The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the informational complexity of work settings at the level of ordinary day-to-day activities. The interaction that takes place in local work settings provides a more subtle view of power and status relations than is usually provided by structural studies of organizational environments. The emergence of interactive and communicative practices is in fact only captured indirectly by demographic results and questionnaire surveys. Observation of the everyday world is effectively eliminated, because trying to follow what is “happening” is always a challenge as the environments of everyday life are so complex

2In the workplace, personal knowledge as well as environmental resources (objects, spatial arrangements) used by staff are often both subjects of interrogation (considered routine, novel or problematic) and accepted without discussion ( eg as data or self-evident). Discursive constraints can be both endogenous and exogenous to work settings. Exogenous elements may include the perceived relevance of organizational power, and the expertise associated with a problem-solving task. However, old and new employees often have to take into account the de facto routinization of tasks despite the possible gap between expertise and the task at hand. This mismatch can lead to regular “cognitive overload” in the workplace due to the multiple demands placed on the cognitive, emotional and interpersonal resources of individuals or groups. The perception of “cognitive overload” ( eg persistent interruptions) in the workplace can then affect routine problem solving. If communication analysis can capture conflicts and collaborations in workplaces, analysis of speech fragments must also include direct observation of sites and solicitation of information on interaction or relationships interpersonal.

3Communication practices, mundane or not, in the workplace can clarify the understanding of the term “cognitive overload”. Thus interruptions which disrupt activities, and can divert the attention of staff and patients from the processing of information in progress, tend to “erase” the active memory of the subject and his ability to recover the meaning of events or circumstances. previous ones. Many organizational problems and conflicts are often associated with communicative (speech, intonation and accent of voice) and motor (facial expressions, gestures and body movements) behaviors.

Bureaucratic organization and workplace communication

4Bureaucratic organizations have been the subject of extensive theoretical study at least since the pioneering publications of Weber.

Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive…. Thus, numerous works have developed our understanding of the structural conditions (and occasionally social processes) of these organizations

See CI Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, Cambridge,…, particularly regarding the nature of “authority” and “power”. However, these analyzes only make it possible to identify very indirectly the aspects of interpersonal relationships which can facilitate or disrupt daily work behaviors, even if they relate to authority or power. However, the daily aspects of bureaucratic behavior have not benefited from the same attention

However we find works like those of Blau, op.…. Organizational research provides few answers about how bureaucratic environments trigger, guide and constrain communicative exchanges, nor about how language events influence (and are influenced by) informal (often implicit or tacit) organizational rules. and routine work practices

The works of J. Holmes, M. Stubbe, B. Vine, S. Sarangi and C.….

5Terms such as “social organization”, “bureaucracy”, “institution” or “community”, are in common use in the social sciences, but their conceptual relevance is often limited to general descriptions. However, the use of particular terms, concrete or abstract, activates culturally shaped mental images. For example, mentioning a bureaucratic setting could mean an open or closed space with “compartments”, or a “small” office or a “spacious private office”; this can create images of “compartmentalized” or “tidy” workstations, “file cabinets”, “waiting room”, “receptionist”, “secretary”, “department manager” and of “meeting room”. Other terms will refer to other representations such as “confined” spaces, “boring and excessive” paperwork, “lively,” “banal” or “frustrating” telephone conversations, and waiting for different kinds of “services.” “. The use of the term “bureaucracy” can also refer, in a more technical and “institutionalized” sense, to an environment in which horizontal and vertical positions exist which are supposed to be predictable and stabilizing, that is to say produce behaviors and expectations consistent with a model. Yet such activities are rarely described from direct observation. What is often called “organizational practices” presupposes direct, observable interaction, as opposed to documents prepared by office staff and/or the recording of organizational activities without an observer present. Research on social organizations and their “practices” may or may not include a direct and systematic sampling of different work environments. They are often based on questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews, statistical data and/or documents collected by administrative staff. The study of discourse in organizational contexts can also replace these methods with sound or audiovisual recordings, with or without direct observations.

6The physical settings in which communication exchanges occur on a regular basis vary enormously. The development of formal workplace “networks” and personal social networks can affect the forms of discourse expressed in everyday settings and the productivity associated with given tasks. Work environments invariably include normative expectations about the use of different registers of language, particularly when there are “formal” meetings and an organization regularly produces documents that are distributed among groups and which can hide conflicts. For example in formal government, military, corporate, healthcare, or academic environments, small formal and informal communication networks emerge and become dependent on the development and use of a form of communication that includes a