Show up on time, work hard, do well, and rise up the corporate ladder? Maybe. Oral communication is the most crucial ingredient in advancement on the job. In Power Talk, Sarah Myers McGinty analyzes the social and psychological elements of speech in the workplace, helping readers hear who's in charge and talk their way ahead. Fast trackers match the right speaking style to the situation and develop a corporate voice that comes across loud and clear. From the voice mail message that gets a call back to navigating a department meeting, listeners will learn how to become their own best spokesperson and advocate.

“In a time in which the ways we communicate and connect are constantly changing, and not always for the better, Sherry Turkle provides a much needed voice of caution and reason to help explain what the f*** is going on.” —Aziz Ansari, author of Modern Romance Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity—and why reclaiming face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground. We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don’t have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves. We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square. The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity. But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures. Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human—and humanizing—thing that we do. The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other. Turkle's latest book, The Empathy Diaries (3/2/21) is available now.

The Global Power of Talk explores the power of negotiation and diplomacy in US foreign policy at a critical juncture in US history. Beginning with the failure of US diplomacy in relation to Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, it shows how a series of diplomatic blunders has laid the foundations for the uninhibited use of 'gun power' over 'talk power' in the last two decades. It critically examines missed opportunities in America's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In a provocative conclusion, the authors argue that the United States can and should negotiate with the so-called 'unengageables' like Iran, North Korea, and Al-Qaeda, in order to find ways to defuse underlying tensions in the global system.

Talk radio was the foundation for what we now know as the Tea Party movement. Mike Siegel was at the center of the growth of populist tea party movements long before the tea parties became a political force.Power Talk: The Influence of Talk Radio documents many of the campaigns and public policy issues that were directly affected by the skill that Siegel used to bring his audiences into the influence his programs had on changing public policy.You will learn about the talk radio campaign led by Siegel to stop a proposed 51% pay raise in Congress. There was also the campaign to protest the oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez had a severe oil spill. That campaign led to a law passed by Congress and signed by the first President Bush requiring double hull oil tankers by the year 2010. This means that if the outer skin fails, there is still an inner skin protecting against any oil spill.Siegel presents many other talk radio campaigns that had an impact on issues of concern to the public. His success in building relationships with his audience to achieve these results is documented in Power Talk.One of the most gratifying efforts was the reversal of convictions of citizens in Wenatchee, Washington known as "The Wenatchee Witchhunt." Only one other media organization covered the prosecutions of innocent people alleged to have committed crimes against children. Every one of the convictions was later reversed, in part as a result of the talk radio presence in this issue.Power Talk will inspire you in the examples it offers that the media can be used as a force for good and for change. People were feeling alienated from the system and became energized and activated when talk radio offered them hope and a vehicle for change.Enjoy this true example of why we can be optimistic about the future, as long as people have vehicles like talk radio to make change for the better.

The concept of social power, who holds it and how they use it is a widely debated subject particularly in the field of discourse analysis, and the wider arena of sociolinguistics. In her new book,Joanna Thornborrow challenges the received notion that power is necessarily held by some speakers and not by others. Through the detailed analysis of communication and interaction within a range of institutional settings, she examines power as an emerging, negotiated phenomenon between participants with different status and goals. Written in a clear style which combines attention to technical detail with accessibility, Power Talk includes: a comprehensive introduction to the theme of power including the analytic approaches to power in language a wide-ranging discussion of theory and practice and, in-depth contemporary case studies. Power Talk is the first book to focus on the topic of power in situated interaction across a range of contexts. As such, it makes a timely, and important contribution to the debate surrounding social power and language use, and will be of value to both students and researchers alike.

Benjamin dismantles Americans' preconceived notions of the Japanese education system "Gail R. Benjamin reaches beyond predictable images of authoritarian Japanese educators and automaton schoolchildren to show the advantages and disadvantages of a system remarkably different from the American one..."—The New York Times Book Review Americans regard the Japanese educational system and the lives of Japanese children with a mixture of awe and indignance. We respect a system that produces higher literacy rates and superior math skills, but we reject the excesses of a system that leaves children with little free time and few outlets for creativity and self-expression. In Japanese Lessons, Gail R. Benjamin recounts her experiences as a American parent with two children in a Japanese elementary school. An anthropologist, Benjamin successfully weds the roles of observer and parent, illuminating the strengths of the Japanese system and suggesting ways in which Americans might learn from it. With an anthropologist's keen eye, Benjamin takes us through a full year in a Japanese public elementary school, bringing us into the classroom with its comforting structure, lively participation, varied teaching styles, and non-authoritarian teachers. We follow the children on class trips and Sports Days and through the rigors of summer vacation homework. We share the experiences of her young son and daughter as they react to Japanese schools, friends, and teachers. Through Benjamin we learn what it means to be a mother in Japan--how minute details, such as the way mothers prepare lunches for children, reflect cultural understandings of family and education.