Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 7:2 (2019) ► pp.269–292

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Attending to a possible complaint

Preference for noticings, anticipatory apologies and preemptive accounts to forestall potential conflict

 | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Published online: 24 September 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00030.kar
Abstract
Taking into account that people are reluctant to engage in a conflictual interaction but also that the recognition and interpretation of a complaint is very much contingent on the discourse in which it appears, the present paper adopts a conversation analytic perspective and studies complaints in ordinary conversation. In terms of politeness research, complaints are characterized as ‘face threatening acts’, with the analysis focusing either on the mitigation strategies the complainer may employ or on the description of the acts that are at the complainee’s disposal. From a wider perspective, the most prominent feature of complaints is that they transform an individual’s trouble into an acknowledgeable interpersonal problem. The present research focuses on complaints addressed to participants in the on-going interaction (direct complaints), explicating instances where members themselves reveal their understanding of the complaint. Special attention is given to the mitigation and accounting practices a complainee employs, i.e. noticings, anticipatory apologies and (preemptive) accounts, which all aim to withhold the disaffiliative complaint. Through these practices, not only does the candidate complaint-recipient mitigate the impact of his/her accountability but also third party participants attempt to avoid the delivery of the complaint. The data of the study consist of 20 audio-recorded conversations between friends and relatives and are drawn from the Corpus of Spoken Greek of the Institute of Modern Greek Studies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background research on complaints
  • 3.The present study: Methodology and data
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Complainee accepts no blame for the complaint
    • 4.2Complainee admits from the outset the blame for the complaint
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Transcription symbols
  • References
References (67)
References
Alberts, Jess. 1988. “An Analysis of Couples’ Conversational Complaint Interactions.” Communication Monographs 5(2):184–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Atkinson, Maxwell, and Paul Drew. 1971. Order in Court: The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karafoti, Eleni. 2015a. “Absent Second Pair Parts and their Relevance for (Im)politeness.” In Exploring (Im)politeness in Specialized and General Corpora: Converging Methodologies and Analytic Procedures, ed. by Şukriye, Ruhi, and Yeşim, Aksan, 82–105. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015b. “Politeness, Impoliteness and Speaker’s Face.” Ph.D. Thesis. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boxer, Diana. 1993. “Social Distance and Speech Behavior: The Case of Indirect Complaints.” Journal of Pragmatics 191:103–125. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. Complaining and Commiserating: A Speech Act View of Solidarity in Spoken American English. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christodoulidou, Maria. 2010. “Complaints about Misbehaviour.” Journal of Greek Linguistics 101:295–316. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Conversational Irony: Evaluating Complaints.” In Spaces of Polyphony, ed. by Clara Ubaldina Lorda, and Patrick Zabalbeascoa, 25–42. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, Andrew, and Elite Olshtain. 1993. “The Production of Speech Acts by EFL Learners.” TESOL Quarterly 27(1):33–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci, Paul Drew, and Richard Ogden. 2002. “Complaining: Affiliation and Disaffiliation in Complaint Sequences in Conversation.” University of York, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dersley, Ian, and Antony Wootton. 2000. “Complaint Sequences within Antagonistic Argument.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(4):375–406. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1998. “Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 31(3):295–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth, Holt. 1988. “Complainable Matters: The Use of Idiomatic Expressions in Making Complaints.” Social Problems 35(4): 398–417. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Traci, Walker. 2009. “Going too far: Complaining, Escalating, and Disaffiliation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(12):2400–2414. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek. 2005. “Moaning, Whinging and Laughing: The Subjective Side of Complaints.” Discourse Studies 7(1): 5–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emerson, Robert M., and Sheldon L. Messinger. 1977. “The Micro-Politics of Trouble.” Social Problems 251:121–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. “Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities”. Social Problems 11(3):225–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2001. “Arguing about the Future: On Indirect Disagreements in Conversations”. Journal of Pragmatics 33(12):1881–1900. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geluykens, Ronald, and Bettina Kraft. 2003. “Sociocultural Variation in Native and Interlanguage Complaints.” In Meaning Through Language Contrast, ed. by Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt, and Ken Turner, 251–275, vol. 21, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Gender Variation in Native and Interlanguage Complaints.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics and Interlanguage English, ed. by Bettina Kraft, and Ronald Geluykens, 143–158. Muenchen: Lincom-Europa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gruber, Helmut. 1998. “Disagreeing: Sequential Placement and Internal Structure of Disagreements in Conflict Episodes.” Text 181:467–503. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hartford, Beverly, and Ahmar Mahboob. 2004. “Models of Discourse in the Letter of Complaint.” World Englishes 23(4):585–600. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2010. “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 421:2106–2119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael, and Dániel, Kádár. 2013. Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heinemann, Trine. 2009a. “Complaining in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(12):2381–2384. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009b. “Participation and Exclusion in Third Party Complaints.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(12): 2435–2451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984a. