A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Diverse Discourses In X Marine Service Corporation

The study of organizational discourse began in the70s of the20th century. Most researches study discourses in such areas as medicine, news and teaching, while few of researches focus on organizational discourse at home.This research studies the diverse discourses in an influential X Marine Service Corporation in Shanghai with the purpose of answering the following questions:1)What different discourses are at play in X Marine Service Company?2) How do these different discourses interact with each other?3) Is employee’s identity constructed by such discourses?Data were collected in this research which has been conducted from August2010to December2011through site observation, interviews with eight employees and tape-recording of meetings. This thesis adopted CD A. Foucaudian. Habermas’ and Bakhtin’s perspectives on discourse and power for analysis tools.The research reveals at least six types of discourses in X Marine Service Corporation including economic discourse, power discourse, system discourse. disciplinary discourse, humanistic discourse and traditional discourse. These discourses worked together to serve the ultimate purpose of managing the corporation more efficiently.Secondly, a clear point emerged from the analysis is that these discourses interact with each other and some discourses are subservient to the discourses that play dominant role in this corporation. Exactly speaking, economic discourse occupies the absolute leading position in all discourses, and then power discourse, system discourse and disciplinary discourse are in the second order, while traditional discourse and humanistic discourse are marginalized.Finally, another finding in the analysis is that these discourses together constructed the identity of the staff. All discourses had the power to create the employees""subjectivity" to serve the benefit of the companyThis research is conducive to guide readers to figure out the underlvina truth embedded in discourse, so as to better understand the characteristics of organizational discourse.