Cover not available
Part of
Handbook of Pragmatics: 25th Annual Installment
Edited by Frank Brisard, Sigurd D’hondt, Pedro Gras and Mieke Vandenbroucke
[Handbook of Pragmatics 25] 2022
► pp. 66–90

Complaining

 | The University of Queensland
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The complexity of complaining: Defining features
    • 2.1Complaints and other types of troubles-talk
    • 2.2Linguistic and sequential features
    • 2.3Interpersonal features
  • 3.Types of complaints
    • 3.1Direct or recipient-oriented complaints
    • 3.2Indirect complaints
      • 3.2.1Affiliation as a preferred response
  • 4.Complaining in different contexts
    • 4.1Casual vs institutional talk
    • 4.2Digital/online complaints
  • 5.Future directions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.25.com1
References (85)
References
Acuña Ferreira, Virginia. 2004. “Complaint stories in male contexts: The power of emotions.” Spanish in Context 1 (2): 181–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2021. “The construction of future and hypothetical dialogues in third-party complaints as enactments of a subsequent direct complaint.” Journal of Pragmatics 181: 68–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, Maxwell J., and Paul Drew. 1979. Order in Court: The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. Macmillan: Social Science Research Council. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barraja-Rohan, Anne-Marie. 2003. “Past troubles-talk in nonnative–native interviews.” Journal of Pragmatics 35 (4): 615–629. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boxer, Diana. 1993. “Social distance and speech behavior: The case of indirect complaints.” Journal of Pragmatics 19 (2): 103–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cenni, Irene, and Patrick Goethals. 2017. “Negative hotel reviews on TripAdvisor: A cross-linguistic analysis.” Discourse, Context & Media 16: 22–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2012. “Exploring affiliation in the reception of conversational complaint stories.” In Emotion in Interaction, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 113–146. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dayter, Daria, and Sofia Rüdiger. 2014. “‘Speak your mind, but watch your mouth’: Complaints in CouchSurfing references.” In Face Work and Social Media, ed. by Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held, and Christiane Maaß, 193–212. Münster: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Decock, Sofie, and Anneleen Spiessens. 2017a. “Customer complaints and disagreements in a multilingual business environment: A discursive-pragmatic analysis.” Intercultural Pragmatics 14 (1): 77–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017b. “Face-threatening e-mail complaint negotiation in a multilingual business environment: A discursive analysis of refusal and disagreement strategies.” In Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics, ed. by Istvan Kecskes and Stavros Assimakopoulos, 129–156. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Decock, Sofie, and Ilse Depraetere. 2018. “(In)directness and complaints: A reassessment.” Journal of Pragmatics 132: 33–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse, Sofie Decock, and Nicolas Ruytenbeek. 2021. “Linguistic (in)directness in twitter complaints: A contrastive analysis of railway complaint interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 171: 215–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dersley, Ian, and Anthony Wootton. 2000. “Complaint sequences within antagonistic argument.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 33 (4): 375–406. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1998. “Complaints about transgressions and misconduct.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3–4): 295–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Holt, Elizabeth. 1988. “Complainable matters: The use of idiomatic expressions in making complaints.” Social Problems 35 (4): 398–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Traci Walker. 2009. “Going too far: Complaining, escalating and disaffiliation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2400–2414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta. 2017a. “But seriously: On conversational humour and (un)truthfulness.” Lingua, 197: 83–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017b. “Participation as audience design.” In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffman and Wolfram Bublitz, 61–82. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Derek. 2005. “Moaning, whinging and laughing: The subjective side of complaints.” Discourse Studies 7 (1): 5–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emerson, Robert M., and Sheldon L. Messinger. 1977. “The micro-politics of trouble.” Social Problems 25 (2): 121–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feo, Rebecca, and Amanda LeCouteur. 2017. “Dealing with third-party complaints on a men’s relationship-counselling helpline.” Discourse Studies 19 (2): 131–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flint, Natalie, Michael Haugh, and Andrew John Merrison. 2019. “Modulating troubles affiliating in initial interactions.” Pragmatics 29 (3): 384–409. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. “Footing.” In Forms of talk, 124–159. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Haakana, Markku. 2006. “Reported thought in complaint stories.” In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, ed. by Elizabeth Holt and Rebecca Clift, 150–178. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2016. “Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction.” In Multiple Perspectives on Language Play, ed. by Nancy Bell, 143–168. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael, and Valeria Sinkeviciute. 2018. “Accusations and interpersonal conflict in televised multi-party interactions amongst speakers of (Argentinian and Peninsular) Spanish.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 6 (2): 248–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heinemann, Trine. 2009. “Participation and exclusion in third party complaints.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2435–2451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heinemann, Trine, and Véronique Traverso. 2009. “Complaining in interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2381–2384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. “A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 299–345. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hernández-López, María de la O. 2022. “When travellers’ expectations are not met: Rapport management in Airbnb online consumer reviews with negative valence.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 10 (2): 241–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth. 2012. “Using laugh responses to defuse complaints.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (4): 430–448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
