Alle Publikationen
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): Children’s early awareness of the effect of interpersonal status on politeness. In: Journal of Politeness Research 13 (1). DOI: 10.1515/pr-2014-0016
Abstract: This study discusses two Mandarin-speaking children's linguistic politeness through longitudinally observing their uses of request forms with regard to different interactional situations where their interpersonal status may vary accordingly. It seems that the children demonstrate a systematic correspondence between request forms and directness to adhere to politeness at an early age. Although they apparently prefer to utilize comparatively more direct request forms most of the time, a closer investigation reveals a division of labor: they appear to use simple imperatives when their interpersonal status is either superior or equal to their parents and use declaratives with the lexeme WANT when their interpersonal status is inferior. It is therefore suggested that politeness may be mutually negotiated between interlocutors and that children should get socialized with politeness through interaction with adults or other children within various social or interpersonal relationships.
Keywords: Direkte oder indirekte Art der Fragestellung/Formulierung etc., Familie/Eltern-Kinder, Grammatische Elemente (Lexeme u.a.), Kommunikations-/Interaktionsprinzipien, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Social Rank, Soziale Hierarchie, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, time, Verhalten von Höherstehenden gegenüber Niedrigstehenden, Verhalten von Niedrigstehenden gegenüber Höherstehenden, want -
(2017): The Embodiment of Power and Visual Dominance Behaviour. In: Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 15 (4), S. 228-241. DOI: 10.7906/indecs.15.4.1
Abstract: The objective of this study was to identify whether the changes in assuming power poses during a conversation between a pair of individuals, who were previously familiar with each other, influence the hierarchy of power, changes in it, as well as maintenance and adoption of different roles in the hierarchy. We assumed changes in roles of power on the basis of changes in visual dominance behaviour, which proved to be a reliable indicator of the social power of the individual in previous researches. Each pair conversed on predefined topics three times for three minutes. By placing individuals in a neutral or expansive posture, the purpose of which was covered by the use of a cover story, we created a difference in nonverbal expression of power between the two individuals. In the first conversation, both individuals adopted a neutral pose. In the second conversation, one individual adopted an expansive posture, while the other remained in a neutral one, and vice versa in the third conversation. Interactions were filmed with two cameras, which enabled us to analyse nonverbal behaviour. The results show that the differences in displays of power with expansive body postures between individuals are not associated with changes in visual dominance behaviour of individuals. From this we conclude that in the relations in which the social hierarchy of power is already established, the use of power poses does not help increase the power of the individual who adopts the posture.
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(2017): Cooperation Via Intimidation. An Emergent System of Mutual Threats can Maintain Social Order. In: Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 20 (4). DOI: 10.18564/jasss.3336
Abstract: Can human aggressiveness promote peaceful cooperation? Despite the seeming contradiction of these phenomena, our study suggests the answer is yes. We develop two agent-based models of cooperative interactions among aggressive agents threatening each other. In Model 1, we show that aggressive displays performed by dominance-seeking individuals create a system of mutual threats that effectively enforces cooperation and inhibits agents from escalating conflicts. This happens because agents observe each other fighting, which deters them from attacking each other due to aggressive reputations. In Model 2 we extend this effect to third-party interventions showing that forming alliances makes attacks more efficient and promotes the emergence of common rules determining whom to fight against. In such a state, social order is maintained by the existence of moral alliances - groups of agents willing to fight against norm violators. In summary, we argue that reputation for toughness and the aggressive predisposition of humans could have played an important role in the evolution of cooperation and moral systems.
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(2017): Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between Humility, Action, and Hierarchical Power on Follower Engagement. In: Journal of Business Ethics 141 (1), S. 13-25. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2725-y
Abstract: Servant leadership has been theorized as a model where the moral virtue of humility co-exists with action-driven behavior. This article provides an empirical study that tests how these two apparently paradoxical aspects of servant leadership interact in generating follower engagement, while considering the hierarchical power of the leader as a contingency variable. Through a three-way moderation model, a study was conducted based on a sample of 232 people working in a diverse range of companies. The first finding is that humble leaders showed the highest impact on follower engagement regardless of their hierarchical position. Less humble leaders in lower hierarchical positions seem to be able to compensate for that through a strong action-oriented leadership style. Most notably for leaders in high hierarchical positions, the moral virtue of humility seems to strengthen the impact of their action-oriented leadership the most. These findings provide empirical support and a better understanding of the interplay between the moral virtue of humility and the action-oriented behaviors of servant leadership.
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(2017): Impoliteness in EFL. Foreign Language Learners’ Complaining Behaviors Across Social Distance and Status Levels. In: SAGE Open 7 (3). DOI: 10.1177/2158244017732816
Abstract: A growing body of literature has investigated impoliteness in many domains. Nevertheless, little research has examined impoliteness done by foreign language learners. Impoliteness used in interlanguage complaints by English as a foreign language learners was observed. The effects of interlocutors' different status levels and social distance on the use of impoliteness were analyzed. Empirical data were elicited by means of oral discourse completion tasks from 50 Indonesian English as a foreign language learners in Central Java, Indonesia. The overall direction of the findings showed trends that status levels and social distance between interlocutors prompted different frequencies and strategies of impoliteness. The frequent use of impolite complaints was instigated by a number of factors such as the learners' understanding about the speech act in question, their perceptions on the social distance and status levels of interlocutors, and the nature of the research instrument.
2016
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(2016): Politeness Judgments in Personal Relationships. In: Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (3), S. 297-325. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X970163003
Abstract: Brown and Levinson's politeness theory specifies five strategies for achieving politeness. Although the strategies are presented as ordered and mutually exclusive, there is reason to believe that they are neither The authors offer an alternative means of classifying requests that is grounded in the phenomenology of the social actor and depends on three message features: explicitness, dominance, and argument. Separate samples of judges viewed video clips of one college student attempting to influence another and provided judgments of politeness (n = 100), explicitness and overall dominance (n = 435), linguistic dominance (n = 80), or argument (n = 60). A regression analysis predicting politeness was conducted using message as the unit of analysis. The results showed a strong, negative relationship between politeness and dominance and weaker;positive associations with explicitness and argument.
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(2016): Polite like an Egyptian?. Case Studies of Politeness in the Late Ramesside Letters. In: Journal of Politeness Research 12 (2), S. 149-153. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2016-0007
Abstract: The Late Ramesside Letters, a corpus of over 70 personal communications written in Late Egyptian, form one of the most complete letter collections from ancient Egypt (c. 1099-1069 BCE). A key feature of ancient Egyptian letter writing is the adherence to the social positions of, and relationships between, the interlocutors, allowing scholars to reconstruct the hierarchical network of individuals directly and indirectly included in the corpus. From this understanding, how can modern scholars discern what was considered to be 'polite' communicative behaviour within these relationships and how can developments in historical politeness help us do this? This article will explore three case studies surrounding different aspects of politeness research: first-order politeness, facework, and discernment politeness in order to explore the phenomenon of 'politeness' in Late Egyptian and reflect on the suitability of current politeness frameworks for the analysis of the Late Ramesside Letters.
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(2016): Let justice be done. A performative view on Portuguese criminal trial procedures. In: Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 13 (4), S. 400-415. DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2016.1160137
Abstract: Based on fieldwork at criminal courts in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, the article examines the performativity of criminal justice. The written and unwritten rules of criminal trial procedures are analysed as judicial scripts that guide the “making” of Justice. The formalities of the criminal trial, like those that prescribe the correct behaviour of defendants in Portuguese courts, are tied to the liminality of their social standing and their betwixt-and-between position in the court and in society. Script compliance is discussed as a central element within the production of criminal justice. Finally, the article suggests a performative view of justice, drawing on Butler's ideas regarding the enactment and construction of notions of gender.
