The customer is (not) always king: Impoliteness in the service encounter

Abstract

This thesis serves as a contribution to cross-cultural linguistic research on impoliteness. Specifically, it explores the extent to which interpretations of impoliteness are largely dependent on the interaction between the hypothesised social norms of the situation and contextual variables such as interlocutor relationship. In particular, I hypothesise that interpretations of impoliteness are especially sensitive to any perceived power differential and social distance between interlocutors. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data methods, I endeavour to formulate an approach which bridges the theoretical divide between first-order and second-order theories of impoliteness. In essence, I make a case for a framework that can account for both semantic impoliteness and pragmatic impoliteness. The service encounter, a context particularly suited for research on impoliteness given the abundance of impoliteness metadiscourse it attracts, serves as the testing ground for such an approach. In view of the widely established potential for cross-cultural variation in pragmatic norms (eg Zamborlin, 2007), the thesis compares Singapore and Japan, two East Asian nations that share not just a model of economic development, but Confucian values which potentially impact impoliteness norms. The responses of 100 informants from both countries are randomly selected for analysis.