Cover not available
Part of
Identity Struggles: Evidence from workplaces around the world
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop and Stephanie Schnurr
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 69] 2017
► pp. 407–426

Chapter 22
Household workers’ use of directives to negotiate their professional identity in Lima, Peru

This article examines interactions between employers in Lima, Peru, and their household workers who are generally perceived as unskilled (Fuertes, Rodríguez and Casali 2013). Using a constructionist approach (Bucholtz and Hall 2005), I explore the household workers’ struggle to negotiate professional identities using directives in task-oriented situations. Directives are associated with higher professional ranks in the workplace (Holmes and Stubbs 2003), thus indexing power. The data consists of audio-recorded interactions between household workers and their employers. The analysis of these interactions shows that household workers use directives to position themselves in non-subordinate roles with their employers’ consent. In using directives, workers take charge and assert their knowledge with certain tasks to claim expertise power (Vine 2004) and create a more professional or skilled work identity.

Keywords: directives, expertise power, household workers, professional identity, language negotiation, work identity negotiation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Domestic service in Peru
  • Frames, relational work and directives in discursive negotiations of identity
    • Directives and their strategic employment for identity negotiation in the workplace
  • Data and analysis
    • Address systems as markers of power differences between household workers and employers
    • The household workers’ construction of expertise power employing directives
    • Self-initiated directives
    • Invited directives
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Appendix
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.69.22del
References
Ally, Shireen
2009 From Servants to Workers: South African Domestic Workers and the Democratic State. Ithaca: LR Press.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif
[2006] 2007 Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benwell, Bethan, and Elizabeth Stokoe
[2006]2010 Discourse and Identity. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press.Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper
1989 “Investigating cross-cultural pragmatics: an introductory overview.” In: Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 1–29. Norwood: Ablex Publishing.Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman
1960 “The pronouns of power and solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–76. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall
2005 “Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach.” Discourse Studies 7: 585–614. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clyne, Michael
1994 Intercultural communication at work: Cultural Values in Discourse. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan
2008 “Reflections on impoliteness relational work and power.” In Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, ed. by Miriam Locher, and Derek Bousfield, 17–44. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Davies, Bronwyn, and Rom Harré
1990 “Positioning: The discursive production of selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 2: 43–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Degregori, Carlos Iván
1993 “Identidad étnica, movimientos sociales y participación política en el Perú.” In Las formas políticas de la democracia en los países andinos, ed. by Alberto Adrianzén, 113–133. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/IFEA.Google Scholar
(de la) Cadena, Marisol
2005 “Are "mestizos" Hybrids? the Conceptual Politics of Andean Identities”. Journal of Latin American Studies 37: 259–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(de los) Heros, Susana
2012 Utopia y Realidad. Lima/Madrid: Vervuert/IEP.Google Scholar
Félix-Brasdefer, César
2005 “Indirectness and Politeness in Mexican Requests”. In Selected Proceedings of the 7th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. by David Eddington, 66–78. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Retrieved from: [URL]
Fuertes, Patricia, Eduardo Rodríguez and Pablo Casali
(eds) 2013 Trabajo doméstico remunerado en el Perú. Situación y perspectivas en función del Convenio 189 y la Recomendación 201 de la OIT. Lima: OIT/ Oficina de la OIT para los Países Andinos.Google Scholar
García, Carmen
1993 “Making a request and responding to it: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers.” Journal of Pragmatics 19: 127–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haverkate, Henk
1984 Speech Acts, Speakers, and Hearers: Reference and Referential Strategies in Spanish. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage John, and Steven Clayman
[2010]2012 TaLk In Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet, and Maria Stubbe
2003 Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk at Work. Great Britain: Routledge.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, and Meredith Marra
2004 “Relational practice in the workplace: Women’s talk or gendered discourse?” Language in Society 33(03): 377–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Meredith Marra, and Bernadette Vine
2011 Leadership, Discourse and Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Kimberly
1992 “A question of context: directive use at a Morris team meeting.” Language in Society 21: 427–445. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Locher, Miriam
2004 Power and Politeness in Action: Disagreements in Oral Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Locher, Miriam, and Richard Watts
2008 “Relational work and impoliteness: negotiating norms of linguistic behavior.” In Impoliteness in Language: Studies on Its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, ed. by Miriam Locher, and Derek Bousfield, 77–100. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marra, Meredith, and Jo Angouri
2011 “Investigating the negotiation of identity: A view from the field of workplace discourse.” In Constructing Identities at Work, ed. by Meredith Marra and Jo Angouri, 1–14. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez-Reiter, Rosina
2002 “A contrastive study of indirectness in Spanish: evidence from Peninsular Uruguayan Spanish”. Pragmatics 12(2): 135–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mick, Carola
2011 “Discourses of ‘border-crossers’. Peruvian domestic workers as social actors.” Discourse Studies 13(2): 189–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mullany, Louise
2007 Gendered Discourse in the Professional Workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paan, Claudia
2010 Empleadas-hogar-ganan300-promedio. Retrieved from: [URL]Jueves 08 de abril del 2010 | 10:17
Placencia, María Elena
2005 “Pragmatic Variation in Corner Store Interactions in Quito and Madrid.” Hispania 88(3): 583–598. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruzickova, Elena
2007 “Strong and mild requestive hints and positive-face redress in Cuban” Spanish.” Journal of Pragmatics 39(6): 1170–1202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel
1999 “Discourse, Pragmatics, Conversation, Analysis.” Discourse Studies 1(4): 405–435. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie, Meredith Marra, and Janet Holmes
2008 “Impoliteness as a means of contesting and challenging power relations in the workplace.” In Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, ed. by Bousfield, Derek and Miriam Locher, 211–230. M. A. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie, and Olga Zayts
2011 “Constructing and contesting leaders. In Constructing Identities at Work, ed. by Meredith Marra and Jo Angouri, 40–60. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John
1976 “A classification of illocutionary acts.” Language in Society 5(1): 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah
1993 “What’s in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations.” In Framing in Discourse, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 260–279. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vine, Bernadette
2004 Getting Things Done at Work. The Discourse of Power in Workplace Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Directives at work: Exploring the contextual complexity of workplace directives.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(7): 151–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Viviano Llave, Teresa and Carmen Barrantes
2007 Detrás del Mandil, Trabajadoras del hogar víctimas de maltrato y hostigamiento sexual. Lima Ministerio de la Mujer y Desarrollo Social.Google Scholar
Zavala, Virginia and, Roberto Zariquey
2007 “Yo te segrego a ti porque tu falta de educación me ofende": una aproximación al discurso racista en el Perú contemporáneo”. In Racismo y discurso en América Latina, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk. 333–370. Barcelona: Gedisa.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Don
1998 “Identities, context and interaction.” In: Identities in Talk, ed. by Charles Antaki, and Sue Widdicombe, 87–106. London/California/New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar