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Hultgren, Anna Kristina
(2017).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12224
Abstract
This study offers an extension of existing politeness theories by illuminating how changes in politeness conventions come about as a result of contextual specificities. Despite a surge in mediated service encounters, few studies to date have considered the linguistic enactment of politeness in call centres, mainly due to restrictions on access. Drawing on a linguistic ethnography of an onshore call centre in Scotland and data in the form of authentic service interactions, interviews, on-site observations, and institutional documents, the study combines quantitative and qualitative discourse analytic techniques to explore how the call centre-specific tension between efficiency and customer care is managed in theory and practice. It is found that while the institution accords equal importance to efficiency and customer care, in actual service interactions, agents prioritize efficiency. Furthermore, in the few cases where agents do orient to customer care, vocatives appear to be used as a shortcut; documenting the emergence of a novel – rationalized – type of politeness. The study contributes the theoretical insight that new politeness conventions emerge, not so much because of the imposition of one culture on another, but because they are shaped by the particular context in which they arise.
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About
- Item ORO ID
- 48693
- Item Type
- Journal Item
- ISSN
- 1360-6441
- Project Funding Details
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Funded Project Name Project ID Funding Body Not Set Not Set Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation - Keywords
- call centres; politeness; service encounters; vocatives; rationalized politeness; linguistic ethnography; synthetic personalization; McDonaldization
- Academic Unit or School
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Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Languages and Applied Linguistics > English Language & Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Languages and Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) - Research Group
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Language & Literacies
International Development & Inclusive Innovation - Copyright Holders
- © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
- Depositing User
- Anna Kristina Hultgren