Linguistics in L-A-P Research : An Analysis of Authority and Agency Dynamics in Leadership as it Happens

Murphy, Anne (2025) Linguistics in L-A-P Research : An Analysis of Authority and Agency Dynamics in Leadership as it Happens. Journal of Change Management, 25 (1). pp. 59-76. ISSN 1469-7017

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Abstract

This article shows how a methodological approach borrowed from the discipline of applied linguistics can contribute to L-A-P scholarship. It focuses on the role of ‘micro-processes in affecting turning points and changes in trajectories as a means of understanding leadership within collaborative processes.’ Working with a two-minute extract of naturally occurring spoken interaction, audio-recorded during a corporate strategy away-day, I use the empirical procedures and analytical tools of linguistics to provide an alternative vocabulary with which to describe practice. The study finds that the close study of language reveals important aspects of collaborative dynamics. Four discursive strategies are identified. Taken alongside the opening-closing dynamics these provoke, these describe how individual linguistic choices interconnect in the processual flow of the unfolding conversation. This linguistically informed empirical analysis extends our understanding of L-A-P by illustrating a means of studying the collaborative dynamics of leadership. These observations and interpretations have wider implications for scholars who seek to attend to the performative dynamics by means of which practice emerges. MAD statement This century, leadership scholars and practitioners have sought to better understand how practice actually emerges. In this study I show how a close study of language can contribute to developing a better understanding of the collaborative processes which produce leadership.