Spencer-Oatey, Helen, 1952- and Xing, Jianyu. (2003) Managing rapport in intercultural business interactions: a comparison of two Chinese-British welcome meetings. Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol.24 (No.1). pp. 33-46. ISSN 0725-6868

PDF WRAP_Spencer_Oatey_0673125-cal-290110-spencer-oateyxing_jics03.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (490Kb)

Abstract

This paper explores the management of rapport in intercultural business interactions. It compares two Chinese-British business welcome meetings that were held by the same British company. Despite many similarities between the two meetings, both the British and the Chinese were very satisfied with the first meeting, while the Chinese were very annoyed by the second. This paper describes the similarities and differences between the two meetings, and explores why they were evaluated so differently. It argues that research into the management of relations in intercultural communication needs to use a broader analytic framework than is typical of intercultural discourse research, and that it needs to gather a wider range of data types.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Social interaction -- Research, Social psychology -- Research, Intercultural communication, Business communication
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Intercultural Studies
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	0725-6868
Date:	April 2003
Volume:	Vol.24
Number:	No.1
Page Range:	pp. 33-46
Identification Number:	10.1080/07256860305788
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
References:	Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: CUP. Originally published as Universals in language usage: politeness phenomenon, in: E. Goody (Ed.) (1978) Questions and Politeness: strategies in Social Interaction. (New York: CUP). Chang, H.-C., & Holt, G. R. (1991). More than relationship: Chinese interaction and the principle of 'kuan-hsi'. Communication Quarterly, 39(3), 251-271. Charles, M. (1996) Business negotiations: interdependence between discourse and the business relationship. English for Specific Purposes, 15(1): 19-36. Fiksdal, S. (1990). The Right Time and Pace. A Microanalysis of Cross-Cultural Gatekeeping Interviews. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex). Fraser, B., & Nolan, W. (1981) The association of deference with linguistic form, in: J. Walters (Ed.), The Sociolinguistics of Deference & Politeness, The Hague: Mouton, 93-111. Special issue (27) of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 237-257. Günthner, S. & Knoblauch, H. (1995) Culturally patterned speaking practices – the analysis of communicative genres. Pragmatics, 5 (1): 1–32. Harris, P., & Moran, R. T. (1987). Managing Cultural Differences. (Houston: Gulf Publishing). Ide, S. (1989) Formal forms and discernment: two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua, 8(2/3): 223-248. Lakoff, R. (1989) The limits of politeness: therapeutic and courtroom discourse. Multilingua, 8(2/3): 101-129. Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. (London: Longman). Matsumoto, Y. (1988) Reexamination of the universality of face: politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 12: 403-426. Mao, L. R. (1994) Beyond politeness theory: 'face' revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics, 21: 451-486. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Rapport management: a framework for analysis, in: H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. (London: Continuum). Spencer-Oatey, H. (2002). Managing rapport in talk: using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 529-545. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Zegarac, V. (2002) Pragmatics. In: N. Schmitt (ed) Applied Linguistics. London: Arnold. (pp.74–91) Xing, J. (2002) Relational management in British–Chinese business interactions. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Luton.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2684

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item