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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 30:3 (2020) ► pp.405–430

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Complaint management on Twitter – evolution of interactional patterns on Polish corporate profiles

 | Jagiellonian University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 20 July 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17040.ter
Abstract
The study concerns complaint management on Polish brand profiles on Twitter. The aim was to investigate selected language properties of corporate tweets and trace potential changes in the interactional patterns on the profiles occurring between 2015 and 2017. The study focuses on the structure and frequency of the respective strategies, as well as formality, the use of non-standard structures and emoticons. The study indicates the following directions of change: an increase in the use of address terms and explanations, a greater degree of language formality and indirectness, among others. The changes point to increased formulaicity and conventionalisation of expression, as well as an increased use of fixed patterns and templates. The changes constitute evidence of standardisation of the means of expression in customer encounters and a transfer of the conventions typical of other channels of interaction with consumers to the online context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Twitter as a medium
    • 2.2Complaint management online
  • 3.Materials and methods
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1The structure of tweets
    • 4.2Address terms
    • 4.3Apology acts
    • 4.4Offers of help and assistance
    • 4.5Performative requests
    • 4.6Denial and disagreement
    • 4.7Formality
    • 4.8The use of templates
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (52)
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