Alle Publikationen
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2017
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(2017): The impact of face systems on the pragmalinguistic features of academic e-mail requests. In: Pragmatics and Society 8 (1), S. 61-84. DOI: 10.1075/ps.8.1.04asl
Abstract: This study investigates the impact of power/distance (PD) variables operationalized as face systems on the pragmalinguistic features of academic e-mail requests. A corpus of 90 academic e-mails was classified into four face system groups: hierarchical (sender +P), hierarchical (recipient +P), deference, and solidarity. Request perspectives, strategies, and mitigating supportive moves were analyzed. The analysis revealed that the speaker and hearer dominance were the most frequent request perspectives in the hierarchical (recipient+P) and deference groups. The impersonal perspective was more common in the hierarchical (sender+P) group. The preparatory was the dominant request strategy in all groups, relatively more frequent in the hierarchical (recipient+P) and deference groups. The most common supportive move was the grounder, which occurred more frequently than other supportive moves. The findings of the study indicate that face systems influence the request patterns in academic e-mail communication. The study has implications for future research on pragmatics of computer-mediated communication (CMC).
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(2017): Fight and flight. A multilevel analysis of facework strategies in intercultural face-threatening acts. In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS 58, S. 69-81. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2017.04.008
Abstract: This study investigates facework strategies of managing face-threatening acts in intercultural interactions where communicators' cultural backgrounds are different from each other. Based on a pre-study with U.S. (n = 89) and Chinese (n = 76) college students, four scenarios featuring intercultural face-threatening acts were developed, where a Chinese student communicated politely and appropriately according to the Chinese culture, but the exact same act was considered otherwise in U.S. culture. In the main study, U.S. college students (N = 217) were given these scenarios and asked to report the general level of face needs, perceived face threats, and facework strategies in each scenario. Multilevel analyses (i.e., Hierarchical Linear Modeling) were employed to parse out the different levels of influence in order to understand both separate and joint impacts of situational face threats and individual face needs on facework strategies. Results showed that: 1) intercultural communicators use both mitigating (i.e., fleeing) and aggravating (i.e., fighting) facework strategies, and a slight preference is given to mitigating strategies; 2) facework strategies are more sensitive to particular situational conditions than to individual dispositions; and 3) individuals' value for others' face moderates the relationship between situational conditions and facework strategies. The current study provides empirical evidence of challenges in establishing meaningful intercultural relationships by identifying the multiple levels of impact on facework strategies in intercultural communication. Further discussion and implications of the findings are also included.
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(2017): Culture-generality and culture-specificity of face. In: Pragmatics and Society 8 (2). DOI: 10.1075/ps.8.2.03iza
Abstract: In theorizing face as relational and interactional, Arundale (2010) argues that face encompasses a dialectic of relational connection and separation, which is culture-general, but can be voiced differently in different cultures. This paper examines how Arundale’s Face Constituting Theory (FCT) relates to the culture-specific emic understanding of face in Persian culture in talk in dissertation defense sessions. The data are two argumentative excerpts of natural interaction from a corpus of 12 PhD defense sessions in Iran. It is first argued that relational connection and separation is voiced as bonding and differentiation. Second, it is shown how the Persian emic concept of aberu can be accommodated in FCT. The analyses, grounded in CA and FCT, show how the dialectic of bonding and differentiation is interactionally achieved in the practices of aberu.
2016
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(2016): Philosophical Anthropology, Shame, and Disability. In Favor of an Interpersonal Theory of Shame. In: Res Philosophica 93 (4), S. 743-765. DOI: 10.11612/resphil.1472
Abstract: This article argues against a leading cognitivist and moral interpretation of shame that is present in the philosophical literature. That standard view holds that shame is the felt-response to a loss of self-esteem, which is the result of negative self-assessment. I hold that shame is a heteronomous and primitive bodily affect that is perceptual rather than judgmental in nature. Shame results from the breakdown and thwarting of our desire for anonymous, unexceptional, and disattentive co-existence with others. I use the sociological theory of Erving Goffman and the theory of shame found in philosophical anthropology to support this view. I also use the cases of shame and chronic shame that often accompany disability to show that shame is separable from negative self-assessment and, instead, emerges as an affective response to a world (of equipment, things, and people) that disallows unburdened and unreflective interpersonal equilibrium.
