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Article published In: Conflict Talk in Spanish Digital Interactions
Edited by Lucía Fernández-Amaya
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 13:1] 2025
► pp. 44–71

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“We are completely stunned”

Corrective facework in hosts’ responses to Airbnb reviews with negative valence

ORCiD logo with link | Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
ORCiD logo with link | Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
Published online: 11 July 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00116.dia
Abstract
The relationship between service providers and guests has changed due to online platforms like Airbnb, which allow for a more direct contact between them. Although most responses to guests’ reviews tend to be positive and even include relational work strategies (Bridges, Judith, and Camilla Vásquez. 2018. “If Nearly All Airbnb Reviews are Positive, Does That Make Them Meaningless?” Current Issues in Tourism 21 (18): 2057–2075. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Hernández-López, María de la O. 2019. “Relational Work in Airbnb Reviews.” Russian Journal of Linguistics 23 (4): 1088–1108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), verbal aggression is also performed (Hopkinson, Christopher. 2018. “Oppositional Stance and Footing Shifts in Responses to Customer Complaints on Tripadvisor.” Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 1351: 15–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This study aims to focus on explicit and implicit aggressive responses to negative reviews on Airbnb in English and Spanish, with special attention to corrective facework strategies to repair the hosts’ face loss (Guerrero, Laura K., Peter A. Andersen, and Walli A. Afifi. 2014. Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2019. “Losing Face on Facebook: Linguistic Strategies to Repair Face in a Spanish Common Interest Group.” In Analysing Digital Discourse, ed. by Patricia Bou-Franch, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 283–309. Cham: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Thus, 200 responses to negative reviews were gathered and analysed qualitatively, considering the strategies intended to mitigate potential face threat and to revert the situation. It was found that most of the hosts’ responses in the Spanish dataset aimed at repairing their own face within the community, while their English counterparts acknowledged negative reviews and apologised more often.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The online review responses genre
  • 3.Corrective facework
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Airbnb
    • 4.2Data-gathering procedure and corpus description
    • 4.3Methodological approach and challenges encountered
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Mitigating/repairing strategies
      • 5.1.1Apologies
      • 5.1.2Remediation
      • 5.1.3Accounts
    • 5.2Counter-attacking strategies
      • 5.2.1Aggression
        • Explicitly accusing the other of lying
        • Reverting roles
        • Holding the other accountable
        • Insulting the other
        • Using irony and mockery
      • 5.2.2Refusals
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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