In recent years, interest in examining the diverse functions and features of oral narratives told in workplace contexts has grown alongside the body of research investigating the role of language in enacting politeness in the workplace. Yet, to date, there has been little integration of these two strands of inquiry. This paper forges a link between linguistic politeness and some social functions of institutional narratives. Specifically, the micro-analysis of one narrative taken from a corpus of teacher/supervisor feedback sessions demonstrates how the narrator, a novice teacher, negotiates the telling of a complaint narrative to her supervisor along with the politeness demands embedded in the local context of telling. I argue that the speaker’s contradictory evaluation of her situation interacts with linguistic politeness (i.e., the need to mitigate a “face-threatening act”) in the situated telling of this narrative. Finally, in the spirit of recent work on narrative, which calls for increased attention to context in narrative activities, this paper highlights the importance of considering the interrelationships among factors such as face work, recipient design, production circumstances, and institutional roles and relationships among speakers, in the analysis of institutional narratives.
2014. Review of linguistic approach in the workplace management research. Facilities 32:1/2 ► pp. 27 ff.
Bjurulf, Veronica
2012. Reasons for choosing a technically oriented education: an interview study within the fields of pipefitting and industry. International Journal of Technology and Design Education 22:3 ► pp. 377 ff.
Bjørndal, Cato R.P.
2020. Student teachers’ responses to critical mentor feedback: A study of face-saving strategies in teaching placements. Teaching and Teacher Education 91 ► pp. 103047 ff.
2015. ‘Looking like a bad person’: vocabulary of motives and narrative analysis in a story of nursing collegiality. Nursing Inquiry 22:3 ► pp. 221 ff.
Rodriguez, Andrea
2022. “Ay no I do feel exhausted”: Affiliative practices and interpersonal relationships in indirect complaints in Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 194 ► pp. 39 ff.
2011. Complaints online: The case of TripAdvisor. Journal of Pragmatics 43:6 ► pp. 1707 ff.
Wagner, Santoi & Kristina B. Lewis
2021. Third-party complaints in teacher post-observation meetings. Journal of Pragmatics 178 ► pp. 378 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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