Nǐ kànzhe bàn ba: negotiating complaint solutions in e-shopping service encounters

Xu Huang; Yongping Ran

doi:10.1515/text-2021-0188

Artikel

Nǐ kànzhe bàn ba: negotiating complaint solutions in e-shopping service encounters

Xu Huang
Xu Huang received his PhD from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, where he is currently a lecturer at Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and School of English for International Business. His research interests include complaint management, (im)politeness studies and discourse analysis.
und Yongping Ran
Yongping Ran is professor at Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China. His research interests include interpersonal pragmatics and discourse analysis, and he has publications in Text & Talk, Journal of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics, Pragmatics and Society and other influential journals.

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 20. Januar 2023

Veröffentlicht von

Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill

Manuskript einreichen Informationen für Autor*innen Erkunden Sie dieses Fachgebiet

Aus der Zeitschrift Text & Talk Band 44 Heft 5

Abstract

In Mandarin Chinese, the expression nǐ kànzhe bàn ba can be employed in either ‘you-decide use’ (you assess and decide by yourself), whereby the speaker disclaims his/her deontic authority to the recipient in decision-making, or ‘I-claim use’ (you have to assess and decide cautiously), whereby he/she claims a higher degree of deontic authority than the recipient when determining a proposed action. Focusing on the ‘I-claim use’ of nǐ kànzhe bàn ba, this study examines how this expression is manipulated by customers to negotiate solutions for their complaints with customer service representatives in Chinese e-shopping platforms. Utilising naturally occurring data from Taobao service encounters spanning about one year, this study employs a discursive approach and finds that this expression fulfills one of a number of pragmatic functions: (1) when there is no mutual agreement on the complaint proposals, the customers deploy it to upgrade their deontic authority to orient to their own unilateral solution and refrain from further negotiations; (2) when expressing a negative evaluation, the customers use it to pre-empt potential complainables that reflect their strong deontic authority; or (3) following non-substantive rectification on the part of the agent, the customers use it to express diluted deontic authority in order to display disaffiliation and solicit more substantive proposals. By analyzing the use of this expression in e-shopping service encounters, our study contributes to understanding how deontic authority is exercised in negotiating solutions to complaints.

Keywords: complaint; deontic authority; discursive approach; e-shopping service encounters; nǐ kànzhe bàn ba ; pragmatic functions

Corresponding author: Yongping Ran, Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, No. 2 North Baiyun Avenue, Baiyun District, Guangzhou City 510420, P. R. China, E-mail: ranyongping@hotmail.com

Funding source: the National Planning office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, P. R. China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 21AYY011

Funding source: National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences

About the authors

Xu Huang

Xu Huang received his PhD from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, where he is currently a lecturer at Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and School of English for International Business. His research interests include complaint management, (im)politeness studies and discourse analysis.

Yongping Ran

Yongping Ran is professor at Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P. R. China. His research interests include interpersonal pragmatics and discourse analysis, and he has publications in Text & Talk, Journal of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics, Pragmatics and Society and other influential journals.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Liangfa Pan for providing the data and his consent to the use. The study has been supported by the project (21AYY011) about the online harmonious discourse and guiding mechanism from a perspective of socio-pragmatic community funded by the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, P. R. China.

Research funding: This work was supported by the National Planning office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, P. R. China [grant number 21AYY011] and National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences.

References

Antaki, Charles & Alexandra Kent. 2015. Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last. Journal of Pragmatics 78. 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.01.004.Suche in Google Scholar

Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813085Suche in Google Scholar

Childs, Carrie. 2012. Directing and requesting: Two interactive uses of the mental state terms want and need. Text & Talk 32(6). 727–749. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2012-0034.Suche in Google Scholar

Clifton, Jonathan, Dorien Van De Mieroop, Prachee Sehgal & Aneet. 2018. The multimodal enactment of deontic and epistemic authority in Indian meetings. Pragmatics 28(3). 333–360. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17011.cli.Suche in Google Scholar

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Marja Etelämäki. 2015. Nominated actions and their targeted agents in Finnish conversational directives. Journal of Pragmatics 78. 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.12.010.Suche in Google Scholar

Craven, Alexandra & Jonathan Potter. 2010. Directives: Entitlement and contingency in action. Discourse Studies 12(4). 419–442. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445610370126.Suche in Google Scholar

Decock, Sofie & Ilse Depraetere. 2018. Directness and complaints: A reassessment. Journal of Pragmatics 132. 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.04.010.Suche in Google Scholar

