Organizational complaint communication in CMC. A discourse-pragmatic approach

Start - End 
2014 - 2018 (ongoing)
Department(s) 
Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication
Other institution(s) 
Université de Lille

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Abstract

This project involves the compilation of a corpus of complaint sequences between company and customer in four different languages (German, French, English, and Dutch) and in three CMC-modes (e-mail, Twitter, Facebook). Together with internal and external research partners, raw data has been contextually enriched based on fieldnotes, questionnaires and interviews. Adopting an (intercultural) pragmatics perspective, the analyses mainly focus on employee and customer discourse and their linguistic strategies in formulating the potentially face-threatening speech act(s) (sets) of complaint, refusal, disagreement and request for repair as well as on the delicate balance between interpersonal and transactional stance. 

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External(s)

Ilse Depraetere

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