The Language of Service Encounters: A Pragmatic-Discursive Approach

By: J. César Félix-Brasdefer

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Synopsis: Service encounters are ubiquitous in social interaction. We buy food and everyday items in supermarkets, convenience stores, or markets; we purchase merchandise in department stores; or we request information at a visitor information center. This book offers a comprehensive account of service encounters in commercial and non-commercial settings. Grounded in naturally occurring face-to-face interactions and drawing on a pragmatic-discursive approach, J. César Félix-Brasdefer sets out a framework for the analysis of transactional and relational talk in various contexts in the United States and Mexico. This book investigates cross-cultural and intra-lingual pragmatic variation during the negotiation of service. The author provides a broad review of research on service encounters to date, and analyzes characteristics of sales transactions, such as participants' roles, pragmatic and discourse functions of relational talk and address forms, the realization of politeness, and changes in alignment from transactional to relational talk. Examines face-to-face interactions in commercial and non-commercial service encounter settings, including the analysis of transactional and non-transactional talk. Analyzes pragmatic and sociolinguistic variation, including linguistic, regional, intra-lingual, and gender variation. Reviews and evaluates methods and techniques for the collection and analysis of corpus data in service encounters in naturalistic settings.