The Rhetoric of Oppression in the Workplace Ana Lúcia Magalhaes Faculdade de Tecnologia (FATEC) Cruzeiro, SP – Brazil Bruno Andreoni Delta Engenharia Abstract Many corporaons maintain that people are their most important asset, to be valued and encouraged to be creave. In numerous companies, though, such discourse is not backed by acons – in such organizaons, employees are in fact considered some sort of expendable arcle whose main movaon is to stay employed. Creave deeds of workers, like proposions of new methods, oſten disturb established interests that work to repress the creave individual. The image (ethos) that such corporaons project through both communicaons to the external public and official words to the internal public; the logic (logos) of short-term profits and of conservasm plus the feelings (pathos) stemming from individual interests of those who have some measure of power constute the discourse of oppression in the workplace. Such discourse was the object of rhetorical analysis using interviews with workers from plant floor to management in the Brazilian branches of two mulnaonal organizaons, two local midsize corporaons and two small businesses. The conclusions were: first, oppression discourse in the workplace, unlike the classical wolf speech in La Fontaine’s fable, is not aimed at a jusficaon (logos) - it is blunt, undisguised power-based pathos; second, a relavely subtle manifestaon of oppression is pervasive: command coming from mulple power instances, leaving workers helpless to set priories. The Ethos of Modern Corporaons The current discourse of most organizaons presents people as their “greatest asset”. As a consequence, corporaons would treat their employees as important resources, would pay due aenon to their needs and movaons and encourage them to be creave. The image (ethos) that the organizaons try to project is constructed by the discourse to the external public and in formal statements to the internal public. The logic (logos) of quick profits (especially in mes of crisis) plus the feelings (pathos) of individuals who hold some measure of power and perceive threats to their interests are translated in a different type of discourse – the discourse of oppression in the workplace. This paper proposes to invesgate if the everyday discourse in organizaons contributes to the exeron of power, if there is undue dominaon or abuse by means of such discourse and to what extent it appears as oppressive. A research was carried out in six corporaons interviewing employees from plant floor to middle management. They were also asked to reply to a simple quesonnaire with objecve quesons. Rhetoric in Organizaonal Discourse First of all, it is necessary to establish the meaning of the term discourse. There are many definions, somemes contradicng each other. Fairclough (2001) proposes three possibilies of linguisc understanding of discourse: First, discourse is “part of the social acvity within a pracce”. This