The Language of Outsourced Call Centers

A corpus-based study of cross-cultural interaction

Eric Friginal | Georgia State University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027223081 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027289797 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

The Language of Outsourced Call Centers is the first book to explore a large-scale corpus representing the typical kinds of interactions and communicative tasks in outsourced call centers located in the Philippines and serving American customers. The specific goals of this book are to conduct a corpus-based register comparison between outsourced call center interactions, face-to-face American conversations, and spontaneous telephone exchanges; and to study the dynamics of cross-cultural communication between Filipino call center agents and American callers, as well as other demographic groups of participants in outsourced call center transactions, e.g., gender of speakers, agents’ experience and performance, and types of transactional tasks. The research design relies on a number of analytical approaches, including corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, and combines quantitative and qualitative examination of linguistic data in the investigation of the frequency distribution and functional characteristics of a range of lexico/syntactic features of outsourced call center discourse.

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 34] 2009. xxii, 319 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.34

Table of Contents

List of tables | pp. xiii–xvii

List of figures | pp. xiv–xvii

Acknowledgements | p. xix

Preface | pp. xxi–xxii

Chapter 1 Introduction | pp. 1–13

Chapter 2 Outsourced call centers in the Philippines | pp. 15–38

Chapter 3 Corpora and description of speaker groups in the call center corpus | pp. 39–73

Chapter 4 Multi-dimensional analysis | pp. 75–103

Chapter 5 Lexico/syntactic features | pp. 105–143

Chapter 6 Grammatical expression of stance | pp. 145–167

Chapter 7 Politeness and respect markers | pp. 169–189

Chapter 8 Inserts | pp. 191–225

Chapter 9 Dysfluencies | pp. 227–254

Chapter 10 Communication breakdown: Caller clarifications | pp. 255–271

Chapter 11 Synthesis and directions for future research | pp. 273–297

Appendix | pp. 299–305

Index | pp. 317–319

“ The Language of Outsourced Call Centers is a well-designed study with a clear methodology and detailed analysis of both quantitative and qualitative findings.”

Shelley Staples, Northern Arizona University, in International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 15(4): 549-556

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