Keywords: Beeinflussung der Bewertung moralischer Urteile, Bewertung von sozialem Verhalten (/sozialer Angemessenheit), Body, criminal justice, criminal proceedings, Erwartungen, Kooperation, legal anthropology, performance, Portugal, Rechtswissenschaft, Rollen, script, script compliance, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Soziale Hierarchie, Soziale Klasse / Schicht, Sozialer Raum / Kultureller Kontext 2015
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(2015): "Lo siento, pero me parecen horribles!!!": Pragmalinguistic analysis of impoliteness in the Facebook social network. In: REVISTA DE FILOLOGIA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA 33, S. 217-236
Abstract: This paper focuses on analyzing the strategies of impoliteness displayed on two corpora of publications extracted from the social network Facebook. To this purpose, theoretical models about impoliteness designed by Culpeper (1996, 2005) and Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichmann (2003), Kientpointner (1997, 2008), Kaul (2005, 2008) and Ridao (2009) have been studied. From this analysis, two main conclusions were obtained. On one hand, the absence of hurtful impoliteness in private profiles examined, in contrast to the presence of strategies of direct impoliteness in public profiles. On the other hand, the need to analyze impoliteness in social networks taking into account these variables: direction or indirection, intentional or not intentional, membership of the damaged image (sender or receiver), low or high group connection, degree of hierarchy and familiarity
2013
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(2013): Analyzing Communication Interaction Networks (CINs) in enterprises and inferring hierarchies. In: Computer Networks 57 (10), S. 2147-2158. DOI: 10.1016/j.comnet.2012.11.028
Abstract: With the proliferation of electronic modes of communication (e.g., e-mails, short messages), employees inside an enterprise can form several distinct Communication Interaction Networks, or CINs for short. A CIN is essentially a graph representation of "who talks to whom" among a group of individuals. In this paper, we conduct an empirical study of two modern enterprises and focus on three main questions: (Q1) How CINs from the two enterprises look; (Q2) How employees use the different available communication modes within an enterprise; and (Q3) By only using CINs, how much information we can extract regarding the hierarchy in the enterprise. We address these questions using empirical CINs from the Enron Corporation and a communication provider, using information from the exchange of e-mails, phone-calls, and short messages (SMS). For Q1, we reveal the following key structural properties that are shared by all the CINs in our study: they have high edge density, high clustering coefficient, and close to zero assortativity coefficient. For Q2, we observe that employees have differences in how they use the various communication modes. This suggests that different CINs capture different behavioral properties within an enterprise. For Q3, we propose HumanRank, a method of ranking individuals based on their importance (e.g., CEOs having higher rank than ordinary employees) using only the interactions between them. Next, using HumanRank, we introduce an unsupervised and parameter-free algorithm that identifies hierarchies by separating managers from ordinary employees. Our algorithm achieves above 70% accuracy and outperforms the state-of-the-art 123].
2012
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(2012): Human hierarchies. A general theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publ
Abstract: Human beings are hierarchical animals. Always and everywhere, people have developed social ranking systems. These differ dramatically in how they are organized, but the underlying causal mechanisms that create and sustain them are the same. Whether they are on the top or bottom of the heap, people attempt to be superior to some other persons or group. This is the root of Melvyn L. Fein’s thesis presented in Human Hierarchies: A General Theory. Fein traces the development of changes from hunter-gatherer times to our own techno-commercial society. In moving from small to large communities, humans went from face-to-face contests for superiority to more anonymous and symbolic ones. Societies evolved from hunting bands where the parties knew each other through big-men societies, chieftainships, agrarian empires, patronage chains, caste societies, estate systems, and market-oriented democracies. Where once small groupings were organized primarily by strong forces such as personal relationships, the now standard large groupings are more dependent on weaker forces such as those provided by social roles. Bureaucracies and professional roles have become prominent. Bureaucracies allow large-scale organizations to maintain control of people by limiting the potential destructiveness of unregulated tests of strength and by clarifying chains of command. Their rigidity and unresponsiveness requires that they be supplemented by professional roles. At the same time, a proliferation of self-motivated experts delegate authority downward, thereby introducing a more flexible decentralization. This analysis is a unique and significant advance in both the sociology and anthropology of stratification among humans.
2011
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(2011): What Korean apologies require of politeness theory. In: Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), S. 1303-1317. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.028
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.028 Abstract: This paper examines a corpus of Korean apologies to discover why a person apologizes and why they choose the form of apology that they do. It argues for an abstracted, generalized politeness1 model (Locher and Watts, 2005; Watts, 2003) in which politeness work in Korean is primarily concerned with relationship construction (Arundale, 2006; Haugh, 2007c; Matsumoto, 1988). This will involve both a notion of face, conceived as a psychological, acquired construct, and a set of frames (Terkourafi, 2005) that do not directly reference face. To arrive at this theoretical point, the paper begins by examining the social factors that influence choices in apology forms as predicted by Brown and Levinson (1987). Brown and Levinson’s model accurately predicts the relevance of many factors in form selection in Korean, such as relative power, social distance, and the severity of the act. However, the model itself is not an accurate model for Korean even in high abstraction. Instead of choosing a strategy based upon the weight of a face-threatening act, Koreans actively manage and create expectations for behavior in a relationship. Some expectations will resemble classic positive and negative face issues, while others will more directly reference culture-specific roles or common events.