House, Juliane, and Gabriele Kasper. 1981. “Politeness markers in English and German.” In Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech, ed. by Florian Coulmas, 157–185. New York: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jansson, Gunilla, Cecilia Wadensjö, and Charlotta Plejert. 2017. “Managing complaints in multilingual care encounters.” Multilingua 36 (3): 313–345. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jayyusi, Lena. 1984. Categorization and Moral Order. Boston: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1980. “On ‘trouble-premonitory’ response to inquiry.” Sociological Inquiry 50 (3–4): 153–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1988. “On the sequential organization of troubles-talk in ordinary conversation.” Social Problems 35 (4): 418–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2004. “Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction.” In Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Konakahara, Mayu. 2017. “Interactional management of face-threatening acts in casual ELF conversation: An analysis of third-party complaint sequences.” Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 6 (2): 313–343. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kurtyka, Andrzej. 2019. “I complain, therefore I am: On indirect complaints in Polish.” Journal of Pragmatics 153: 34–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laforest, Marty. 2002. “Scenes of family life: Complaining in everyday conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 34 (10): 1595–1620. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Complaining in front of a witness: Aspects of blaming others for their behaviour in multi-party family interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2452–2464. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, Ping, and Huiying Liu. 2021. “Salience adjusting: Metapragmatic expressions in complaint responses.” Journal of Pragmatics 176: 150–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mandelbaum, Jenny. 1991. “Conversational non-cooperation: An exploration of disattended complaints.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 25 (1–4): 97–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez Reiter, Rosina. 2005. “Complaint calls to a caregiver service company: The case of desahogo.” Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (4): 481–514.Google Scholar
. 2013. “The dynamics of complaining in a Latin American for-profit commercial setting.” Journal of Pragmatics 57: 231–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez Reiter, Rosina, Sara Orthaber, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2015. “Disattending customer dissatisfaction on Facebook: A case study of a Slovenian public transport company.” In International Management and Intercultural Communication, ed. by Elizabeth Christopher, 108–126. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez Reiter, Rosina, and Sara Orthaber. 2018. “Exploring the moral compass.” Internet Pragmatics 1 (2): 241–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W., and Pamela L. Hudak. 2008. “Small talk, high stakes: Interactional disattentiveness in the context of prosocial doctor–patient interaction.” Language in Society 37 (5): 661–688. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Monzoni, Chiara M. 2008. “Introducing direct complaints through questions: The interactional achievement of pre-sequences?” Discourse Studies 10 (1): 73–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009. “Direct complaints in (Italian) calls to the ambulance: The use of negatively framed questions.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2465–2478. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ogden, Richard. 2010. “Prosodic constructions in making complaints.” In Prosody in Interaction, ed. by Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, Elisabeth Reber, and Margret Selting, 81–104. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Orthaber, Sara, Rosina Márquez Reiter. 2011. ““Talk to the hand”: Complaints to a public transport company.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (15): 3860–3876. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Page, Ruth. 2014. “Saying ‘sorry’: Corporate apologies posted on Twitter.” Journal of Pragmatics 62: 30–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pino, Marco. 2016. “Delivering criticism through anecdotes in interaction.” Discourse Studies 18 (6): 695–715. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1978. “Attributions of responsibility: Blamings.” Sociology 12: 115–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1984. “Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 57–101. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
. 1986. “Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims.” Human Studies 9 (2–3): 219–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1988. “Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy.” Communication Monographs 55 (4): 360–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rääbis, Andriela, Tiit Hennoste, Andra Rumm, and Kirsi Laanesoo. 2019. “They are so stupid, so stupid: Emotional affect in Estonian school-related complaints.” Journal of Pragmatics 153: 20–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez, Andrea. 2021. “‘Ay no I do feel exhausted’: Interactional co-construction and interpersonal management of complaints in Spanish phone conversations between friends and relatives. [Unpublished Master’s Thesis].” The University of Queensland.
