Balancing multiple roles through consensus: making revisions in haircutting sessions
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Sae Oshima
Sae Oshima received her PhD in Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Communication at Aarhus University, Denmark. She explores the meanings of professional communication through microanalysis of workplace interactions, including client–professional encounters and internal strategy meetings.
Abstract
This study demonstrates how participants in haircutting sessions merge different roles during one of the most sensitive moments of an encounter: requesting and/or making revisions to a new cut. During the process of arriving at a consensus of whether or not changes need to be made to the new cut, the stylist and the client negotiate not only the quality of the cut, but also their expected roles. Caring about both the bodies and the minds of customers is an important element in measuring the quality of cosmetological services, a consideration which may oblige stylists to immediately agree with and act upon every client request or concern. However, simply yielding to the customer’s opinions can threaten the stylist’s role as a beauty expert, one who possesses their own professional standards. The analysis reveals that the participants frequently transform revision requests/offers into mutual decisions through a combination of verbal and bodily actions. In doing so, they harmonize the sometimes conflicting responsibilities of “service provider/patron” and “expert/novice.”
About the author
Sae Oshima received her PhD in Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Communication at Aarhus University, Denmark. She explores the meanings of professional communication through microanalysis of workplace interactions, including client–professional encounters and internal strategy meetings.
Appendix: transcript notation
The glossary of transcript symbols given below has been adopted from the descriptions provided by ten Have (1999: 213–214).
| [ | The point of overlap onset |
| = | No “gap” between the two lines, often called latching |
| (0.0) | Elapsed time in silence by tenth of seconds |
| (.) | A tiny “gap” within or between utterances |
| word | Form of stress, via pitch and/or amplitude |
| :: | Prolongation of the immediately prior sound |
| . | A stopping fall in tone |
| , | A continuing intonation |
| ? | A rising intonation |
| ↑↓ | Marked shifts into higher or lower pitch in the utterance part immediately following the arrow |
| ° | Relatively quieter utterances than the surrounding talk |
| > < | Speeding up |
| w(h)ord | Breathiness, as in laughter, crying, etc. |
| (word) | Especially dubious hearings |
| (()) | Transcriber’s descriptions rather than, or in addition to, transcriptions |
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©2014 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Multi-voiced assessment in a mental health final statement
- The use of key in projecting face-threatening acts in televised political debate
- Balancing multiple roles through consensus: making revisions in haircutting sessions
- What is meant by hybridity? An investigation of hybridity and related terms in genre studies
- Moves and steps to sell a paper: a cross-cultural genre analysis of applied linguistics conference abstracts
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Multi-voiced assessment in a mental health final statement
- The use of key in projecting face-threatening acts in televised political debate
- Balancing multiple roles through consensus: making revisions in haircutting sessions
- What is meant by hybridity? An investigation of hybridity and related terms in genre studies
- Moves and steps to sell a paper: a cross-cultural genre analysis of applied linguistics conference abstracts