Dersley, Ian & Anthony Wootton. 2000. Complaint sequences within antagonistic argument. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(4). 375–406. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327973RLSI3304_02.Suche in Google Scholar

Dew, Kevin, Louise Signal, Jeannine Stairmand, Andrew Simpson & Diana Sarfati. 2019. Cancer care decision-making and treatment consent: An observational study of patients’ and clinicians’ rights. Journal of Sociology 55(1). 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783318773880.Suche in Google Scholar

Giles, David, Wyke Stommel, Trela Paulus, Jessica Lester & Darren Reed. 2015. Microanalysis of online data: The methodological development of ‘‘digital CA’’.Discourse, Context & Media 7. 45–51.10.1016/j.dcm.2014.12.002Suche in Google Scholar

Gredel, Eva. 2017. Digital discourse analysis and Wikipedia: Bridging the gap between Foucauldian discourse analysis and digital conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 115. 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.02.010.Suche in Google Scholar

Haugh, Michael. 2007. The discursive challenge to politeness research: An interactional alternative. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 3(2). 295–317. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr.2007.013.Suche in Google Scholar

Haugh, Michael. 2012. Conversational interaction. In Keith Allan & Kasia M. Jaszczolt (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of pragmatics, 251–274. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139022453.014Suche in Google Scholar

Haugh, Michael, Wei-Lin M. Chang & Dániel Z. Kádár. 2015. “Doing deference”: Identities and relational practices in Chinese online discussion boards. Pragmatics 25(1). 73–98. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.25.1.04hau.Suche in Google Scholar

Heinemann, Trine. 2009. Participation and exclusion in third party complaints. Journal of Pragmatics 41(12). 2435–2451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.044.Suche in Google Scholar

Heritage, John. 2010. Questioning in medicine. In Alice Freed & Susan Ehrlich (eds.), ‘Why do you ask?’: The functions of questions in institutional discourse, 42–68. New York: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Heritage, John. 2012. Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1). 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646684.Suche in Google Scholar

Heritage, John. 2013. Action formation and its epistemic (and other) backgrounds. Discourse Studies 15(5). 551–578. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613501449.Suche in Google Scholar

Holmes, Janet. 2005. Politeness and postmodernism – An appropriate approach to the analysis of language and gender? Journal of Sociolinguistics 9(1). 108–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00284.x.Suche in Google Scholar

House, Juliane, Dániel Z. Kádár, Fengguang Liu, Shiyu Liu, Wenrui Shi, Zongfeng Xia & Lin Jiao. 2021. Interaction, speech acts and ritual: An integrative model. Lingua 257. 103082. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103082.Suche in Google Scholar

Ishino, Mika & Yusuke Okada. 2018. Constructing students’ deontic status by use of alternative recognitionals for student reference. Classroom Discourse 9(2). 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2017.1407947.Suche in Google Scholar

Kádár, Dániel Z. & Michael Haugh. 2013. Understanding politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139382717Suche in Google Scholar

Kurtyka, Andrzej. 2019. I complain, therefore I am: On indirect complaints in Polish. Journal of Pragmatics 153. 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.04.009.Suche in Google Scholar

Labov, William & David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation. New York: Academic Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Laforest, Marty. 2002. Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 34(10). 1595–1620. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00077-2.Suche in Google Scholar

Landmark, Anne Marie Dalby, Pål Gulbrandsen & Jan Svennevig. 2015. Whose decision? Negotiating epistemic and deontic rights in medical treatment decisions. Journal of Pragmatics 78. 54–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.11.007.Suche in Google Scholar

Lindström, Anna & Ann Weatherall. 2015. Orientations to epistemics and deontics in treatment discussions. Journal of Pragmatics 78. 39–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.01.005.Suche in Google Scholar

Liu, Delian & Xiaoyu Liu. 2005. Exemplification of common sentence patterns in spoken Chinese. Beijing: Peking University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Lü, Shuxiang. 2005. Eight hundred words in modern Chinese. Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan.Suche in Google Scholar

Márquez-Reiter, Rosina. 2005. Complaint calls to a caregiver service company: The case of desahogo. Intercultural Pragmatics 2(4). 481–514. https://doi.org/10.1515/iprg.2005.2.4.481.Suche in Google Scholar

Márquez-Reiter, Rosina. 2013. The dynamics of complaining in a Latin American for-profit commercial setting. Journal of Pragmatics 57. 231–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.08.024.Suche in Google Scholar