. 2022. “‘Ay no I do feel exhausted’: Affiliative practices and interpersonal relationships in indirect complaints in Spanish.” Journal of Pragmatics 194: 39–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruusuvuori, Johanna, and Pirjo Lindfors. 2009. “Complaining about previous treatment in health care settings.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2415–2434. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruusuvuori, Johanna, Birte Asmuß, Pentti Henttonen, and Niklas Ravaja. 2019. “Complaining about others at work.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 52 (1): 41–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruytenbeek, Nicolas, Marie Verschraegen, Sofie Decock. 2021. “Exploring the impact of platforms’ affordances on the expression of negativity in online hotel reviews.” Journal of Pragmatics 186: 289–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruytenbeek, Nicolas, Sofie Decock, and Ilse Depraetere. In press. “Experiments into the influence of linguistic (in)directness on perceived face-threat in Twitter complaints.” Journal of Politeness Research. DOI logo
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2005. “On complainability.” Social Problems 52 (4): 449–476. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selting, Margret. 2010. “Affectivity in conversational storytelling: An analysis of displays of anger or indignation in complaint stories.” Pragmatics 20 (2): 229–277.Google Scholar
. 2012. “Complaint stories and subsequent complaint stories with affect displays.” Journal of Pragmatics 44 (4): 387–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinkeviciute, Valeria. 2020. “‘Hey BCC this is Australia and we speak and read English’: Monolingualism and othering in relation to linguistic diversity.” Intercultural Pragmatics 17 (5): 577–603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2009. “Doing actions with identity categories: Complaints and denials in neighbor disputes.” Text & Talk 29 (1): 75–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth, and Derek Edwards. 2007. “Black this, black that: Racial insults and reported speech in neighbour complaints and police interrogations.” Discourse & Society 18 (3): 337–372. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ten Have, Paul. 1991. “Talk and institution: A reconsideration of the ‘asymmetry’ of doctor-patient interaction.” In Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, ed. by Deirdre Boden and Don H. Zimmerman, 138–163. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tereszkiewicz, Anna. 2020. “Complaint management on Twitter: Evolution of interactional patterns on Polish corporate profiles.” Pragmatics 30 (3): 405–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2021. “Rejecting consumer complaints in customer encounters on Twitter: The case of English and Polish brand communication.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 17 (2): 189–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tong, Ying, and Chaoqun Xie. 2022. “Complaining, teasing, and meme-framing: Socializing through Moments storytelling.” Internet Pragmatics 5: 66–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traverso, Véronique. 2009. “The dilemmas of third-party complaints in conversation between friends.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2385–2399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1995. Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Herck, Rebecca, Sofie Decock, and Bernard De Clerck. 2020. “‘Can you send us a PM please?’: Service recovery interactions on social media from the perspective of organizational legitimacy.” Discourse, Context & Media, 38: 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vásquez, Camilla. 2009. “Examining the role of face work in a workplace complaint narrative.” Narrative Inquiry 19 (2): 259–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. “Complaints online: The case of TripAdvisor.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (6): 1707–1717. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vladimirou, Dimitra, Juliane House, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2021. “Aggressive complaining on social media: The case of #MuckyMerton.” Journal of Pragmatics 177: 51–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vöge, Monika. 2010. “Local identity processes in business meetings displayed through laughter in complaint sequences.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (6): 1556–1576. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Santori, and Kristina B. Lewis. 2021. “Third-party complaints in teacher post-observation meetings.” Journal of Pragmatics 178: 378–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Ruytenbeek, Nicolas
2024. Indirectness. In Handbook of Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 101 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.