The role of language in the process of creating meaning in a professional organisation
type: CreativeWork
description: This auto-ethnographic project concerns itself with the processes of how meaning in an organisational setting is created, changed, sustained and 'achieved'. Its contributory value lies in the inductive development of a 'tropological approach' to the investigation of sensemaking processes in organisations. Positioned in an interpretive-hermeneutic tradition, the major research strategy of participant observation and its supplementary techniques (e. g. qualitative interviewing) were activated to explore sense-making processes. This engagement in the field was complemented by the application of three frameworks derived from the discipline of linguistics. These were: a structuralist approach (as based on Saussure, Jakobson, Lodge), speech act theory (Austin, Searle) and discourse analysis (Fairclough). The application of the first framework to data explored the character of signs as well as the relationship between signs. The latter were defined as either metaphorical or metonymical in character. The tropes derived from these relationships, i. e. metaphor and metonymy, provided an early trajectory for further data interpretation. Naturally occurring talk, including organisational stories, talk as recorded in meetings, artifacts including written texts, buildings, equipment and geographical arrangements were analysed in terms of their metaphorical and/or metonymical significance in processes of meaning creation. The interplay of metonymies, i. e. processes on the basis of physical or causal contiguity, and metaphors, translation and interpretation processes were shown to render the experience of the organisation essentially symbolic. A third trope, irony, emerged as an important figure during the research process and was integrated into the tropological approach. Metonymy and irony are undertheorised in organisation studies. Within the second organising framework the performative value of tropes was investigated, i.e. in how far 'talk and action' form a dialectic whole. …
abstract: This auto-ethnographic project concerns itself with the processes of how meaning in an organisational setting is created, changed, sustained and 'achieved'. Its contributory value lies in the inductive development of a 'tropological approach' to the investigation of sensemaking processes in organisations. Positioned in an interpretive-hermeneutic tradition, the major research strategy of participant observation and its supplementary techniques (e. g. qualitative interviewing) were activated to explore sense-making processes. This engagement in the field was complemented by the application of three frameworks derived from the discipline of linguistics. These were: a structuralist approach (as based on Saussure, Jakobson, Lodge), speech act theory (Austin, Searle) and discourse analysis (Fairclough). The application of the first framework to data explored the character of signs as well as the relationship between signs. The latter were defined as either metaphorical or metonymical in character. The tropes derived from these relationships, i. e. metaphor and metonymy, provided an early trajectory for further data interpretation. Naturally occurring talk, including organisational stories, talk as recorded in meetings, artifacts including written texts, buildings, equipment and geographical arrangements were analysed in terms of their metaphorical and/or metonymical significance in processes of meaning creation. The interplay of metonymies, i. e. processes on the basis of physical or causal contiguity, and metaphors, translation and interpretation processes were shown to render the experience of the organisation essentially symbolic. A third trope, irony, emerged as an important figure during the research process and was integrated into the tropological approach. Metonymy and irony are undertheorised in organisation studies. Within the second organising framework the performative value of tropes was investigated, i.e. in how far 'talk and action' form a dialectic whole. …
author: Tietze, Susanne
language: en
date published: 1998-06
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:31:00Z
provider: Sheffield Hallam University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Sheffield Hallam University