Rapport management

This study aims to examine the cross-cultural similarities and differences in the use of rapport management strategies (rapport enhancement, rapport maintenance, rapport neglect, and rapport challenge) in the complaints during service encounters based on Spencer Oatey’s (2008) model. To this end, 90 participants (30 Persian native speakers, 30 Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners, and 30 English speakers) were asked to complete a role-play Discourse Completion Task in four different situations. The study argues that: (1) the use of rapport management strategies is universal; all the groups used all kinds of rapport management strategies; (2) the use of rapport management strategies is culture-specific; the participants in each group differently used the intended strategies; and (3) the socio-pragmatic competence of EFL learners is sometimes different from that of the native speakers of English; it goes through developmental stages and is influenced by L1 norms. The study concludes that teachers should condition the communicative tasks used inside the class with factors such as the relationship among the interlocutors to help EFL learners develop a pragmatic competence comparable to that of the native speakers. Teachers can also resort to modern technologies to provide EFL learners with the opportunity to communicate with native speakers and receive feedback with regard to the cultural appropriacy of the forms produced.

The use of politeness strategies can help interlocutors promote and/or maintain social harmony in telephone interactions. Using the Rapport Management Model proposed by Spencer-Oatey (2008), this study aimed primarily to reinvestigate the closing structures of telephone conversation (hereafter abbreviated as TC) in Persian and to discover the common politeness strategies used by native Persian speakers to end their TCs considering the contextual variables of social distance and status. Moreover, this study tried to explore the effect of time availability/limitation along with those contextual variables on TC closing part. To this end, 30 Persian native speakers were selected randomly. A DCT (Discourse Completion Test) of 12 scenarios was developed by considering three criteria: status, time limitation and distance. Analyzing DCTs, many different TC closing patterns were found. The obtained findings depicted that the aforementioned variables had significant effects on the TC closing patterns and strategies taken by the participants. The findings of the present study may be beneficial for extending pragmatic knowledge through emphasizing the significance of pragmatic competence in language proficiency. Also, since the results showed some limitations in the previous politeness models, the findings of this study can guide researchers to follow more complete and perfect politeness models.

This article focuses on how Shaygan and Dr. Talaee manage their rapport orientations in three interactional goals in Monji based on Spencer-Oatey’s model (2008), consisted of three interrelated elements (face sensitivities, interactional wants and behavioral expectations). Threatening or supporting each of which leads to rapport enhancement, maintenance, neglect and challenge. It is hypothesized getting involved in a transactional goal is a threat to rapport and insistence on getting one’s goals achieved further imbalances rapport and orients it toward neglect and challenge; it may lead to unpleasant consequences. The research intends to answer (1) how Shaygan and Talaee manage their rapport in their transactional interactions? (2) How are the interactional goals settled in the end for the two characters? The findings show both characters threaten each other’s sociality rights and sometimes attack each other’s face and set their rapport toward challenge. Left bereft of his identity and sociality rights, felt tenser when he himself attacked them, Shaygan committed suicide. Analysis of face and rapport management among people who are in contact with each other in long-term relationships and how face unfolds under those conditions in pragmatics is a road less traveled by and this research is a step in this path.