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984b. “A Change of State Token and Aspects of its Sequential Placement.” In Structures of Social Action, ed. by Maxwell J. Atkinson, and John Heritage, 299–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. “Explanations as Accounts: A Conversation Analytic Perspective.” In Analyzing Everyday Explanation: A Casebook of Methods, ed. by Charles Antaki, 127–144. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. “Interactional Accountability: A Conversation Analytic Perspective.” Réseaux 8(1):23–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. “Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk: Analyzing Data.” In Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, ed. by David Silverman, 161–182. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1984. “On Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-positioned Matters.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by Maxwell J. Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. “On the Sequential Organization of Troubles Talk in Ordinary Conversation.” Social Problems 35(4):418–442. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kakavá, Christina. 2002. “Opposition in Modern Greek Discourse: Cultural and Contextual Constraints.” Journal of Pragmatics 34(10–11):1537–1568. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kotthoff, Helga. 1993. “Disagreement and Concession in Disputes: On the Context Sensitivity of Preference Structures.” Language in Society 221:193–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laforest, Marty. 2002. “Scenes of Family Life: Complaining in Everyday Conversation”. Journal of Pragmatics 34(10–11):1595–1620. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “Complaining in Front of a Witness: Aspects of Blaming Others for their Behaviour in Multi-party Family Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 411:2452–2464. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Makri-Tsilipakou, Marianthi. 1991. “Agreement/Disagreement: Affiliative vs. Disaffiliative Display in Cross-Sex Conversation.” Ph.D. Thesis. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, Jenny. 1993. “Assigning Responsibility in Conversational Storytelling: The Interactional Construction of Reality.” Text 131:247–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Márquez Reiter, Rosina. 2005. “Complaint Calls to a Caregiver Service Company: The Case of Desahogo .” Intercultural Pragmatics 2(4):481–514.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard, Douglas. 1989. “Perspective-display Sequences in Conversation.” Western Journal of Speech Communication 531:91–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Margaret, Michael Cody, and Dan H. O’Hair. 1983. “The Management of Failure Events: Some Contextual Determinants of Accounting Behavior.” Human Communication Research 91:208–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monzoni, Chiara M. 2009. “Direct Complaints in (Italian) Calls to the Ambulance: The Use of Negatively Framed Questions.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(12): 2465–2478. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, Beth, and Joyce Neu. 1996. “My Grade’s too Low: The Speech Act Set of Complaining.” In Speech Acts Across Cultures, ed. by Susan M. Gass, and Joyce Neu, 191–216. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olshtain, Elite, and Liora Weinbach. 1993. “Interlanguage Features of the Speech Act of Complaining.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 108–122. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Orthaber, Sara. 2017. “(Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre.” Ph.D. Thesis. University of Surrey.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula, Charikleia, Kapellidi, and Eleni, Karafoti. 2014. “The Corpus of Spoken Greek.” In Best Practices for Spoken Corpora in Linguistic Research, ed. by Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner, Şükriye Ruhi, and Michael Haugh, 56–74. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2004. “Prompting Action: The Stand-alone ‘So’ in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 371:185–218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D. (ed.) 2016. Accountability in Social Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1987. “On the Preferences for Agreement and Contiguity in Sequences in Conversation.” In Talk and Social Organisation, ed. by Graham Button, and John A. Lee, 54–69. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992/5. Lectures on Conversation, vol. 11. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, and Emanuel A. Schegloff. 1973. “Opening up Closings.” Semiotica 8(4):289–327.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50(4):696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1982. “Discourse as an Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of ‘uh huh ’ and Other Things that Come Between Sentences.” In Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 71–93, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1988. “On an Actual Virtual Servo-Mechanism for Guessing Bad News: A Single Case Conjecture.” Social Problems 35(4):442–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. “Practices and Actions: Boundary Cases of Other-initiated Repair.” Discourse Processes 231:499–545. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. “On Complainability.” Social Problems 52(4):449–476. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction: Volume 1: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail, Jefferson, and Harvey, Sacks. 1977. “The Preference for Self-correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.” Language 531: 361–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1976. “A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” Language in Society 5(1):1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traverso, Veronique. 2009. “The Dilemmas of Third-party Complaints in Conversation between Friends.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(12):2385–2399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1995. Interlanguage Pragmatics. Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna, and Philip, Saw. 1998. “‘Sorry Does not Pay my Bills.’ The Handling of Complaints in Everyday Inter-action/Cross-Cultural Business Interaction.” Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 211:67–94.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Saloustrou, Vasiliki & Vasia Tsami
2025. “I’m just kidding”. Pragmatics & Cognition 32:1 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Apaza-Panca, Cynthia Milagros, Karla Stefani Jerusalén Cánova Ramos, Cristóbal Rufino Yapuchura Saico, Joyce Mamani Cornejo, Lucio Ticona-Carrizales & Delfina Goya Cornejo Poma
2024. Hosting Service Complaints, Claims, and Suggestions for Accommodation Management. Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental 18:5 ► pp. e07816 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue