Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Online-First Articles

“We are completely stunned”

Corrective facework in hosts’ responses to Airbnb reviews with negative valence

ORCID logo | Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
ORCID logo | Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
The relationship between service providers and guests has changed due to online platforms like Airbnb, which allow for a more direct contact between them. Although most responses to guests’ reviews tend to be positive and even include relational work strategies (Bridges and Vásquez 2018; Hernández-López 2019), verbal aggression is also performed (Hopkinson 2018). This study aims to focus on explicit and implicit aggressive responses to negative reviews on Airbnb in English and Spanish, with special attention to corrective facework strategies to repair the hosts’ face loss (Guerrero et al. 2014; Maíz-Arévalo 2019). Thus, 200 responses to negative reviews were gathered and analysed qualitatively, considering the strategies intended to mitigate potential face threat and to revert the situation. It was found that most of the hosts’ responses in the Spanish dataset aimed at repairing their own face within the community, while their English counterparts acknowledged negative reviews and apologised more often.
Keywords: reviews with negative valence, Airbnb, corrective facework, responses, English-Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The online review responses genre
  • 3.Corrective facework
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Airbnb
    • 4.2Data-gathering procedure and corpus description
    • 4.3Methodological approach and challenges encountered
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Mitigating/repairing strategies
      • 5.1.1Apologies
      • 5.1.2Remediation
      • 5.1.3Accounts
    • 5.2Counter-attacking strategies
      • 5.2.1Aggression
        • Explicitly accusing the other of lying
        • Reverting roles
        • Holding the other accountable
        • Insulting the other
        • Using irony and mockery
      • 5.2.2Refusals
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00116.dia
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