Meredith, Joanne. 2017. Analysing technological affordances of online interactions using conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 115. 42–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.03.001.Suche in Google Scholar

Olshtain, Elite & Liora Weinbach. 1987. Complaints-A study of speech act behavior among native and nonnative speakers of Hebrew. In Jef Verschueren & Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi (eds.), The pragmatic perspective-selected papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference, 195–208. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/pbcs.5.15olsSuche in Google Scholar

Orthaber, Sara & Rosina Márquez-Reiter. 2011. “Talk to the hand”. Complaints to a public transport company. Journal of Pragmatics 43(15). 3860–3876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.10.004.Suche in Google Scholar

Pan, Yuling & Daniel Z. Kádár. 2011. Politeness in historical and contemporary Chinese. London: Continuum.Suche in Google Scholar

Pomerantz, Anita. 1986. Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9(2–3). 219–229. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00148128.Suche in Google Scholar

Ran, Yongping & Xu Huang. 2019. Deontic authority in intervention discourse: Insights from bystander intervention. Discourse Studies 21(5). 540–560. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445619846705.Suche in Google Scholar

Ruusuvuori, Johanna & Pirjo Lindfors. 2009. Complaining about previous treatment in health care settings. Journal of Pragmatics 41(12). 2415–2434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.045.Suche in Google Scholar

Sarangi, Srikant. 2007. Editorial: The anatomy of interpretation: Coming to terms with the analyst’s paradox in professional discourse studies. Text & Talk 27(5–6). 567–584. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2007.025.Suche in Google Scholar

Sarangi, Srikant. 2017. Editorial: En‘gaze’ment with text and talk. Text & Talk 37(1). 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2017-1000.Suche in Google Scholar

Stephenson, Michael. 2020. Setting the group agenda: Negotiating deontic rights through directives in a task-based, oral, L2, group assessment. Classroom Discourse 11(4). 337–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2019.1651750.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa. 2013. Constructing a proposal as a thought. Pragmatics 23(3). 519–544. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.23.3.07ste.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa. 2018. Social deontics: A nano-level approach to human power play. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 48(3). 369–389. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12175.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa. 2021. Deontic authority and the maintenance of lay and expert identities during joint decision making: Balancing resistance and compliance. Discourse Studies 23(5). 670–689. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614456211016821.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa & Anssi Peräkylä. 2012. Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(3). 297–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.699260.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa & Anssi Peräkylä. 2014. Three orders in the organization of human action: On the interface between knowledge, power, and emotion in interaction and social relations. Language in Society 43(02). 185–207. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404514000037.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevanovic, Melisa & Jan Svennevig. 2015. Introduction: Epistemics and deontics in conversational directives. Journal of Pragmatics 78. 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.01.008.Suche in Google Scholar

Stivers, Tanya, John Heritage, Rebecca K. Barnes, Rose McCabe, Laura Thompson & Merran Toerien. 2018. Treatment recommendations as actions. Health Communication 33(11). 1335–1344. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1350913.Suche in Google Scholar

Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2009. Doing actions with identity categories: Complaints and denials in neighbor disputes. Text & Talk 29(1). 75–97. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2009.004.Suche in Google Scholar

Sun, Hao. 2012. Shifting practices and emerging patterns: Telephone service encounters in Shanghai. Language in Society 41(4). 417–447. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404512000498.Suche in Google Scholar

Van De Mieroop, Dorien. 2020. A deontic perspective on the collaborative, multimodal accomplishment of leadership. Leadership 16(5). 592–619. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715019893824.Suche in Google Scholar

Vásquez, Camilla. 2011. Complaints online: The case of TripAdvisor. Journal of Pragmatics 43(6). 1707–1717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.11.007.Suche in Google Scholar

Weatherall, Ann. 2020. Constituting agency in the delivery of telephone-mediated victim support. Qualitative Research in Psychology 17(3). 396–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1725951.Suche in Google Scholar

Zhu, Dexi. 1982. Lectures on Chinese syntax. Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan.Suche in Google Scholar

Received: 2021-12-14

Accepted: 2023-01-03

Published Online: 2023-01-20

Published in Print: 2024-09-25

Sie haben derzeit keinen Zugang zu diesem Inhalt.

Artikel in diesem Heft

https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2021-0188

Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel

complaint; deontic authority; discursive approach; e-shopping service encounters; nǐ kànzhe bàn ba; pragmatic functions