Keywords: Angesicht, Apologies, Brown and Levinson's model, Distanz, Disziplin, Entschuldigung, Entschuldigungsforschung, Ernsthaftigkeit einer Situation, Erwartungen, Face, frames, Gesichtswahrung, Höflichkeit, Höflichkeitsforschung, Interaktionspartner, Korean, Kultur, Kulturelle Normen, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Linguistik, Macht, Politeness, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Sociolinguistics, Soziale Angemessenheit, Soziale Distanz, Soziale Hierarchie, Sozialer Abstand, Sprachgebrauch 2009
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(2009): Hospitalk. Politeness and hierarchical structures in interdisciplinary discharge rounds. In: Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 5 (1). DOI: 10.1515/JPLR.2009.002
Abstract: Although linguists have been exploring the nuances of politeness for decades, beginning with the pioneering works of Lakoff (1973), Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983), there has been little research focusing on impoliteness in medical interaction. Communication between various types of medical caregivers, too, is an under-researched area; most research on medical interaction involves doctor-patient discourse. Using all ethnographic discourse analytic approach, this study begins to address this gap by examining interactions during an interdisciplinary discharge rounds meeting at a major urban teaching hospital. In a teaching hospital, there is potential conflict between physicians-in-training and other members of caregiving teams; while physicians occupy a higher position on the administrative and social hierarchy of the hospital, other caregivers (e. g., registered nurses - who have sometimes had over 20 years of medical experience and spend much more time with patients than medical doctors) must determine how to be politelpolitic in voicing their opinions and suggestions regarding patient care. I explore politeness strategies used by various members of caregiving teams (e. g., registered nurses, social workers) to negotiate patient care decisions within the hospital hierarchy. Results indicate that mitigating strategies are an integral part of the communicative process within the institutional hierarchy of a teaching hospital.
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(2009): Power, Trust, and Institutional Constraints. In: Rationality and Society 21 (2), S. 171-195. DOI: 10.1177/1043463109103898
Abstract: This article focuses on how institutions matter in generating relationships of trust in an environment of unequal power. Trust is seen as the truster's expectation that the trustee will act trustworthily out of moral commitment and/or interest in continuing the relationship. Using cross-sectional data from a survey conducted in 2006 on Swedish employment relations the authors show that perceived power asymmetries between an employee and his or her superior have a negative impact on trust. However, perceptions about the enforcement and fairness of institutional constraints - rules for dismissal, conflict resolution, wage setting, and promotion - have conditioning effects. When the respondents perceive the rules as fair, trust is less influenced by increasing power asymmetries between an employee and his or her superior. The results have important implications. By designing institutions that are considered fair, distrust may be mitigated even in situations characterized by extensive power asymmetries.
2008
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(2008): A handbook on good manners for children. De civilitate morum puerilium. London: Preface
Abstract: The first treatise in Western Europe on the moral and practical education of children was published in 1530 by an author who was outraged at the uncouth and undisciplined youth of his time. It is surprisingly relevant today!
2007
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(2007): Ethics of unprofessional behavior that disrupts. Crossing the line. In: Journal of vascular surgery 45 (2), S. 433-435. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvs.2006.11.043
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvs.2006.11.043 Abstract: As chief of surgery, you have been contacted by the managing operating room (OR) nurse about Dr Frank N. Stein’s behavior earlier this morning. Dr Stein, a senior surgeon, has long had a reputation for outlandish behaviors in the OR. He is the impeccable gentleman outside that environment, loved by patients and nonoperating personnel alike. He has an international reputation as a master technical surgeon, operates as efficiently as anyone on the planet, and has the largest practice at the medical center. He has survived beyond the generation of tolerance because he has retained the same OR crew that over the years have calloused enough to regard his scurrilousness as just being Dr S. Today, he crossed the line. Dr. Stein, known for his colorful diatribes, trounced decorum when he ordered the operative team, excepting the anesthesiologist, out of the OR and demanded that a new team be substituted. This resulted from a shouting match with a new circulator when she took issue with a personal insult. The transition was accomplished, causing delays in both Dr Stein’s OR and several other ORs where substitute nurses were commandeered. At least one other faculty surgeon has complained about the inconvenience. In your office, Frank, long a colleague, insists that the nurses involved are assassins and refuses to work with them from this day. What should be done?
