Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters

Abstract

Divergent practices for displaying respect in face-to-face interaction are an ongoing cause of tension in the US between immigrant Korean retailers and their African American customers. Communicative practices in service encounters involving Korean customers contrast sharply with those involving African American customers in 25 liquor store encounters that were videotaped and transcribed for analysis. The relative restraint of immigrant Korean storekeepers in these encounters is perceived by many African Americans as a sign of racism, while the relatively personable involvement of African Americans is perceived by many storekeepers as disrespectful imposition. These contrasting interactional practices reflect differing concepts of the relationship between customer and storekeeper, and different ideas about the speech activities that are appropriate in service encounters. (Intercultural communication, respect, service encounters, African Americans, Koreans)

Conventions of Malaysian Grocery Store Service Encounters

“…In addition, there was evidence of in/outgroup difference in greeting and thanking behaviour because the Chinese service providers in the study were more inclined to greet and thank non-Chinese customers than Chinese customers. Explicit verbal greetings or closings also do not occur in every service encounter in Bailey's (2001) study on service encounters involving African American and Korean customers in a convenience store operated by immigrant Koreans in California. Bailey reported that the interactions with the 13 Korean customers were shorter whereas the interactions with the 12 African American customers had interpersonal involvement.…”

“…Other researchers who have focused on the staging of service encounters have primarily studied the omission of opening and closing stages in interactions between Asian customers and service providers (e.g., Bailey 2001;Kong 1998;Kuang et al 2011;Liu 2009;Pan 2000;Ting et al 2012), and interpreted the omissions as lack of politeness in instrumental exchanges. This interpretation is reasonable given that other researchers have found elaborate sequences for politeness in other settings.…”

Intra-cultural variation: Explanations in service calls to two Montevidean service providers.

“…Once the necessary information was gathered, the call-taker responded to the reason for the call, as shown at line 9 in example (3) and at line 12 in example (4). In both sets of calls, apologizing work started at the beginning of the business exchange (Bailey 1997). Call-takers responded to the reason for the call with the second pair part of the adjacency pair initiated by the caller in the second turn of the call, as shown in lines 2 and 9 in (3) and lines 2 and 12 in (4), respectively.…”

“…In both data sets, apologies were initiated at the beginning of the business exchange (Bailey 1997), following the opening sequence and contingency questions. The opening sequence consisted of the production of a multiunit turn with two and three turn-constructional units : organizational identification followed by a greeting, as illustrated at line 1 in example (1), and in some of the CSC calls this was followed by self-identification, as shown at line 1 in example (2).…”

6. Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural conflict: the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of conflict, culture and communication

“…Bailey (1997Bailey ( , 2000, for example, analyzes service encounters between Korean retailers and African-American customers to help throw light on the longstanding conflict between these two groups that had been widely reported in the media. Analyzing video recordings of the service encounters, he found that there were noticeable differences in the ways that Korean and African-American customers interacted with the Korean retailers, such as in terms of length of the encounter, overall quantity of talk, inclusion of personable topics and small talk, and the amount of affect displayed.…”