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Communities of practice in the analysis of intercultural communication 447

of distinctive workplace cultures (see Marra and Holmes in this volume, for an
extended discussion). They show that in some workplaces, small talk plays an
important role in constituting membership in the community of practice. In one
example, they discuss how a woman they call ‘Mary’ began working in a new
organization in which workers regularly shared fairly intimate details of their
personal life. Mary initially felt uncomfortable with this; it would have been
considered unprofessional in her previous workplace. However, their longitudi-
nal perspective showed that she eventually became accustomed to it, and came
to value it as an important bonding and support mechanism amongst staff. This
shows how new members of a community of practice must gain knowledge of
the linguistic practices that are part of the locally shared history in order to fit in
(Holmes’ work has more recently referred to this as ‘doing relational practice’,
see Marra and Holmes in this volume). Linguistic norms play a critical part in
creating specific workplace cultures, and these norms are negotiated over time
amongst colleagues.
Corder (2004) examined the communicative patterns of four football
(soccer) teams (two women’s and two men’s) for a period of several months at
the start of the football season, exploring commonalities and differences be-
tween the four communities of practice constituted by the teams. The study was
intended to illuminate how, within the stereotypically masculine social frame of
football, players, especially female players, create a space for themselves.
Corder found that the four teams studied all followed a similar ‘script’ in the
changing room and during match breaks and there was considerable overlap in
the topics they discussed before, during and after their matches. However, like
workplaces, the teams had all negotiated meanings specific to the locally shared
history of each team. For example, Corder found that having what we might call
a football ‘biography’ played an important role in defining the communities of
practice each team constituted. That is, she found that the locally shared his-
tories of the different teams’ communities of practice were coloured by whether
or not team members could draw on previous experience with and integration in
football culture.
Since participation in some communities of practice over an individual’s
lifespan is highly constrained according to sex – the vast majority of boys play
football in the UK; the vast majority of girls do not – Corder felt that this
required the women’s teams to work out exactly how they would respond to
their lack of a typical boy’s football-dominated biography. 4
Corder compared discussion of team tactics in a casual male team, ‘Your
Mum’, and the casual women’s team, ‘Studmuffins’. Your Mum’s extensive ex-
perience of football is clear from their use of highly specific tactical words, and
lucidity of expression in terms of prior and next move, e.g.