Keywords: Agonistic Behavior, Attitude of Health Personnel, Beispiel, Clinical, Clinical Competence, Control, decorum, Disziplin, Employee Discipline, Ethics, Ethik, Fehlverhalten, General Surgery, Grenzüberschreitung, Humans, Medical Errors, Medizin, Patient Care Team, Philosophie, Physician-Nurse Relations, Physicians/ethics, Prevention, Professional Misconduct, Rolle (Beruf), Soziale Angemessenheit, Soziale Hierarchie, Übertretung von sozialen Grenzen/Gewalt, Umgangsformen, Unprofessionel 2006
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(2006): Hierarchical schemas and goals in the control of sequential behavior. In: Psychological Review 113 (4). DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.113.4.887
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17014307 Abstract: Traditional accounts of sequential behavior assume that schemas and goals play a causal role in the control of behavior. In contrast, M. Botvinick and D. C. Plaut argued that, at least in routine behavior, schemas and goals are epiphenomenal. The authors evaluate the Botvinick and Plaut account by contrasting the simple recurrent network model of Botvinick and Plaut with their own more traditional hierarchically structured interactive activation model (R. P. Cooper & T. Shallice, 2000). The authors present a range of arguments and additional simulations that demonstrate theoretical and empirical difficulties for both Botvinick and Plaut's model and their theoretical position. The authors conclude that explicit hierarchically organized and causally efficacious schema and goal representations are required to provide an adequate account of the flexibility of sequential behavior.
2003
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(2003): Die höfische Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie. 1. Aufl., [Nachdr.]. Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp
Abstract: "Der Fürstenhof des Ancien regime gibt dem Soziologen nicht weniger Probleme auf als irgendeines der vielen anderen sozialen Gebilde der von Menschen gebildeten Figurationen, die man - etwa wie die feudale Gesellschaft oder die Großstadt - eingehender soziologischer Untersuchung bisher schon gewürdigt hat. Als eine zentrale Figuration jener Entwicklungsstufe, die in einem langen Ringen abrupt oder allmählich von berufsbürgerlich-städtisch-industriellen abgelöst wurde, entwickelte diese höfisch-aristokratische Gesellschaft ein zivilisatorisches und kulturelles Gepräge, das in das der berufsbürgerlichen Gesellschaft teils als Erbe, teils als Gegenbild mit einging und, derart aufgehoben, weiterentwickelt wurde. Durch das Bemühen um die Struktur der höfischen Gesellschaft und damit um das Verständnis einer der letzten großen nicht-bürgerlichen Figurationen des Abendlandes eröffnet sich also mittelbar ein Zugang zum erweiterten Verständnis der eigenen berufsbürgerlich-städtisch-industriellen Gesellschaft. " (N. Elias)
2000
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(2000): Politeness, Power and Provocation. How Humour Functions in the Workplace. In: Discourse Studies 2 (2), S. 159-185. DOI: 10.1177/1461445600002002002
Abstract: This article examines verbal humour in routine interactions within professional workplaces, using material recorded in four New Zealand government departments. The problem of defining humour is discussed, followed by a brief outline of the theoretical models which underpin the analysis of the various functions which humour serves in professional organizations. Humour can express positive affect in interaction. It can also facilitate or `licence' more negative interpersonal communicative intent. While politeness theory can account for the former, as a means of expressing collegiality at work, or de-emphasizing power imbalances, in its standard form politeness theory does not explain barbed, competitive or confrontational humour. For this it is necessary to look to `the dark side of politeness' (Austin, 1990). An alternative perspective thus examines the extent to which humour functions, especially in unequal encounters, as an acceptable strategy to help superiors maintain a position of power but also as a strategy used by subordinates to licence challenges to the power structures within which they operate, and as a legitimizing strategy in attempts at subverting the repressive or coercive discourse of superiors.
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(2000): Language and power. An empirical analysis of linguistic strategies used in superior-subordinate communication. In: Journal of Organizational Behavior 21 (3), S. 235-248. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(200005)21:3<235::AID-JOB9>3.0.CO;2-N
Abstract: Importing the anthropological, sociolinguistic theory of 'politeness' into the domain of organizational studies, this article presents results of a laboratory study that illustrates how power is communicated through specific linguistic gestures differentially used by superiors and subordinates throughout daily interchange. The approach taken illustrates how language is amenable to quantitative, as opposed to sheerly qualitative analysis. Contributions of politeness theory to the study of organizational communication, of influence tactics, the distortion of communication in hierarchical relations, and the presumed egalitarianism associated with programmes of workplace participation, are discussed.