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(2016): Customer Care in a Consumer Society. Smiling and Sometimes Meaning it?. In: Organization 5 (1), S. 27-53. DOI: 10.1177/135050849851003
Abstract: This article proposes a focus for research by drawing on two emerging and largely distinct streams of literature--on service/emotion work and organizations in consumer society. in particular, experiences of "customer care" and related "corporate culture" initiatives are examined. Here, employee ambivalence is highlighted and is typically portrayed in terms of: protecting a privileged or "real" sense of self; (re-)asserting control; and/or as being constituted through gender, class and other cultural relations and interactions with customers. Little attention has been given to parallel postmodern literatures documenting both the pervasiveness of a constituting discourse of the sovereign consumer and the emergence of multiple selves in a "de-traditionalized" consumer society. Here, the theoretical primacy given to discourse typically precludes an empirical consideration of subjectivity which is viewed as ephemeral. It is argued that such an epistemology has given rise to an exaggeration of the dominance and coherence of discourse, neglecting internal contradictions, alternative representations and associated practices of resistance.
2014
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(2014): Expressing disagreement in English as a lingua franca. Whose pragmatic rules?. In: Intercultural Pragmatics 11 (2). DOI: 10.1515/ip-2014-0009
Abstract: Multicultural classrooms provide the intercultural pragmatist with a breeding ground to get firsthand information on intercultural communication. In such a context, if English is used as a lingua franca, these classrooms also become an ideal setting to observe the pragmatics of this relatively unknown variety. The present article aims to analyze qualitatively a sample of data produced by a multicultural group of masters students in which English is used as the lingua franca. More specifically, I intend to answer the following research question: In a multicultural class where English is the medium of instruction and students' peer to peer communication, whose pragmatic "rules" are followed? In other words, do these speakers stick to their own cultural pragmatic rules or follow nativelike ones? More specifically, I focus on the speech act of disagreement given its face-threatening nature and its disruptive potential if carried out in what interlocutors might perceive as the "wrong" way. Disagreement was also chosen given the relative paucity of studies on this speech act - as opposed, for example, others like requests or compliments. For this purpose, the 10 students -from very different cultural backgrounds -were asked to carry out a group assignment. Their negotiation and discussion process, however, was computer-mediated via the use of forums rather than face-to-face. This allowed the researcher to collect -naturally occurring, spontaneous data in a relatively easy way (without the need for transcription). It also gave the students the opportunity to interact in a more democratic way. In fact, by being an asynchronous discussion online, they did not have to fight for the conversational turn, but all of them had the chance to contribute to the discussion at their own pace. The sample so collected consists of 15,598 words. The limitation of the sample calls for a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach but is valuable insofar as it represents naturally occurring data. Disagreement expressions were classified according to two main categories: strong and mitigated disagreement (following Kreutel 2007; Pomerantz 1984 and Rees-Miller 2000). Inspection of the data reveals that students on the whole show a tendency to avoid strong disagreement whilst favoring mitigated disagreement of different sorts (e.g., use of hedges, asking for clarification, giving explanations, etc.). Moreover, students with high linguistic proficiency displayed a wider range of strategies, following a more nativelike pattern -specifically; they seemed to follow the pragmatic rules of British English. On the other hand, students whose linguistic proficiency was lower also showed a tendency to avoid strong disagreement but were much more limited with regard to their mitigating strategies, favoring the nonnative overuse of expressions of regret and hedges. Other variables, such as familiarity with their partners and their linguistic proficiency, as well as the nature of the task at hand, also played a central role in the students' choice of the common rules of a native variety.
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