Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T14:32:27.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The bargaining genre: A study of retail encounters in traditional Chinese local markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2007

WINNIE W. F. ORR
WINNIE W. F. ORR
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics & TESOL, Box 19559, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019-0559, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article characterizes a spoken genre, bargaining, found in retail encounters in traditional markets in southern China. Analysis of substantive acts in 38 tape-recorded interactions shows that verbal and nonverbal actions within the event carry a small set of illocutionary forces germane to negotiating price and quantity. Analysis of ritual acts that mark boundaries of the event shows that participants behave primarily as outgroup persons seeking to transact business. Bargaining hence constitutes a primary genre (Bakhtin 1986), a textual form that shows domination of a transaction frame over a consultation and a valet frame, and a communicative purpose that is tightly circumscribed around the exchange of commodities and not relationship. A socially oriented form of genre analysis is apt for elucidating the speakers' strategic use of generic resources, as well as investigating development in retail marketing in the PRC, marked by growing popularity of new retail outlets and changing consumer attitudes.

Keywords

bargainingdiscourse of negotiationspoken genreservice encountertraditional Chinese markets
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 73 - 103
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other later essays. Vern W. McGee (trans.), Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist (eds.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bhatia, Vijay K. (1993). Analyzing genre: Language use in professional settings. London: Longman.
Eggins, Suzanne, & Martin, James R. (1997). Genres and registers of discourse. In T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as structure and process, 230–56. London: Sage.CrossRef
Ellis, Donald G. (1989). Review of The structure of social interaction: A systemic approach to the semiotics of service encounters by Eija Ventola. Language 65:857–62.Google Scholar
French, Brigittine M. (2001). The symbolic capital of social identities: The genre of bargaining in an urban Guatemalan market. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10:155–89.Google Scholar
Gavioli, Laura (1997). Bookstore service encounters in English and Italian. In Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini & Sandra Harris (eds.), The languages of business: An international perspective, 136–58. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Goffman, Erving (1961). Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Goffman, Erving (1963). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Free Press.
Goffman, Erving (1971). Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gumperz, John J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Hanks, William F. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Hasan, Ruqaiya (1978). Text in the systemic-functional model. In Wolfgang U. Dressler (ed.), Current trends in text linguistics, 228–46. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRef
Hasan, Ruqaiya (1989). The structure of a text. In M. A. K. Halliday & Ruqaiya Hasan (eds.), Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, 52–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hasan, Ruqaiya (1996). The nursery tale as a genre. In Carmel Cloranet al. (eds.), Ways of saying, ways of meaning: Selected papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, 51–72. London: Cassell.
Hofstede, Geert (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hymes, Dell (1972). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, 35–71. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Jefferson, Gail (1972). Side sequences. In David Sudnow (ed.), Studies in social interaction, 294–338. New York: Free Press.
Johnstone, Barbara (2002). Discourse analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kendon, Adam (1967). Some functions of gaze-direction in social interaction. Acta Psychologica 26:22–63.Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther (1985). Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice. Geelong, Australia: Deakin University Press.
Kress, Gunther (1987). Genre in a social theory of language: A reply to John Dixon. In I. Reid (ed.), The place of genre in learning: Current debates, 22–36. Geelong, Australia: Deakin University Press.
Lemke, Jay (1994). Typology, topology, topography: Genre semantics. 〈http://www.personal.umich.edu/∼jaylemke/papers/Genre-topology-revised.htm〉. Accessed on November 14, 2005.
Martin, James R. (1992). English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Mitchell, T. F. (1957). The language of buying and selling in Cyrenaica: A situational statement. Hesperis 26:31–71. Reprinted in Principles of neo-Firthian linguistics, 167–200. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Pan, Yuling (2000). Politeness in Chinese face-to-face interaction. (Advances in Discourse Processes, vol. 67). Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Saville-Troike, Muriel (1989). The ethnography of communication: An introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1972). Sequencing in conversational openings. In John J. Gumperz & Dell Hymes (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Schegloff, Emanuel A., & Sacks, Harvey (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica 7:289–327.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Searle, John R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Speech acts (Syntax and semantics, vol. 3), 59–82. New York: Academic Press.
Swales, John M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Triandis, H. C., & Vassiliou, V. (1972). A comparative analysis of subjective culture. In H. C. Triandiset al. (eds.), The analysis of subjective culture, 299–335. New York: Wiley.
Tsuda, Aoi (1984). Sales talk in Japan and the United States: An ethnographic analysis of contrastive speech events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Ventola, Eija (1987). The structure of social interaction: A systemic approach to the semiotics of service encounters. London: Frances Pinter.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical investigations. G. E. M. Anscombe (trans.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.