1999
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(1999): CONSUMPTION AND THE PROBLEM OF VARIETY. CULTURAL OMNIVOROUSNESS, SOCIAL DISTINCTION AND DINING OUT. In: Sociology 33 (1), S. 105-127. DOI: 10.1017/S0038038599000061
Abstract: In the light of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper begins by reviewing an argument that Western populations no longer recognise any fixed cultural hierarchy and that, instead, individuals seek knowledge of an increasingly wide variety of aesthetically equivalent cultural genres. Contrasting versions of this argument are isolated. Data concerning the frequency of use of different commercial sources of meals and the social characteristics of customers using different types of restaurant in England are examined. An attempt is made to infer the social and symbolic significance of variety of experience and, in particular, of familiarity with diverse ethnic cuisines. The findings are interpreted in terms of the complex role of consumption in personal assurance, communicative competence and social distinction. It is maintained that the pursuit of variety of consumer experience is a feature of particular social groups and that some specific component practices express social distinction.
1997
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(1997): Gender and hedging: From sex differences to situated practice. In: Journal of psycholinguistic research 26 (1), S. 89-107. DOI: 10.1023/A:1025064205478
Abstract: In a reanalysis of women's language, Holmes (1995) has argued that women's use of hedges expresses interpersonal warmth and not, as many researchers have maintained, linguistic tentativeness. It is typically men, she suggests, who employ hedges to convey imprecision and incertitude. In this study, we investigated the use of the hedges sort of and you know in a sample of South African students. Holmes's method of analysis was applied to hedging behavior in 52 dyadic conversations. The study consisted of a 2 (Speaker Gender: Male/Female) X 2 (Audience Gender: Male/Female) X 2 (Condition: Competitive/Noncompetitive) between-subjects experimental design. The results showed that contextual influences eclipsed the effects of gender; in fact, no main effects were found for speaker gender. Fewer hedges were deployed in the competitive condition than in the noncompetitive condition. Moreover, perhaps reflecting differences in social status, both sexes used sort of to express tentativeness more frequently when talking to male addressees. When speaking to female addressees, on the other hand, men deployed facilitative you know hedges more readily than women.
1996
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(1996): Dominance, Deference, and Egalitarianism in Organizational Interaction. A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Power and Politeness. In: Organization Science 7 (5), S. 544-556. DOI: 10.1287/orsc.7.5.544
Abstract: Organizational literature has long presumed that power is communicated and enacted through behaviors exchanged at the level of face-to-face interaction. Little research, however, has investigated this aspect of power. The author explores how power is embedded in manners of speech exchanged in everyday interaction among superiors and subordinates. He draws upon the sociolinguistic theory of ''politeness''. Politeness, linguistic behaviors used to demonstrate regard and consideration for others, is hypothesized to be sensitive to the social distribution of power. Low power actors are most likely to use linguistic politeness behaviors because such behaviors minimize the possibility of conflict with superiors. Results of a laboratory study confirm that politeness behaviors are sensitive to the distribution of formal authority in organizations. When superiors use politeness, they are more likely than subordinates to employ a subtype of politeness that demonstrates consideration by intimating social familiarity and camaraderie. The hypothesis that egalitarian values moderate the overall effect of power politeness is not supported, perhaps because of the constraints of the experimental situation. Overall, the study demonstrates how abstractions such as authority and equality can be measured in terms of the manners of comportment that actors bring to bear on one another in face-to-face contexts. Given the possibility that egalitarianism can be operationalized at a linguistic level of analysis, the findings have important ramifications for the study of the presumed status leveling associated with programs of workplace participation. The study broadly shows how sociolinguistic perspectives can contribute to our understanding of organizational phenomena.
1989
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(1989): When clerks meet customers. A test of variables related to emotional expressions on the job. In: Journal of Applied Psychology 74 (3), S. 385-393. DOI: 10.1037//0021-9010.74.3.385
Abstract: Interactions between 1,319 sales clerks and customers were observed. Clerk emotional behavior (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987), clerk sex, wearing a smock and a name tag, the presence of other clerks or other customers, and customer sex were coded. As predicted, female clerks displayed positive emotions more frequently than male clerks, suggesting that sex role socialization may generalize to behavior at work. Male clients, however, received more positive emotional expressions than female clients, suggesting that individuals of both genders attribute higher status to men. Clerks were more likely to display positive emotions when wearing a uniform, suggesting that an organizational identifier such as a smock or name tag may increase an employee's self-awareness. Consistent with Sutton & Rafaeli (1987), clerks were less likely to display positive emotions if a line of customers or a coworker was present. No relationship was observed between work shift (time of day) and the display of positive emotions.