: Action and Practices

Within the discourse of internal communication of my company, some social practices and actions regularly take place. In this investigation, I will focus on analyzing the main social actors, their social practices and actions as well as the different cultural tools used to facilitate them.

The main social actors of my company, which is an English language learning centre, are the Principal, the academic officers, full-time lecturers and part-time tutors. The two major social practices they engaged, which are to be discussed in the later parts are making formal annoucement and eliciting opinions from employees.

When making formal annoucement such as releasing payment arrangment notice, the company usually take the following actions: i. The principal declares the new arrangement and ask the academic officer (AO) to deliver the messages to all the staff; ii) AO prints official hard copies for the staff; iii) AO posts a message on the intranet, namely Bulletin Page, to remind the staff to get a printed copy; iv) full-time and part-time teachers check the message on-line, respond and thank for the reminder; v)teachers collect the copy and sign to proof they have got the annoucement. In is shown that the order of actions is from the highest power to the staff with lower power. Teaching staff is rather passive in taking actions. By delivering the notice to the staff, the principal has projected the identity of staff to the teachers; and by signing the notice, teachers has also accepted the identity of staff of the company.

When eliciting employees' opinions such as asking for their comments about students' performance, the actions tend to be more interactive: i) Principal tells AO to ask for teachers' comments; ii) AO posts the request on Bulletin Page; iii) teaching staff check and reply to the thread; iv) AO thanks for the information or asks follow-up questions; v) teachers and AO discuss over the page; vi) AO reports it back to the principal. It is reflected that teaching staff have taken a comparatively more active role in the actions in this case.

A number of tools are used to mediate the actions mentioned above. For technical tools, the social actors use text, the Bulletin Page, printed announcement, and machines (computers and printers)etc. There are also semiotic tools, for example, language, knowledge of the company's system and jargons as well as the login ID for staffs.

Tools like the Bulletin Page have speeded up the action of delivering the intended message and have encouraged a more participative role of the teaching staff. However, staff cannot express their real thoughts freely on the page as it is a public space for the whole company and every social actors and members of the discourse are able to see it.

Within the same discourse of internal company communication, different social practices take place with a set of actions. With the aids of the cultural tools, some of the actions are made more easily; however, there are still some constraints that limit some of the actions of the members.