1887
Volume 23, Issue 4
  • ISSN 1018-2101
  • E-ISSN: 2406-4238

Abstract

In this article I examine a negotiating strategy observed in telephone calls made by (prospective) clients to the Latin American call centre operation of a multinational company specialised in holiday time-shares. Through this strategy, which I have termed ‘fabricated ignorance’, the (prospective) clients show an unawareness of how the system works in order to gain access to information, services, or benefits that they are not, in theory, entitled to. They do so, among other things, by formulating pre-sequences designed to address a gap in knowledge as a way of dealing with the possibility of their requests being rejected. Essentially, the callers approach the interactions displaying only partial knowledge of the system and manage the conversations in such a way that the agents will be induced to have a false notion of what is going on. I contend that service operationalization, which positions the (prospective) clients as information-disadvantaged relative to the agents, coupled with unfair commercial practices leads them to pursue ways of counterbalancing such imbalances providing thus fertile ground for the emergence of this strategy. Fabricated ignorance is a (prospective) client’s way of sizing up opportunities. Sizing up entails a participant’s assessment of where the interaction is leading, an estimation of the extent to which is conducive to meeting the participant’s goals and the steps that might be needed to achieve them. One avenue for achieving this aim is judging the moment in the encounter when it might be potentially more convenient to make their move and to act out an uninformed stance.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/prag.23.4.04mar
2013-01-01
2025-04-27
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Button, Graham
    (1987) Moving out of closings. In G. Button , and J. Lee (eds.), Talk and Social Organisation. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 101-151.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Coulmas, Florian
    (ed.) (1986) Direct and Indirect Speech. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110871968
    https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110871968 [Google Scholar]
  3. Curl, Tracy , and Paul Drew
    (2008) Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction41: 1-25. doi: 10.1080/08351810802028613
    https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351810802028613 [Google Scholar]
  4. Davidson, J
    (1990) Modifications of invitations, offers and rejections. In G. Psathas (ed.), Interaction Competence. Washington DC: University Press of America, pp. 149-133.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Gelyukens, Roland
    (1988) On the myth of rising intonation in polar questions. Journal of Pragmatics12.4: 467-485. doi: 10.1016/0378‑2166(88)90006‑9
    https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(88)90006-9 [Google Scholar]
  6. Goffman, Erving
    (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face to Face Behavior. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. (1974) Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. (1978) Response cries. Language 54.4: 787-815. doi: 10.2307/413235
    https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/413235 [Google Scholar]
  9. Heritage, John
    (2012) Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction45: 1-29. doi: 10.1080/08351813.2012.646684
    https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646684 [Google Scholar]
  10. Holt, Elizabeth
    (1996) Reporting on talk: The use of direct reported speech in conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 29.3: 219-245. doi: 10.1207/s15327973rlsi2903_2
    https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2903_2 [Google Scholar]
  11. Márquez Reiter, Rosina
    (2002) A contrastive study of indirectness in Spanish: Evidence from Uruguayan and Peninsular Spanish. Pragmatics12: 135-151.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. (2011) Mediated Business Interactions. Intercultural Communication between Speakers of Spanish.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Pomerantz, Anita
    (1980) Telling my side: ‘Limited access’ as a ‘fishing device’. Sociological Inquiry50: 186-198. doi: 10.1111/j.1475‑682X.1980.tb00020.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00020.x [Google Scholar]
  14. (1984) Pursuing a response. In J.M. Atkinson , and J. Heritage (eds.), Structures of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 152-164.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Schegloff, Emmanuel A
    (1968) Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist70: 1075-1095. doi: 10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030
    https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030 [Google Scholar]
  16. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction. A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511791208
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208 [Google Scholar]
  17. Weizman, Elda
    (1989) Requestive hints. In S. Blum-Kulka , et al (eds.), Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood: N. J. Ablex, pp. 71-95.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Zimmerman, Don
    (1992) The interactional organization of calls for emergency assistance. In P. Drew , and J. Heritage (eds.), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 359-469.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/prag.23.4.04mar
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error