Work on the go: Linguistic and Discursive Dynamicity in Online Workshifting Communities

Worldwide phenomena like globalization, advances in communication and collaboration technology, and consolidated multinational corporate relationships have led to the increased mobility and hybridity of the workplace, its subjects and its online and offline discourses. One of the most interesting results of this trend - from a linguistic and intercultural perspective - consists in the emergence and development of the organizational practice known as “workshifting”, “remote working”, or “telecommuting” (Olson 1983). In fact, while commuting used to simply be an occasional part of an individual’s work life, in these contexts it becomes its very foundation or at least a very significant part thereof. This innovative work philosophy entails new conceptualizations of work performance and of steadily growing categories of varied workers: employees or freelancers working at home, company employees who work while travelling and/or travel as part of their job, and “selftreupreneurs”, who base their startup activity on flexible service, tailored products and targeted collaboration rather than traditional, stable locations and personnel. As a result of this, there is an ongoing reconception of the value and employment of time, space and material in reference to work. Such a trend is reinforced by today’s increased mobility and consequent use of technology and transportation (Hardill/Green 2003). This has, in turn, brought about inevitable changes in the forms and functions of communication that are employed by these workers and reflect workshifting’s fast and intense pace, as well as its extension of workspace and timelines (Olson 1983). As far as the former is concerned, workshifting encompasses an array of places and their relative affective and communicative value, thus ranging from being extremely intimate (in the case of those who work at home) to being extremely unfamiliar (for instance, in coffee houses and rented shared workspaces). From a temporal perspective, time – now including breaks and very short but intense periods of time - is used as productively as possible and has extended past the traditional “9 to 5” limit. Accordingly, the tone of this developing form of discourse is particularly dynamic and reflects this workplace category’s sense of pride and desire of recognition: in fact, workshifters present and consider themselves as multitasking, creative, resourceful and efficient employees. This concurs with the language and use of social media, a particularly efficient and far-reaching form of communication that allows people with shared interests in distant places to convey information and share content quickly and in an asynchronous manner (David/Carmen 2013). In addition, the language of social media underlines certain professional and personal features that an individual worker would like to be identified with by others (Garzone/Catenaccio 2009). The present inquiry will therefore focus on the multimodal and linguistic choices that are adopted by these subjects and their online communities of practice in order to present, promote and distinguish their professional and/or corporate identity and work strategies. In fact, as more work is done while commuting and/or in “office-less” settings, the development of equally adaptable, dynamic and shared communicative sites and language has also become essential. Furthermore, because the category of workshifters is spreading all over the world, these workers need and demand to be recognized and respected as professional figures in their own right from social, legal economic perspectives. The increase of this new form of working has in fact led to questions on how businesses could and should regulate fundamental working rights such as insurance, salary, strikes and safety for employees who are constantly away from the office. For the moment however, they are still not considered a workforce per se and therefore often cannot avail themselves of necessary benefit plans or data sharing in relation to the company (McInerney 1999). This has prompted and encouraged the presence of alternative interconnected and flexible online communities of professionals operating in the same or similar work situations that collaborate to communicate and compensate for this sense of detachment. Proof of this may be found in the creation of a specific lexicon and a growing repertoire of shared knowledge (guidelines, how-to, self-help and do’s-and-don’ts articles, success stories, recommendations, invitations to collaborate), aimed at introducing and forming those who just joined the category and sharing information and advice among peers in order to create a strong and informed discourse and practice community. In the midst of this repertoire, blogs stand out as a hybrid and individualized solution, as well as one of the most appreciated online genres (Myers 2010) used by workshifters, because they allow workers and companies alike to update, share and adjust their comments and information on work-related issues in accordance with the market’s ever-changing demands and emerging needs. It also allows these commuting workers to accept and appreciate the undeniable weight of their new roles and therefore foster a sense of community with mobile workers who are active in different sectors and countries. Through the growing literature on workshifting from the employees’, selftrepreneur’s and company’s points of view, the current inquiry intends to apply the methods and tools of critical and multimedia discourse analysis in order to analyze the linguistic and communicative choices found in the blogs of popular and collaborating international communities (Seargeant/Tagg 2014) from January 2014 to April 2015. The blogs, i.e. workshifting.com, citrix.com and misfits-inc.com, each target a different category (respectively workshifters in general, businesses that deal with remote workers, and creative workshifters/selftrepreneurs) while ipass.com provides wi-fi and cloud services to mobile employees and corporations and has conducted surveys and research on the virtues of workshifting. In this manner, the study seeks to highlight emerging linguistic tendencies created by and within this new and trending form of online workplace discourse and intercultural communication.