Language, Multimodal Interaction and Transaction
Studies of a Southern Chinese marketplace
Author
Xuehua Xiang examines multimodal interaction in the marketplace in a multilingual town at the juncture of urbanization in Southern China. Using a collection of data that span nearly 20 years from ethnographic fieldwork, Language, Multimodal Interaction and Transaction: Studies of a Southern Chinese marketplace analyzes multimodal talk-in-interaction in the traditional marketplace as both an economic mechanism and a localized social space. Focusing on how buyers and sellers interact to complete transactions as marketplace shifts from sedimentations of road-side peddling to centralized built space and further to corporate e-commerce, Xiang takes into account the Janus nature of language as both incurring transaction costs and a powerful tool of information and control. By analyzing the socializing functions of language in the marketplace outside of and beyond economic dealings, the study additionally documents and depicts the roles of affect and morality in marketplace encounters. The study offers an overarching framework for future research on the mediating role of language and multimodal interaction in economic activities as well as on the interplay of information, knowledge, affect and morality in social encounters.
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 14] 2021. xii, 217 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Preface | pp. ix–xii
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Chapter 1. Language and social interaction in Southern Chinese marketplace | pp. 1–8
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Chapter 2. The research context, methodology and theoretical preliminaries | pp. 9–32
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Chapter 3. Initiating transactions: Interactional asymmetry in competitive cooperation | pp. 33–58
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Chapter 4. The many shades and shapes of transaction: Transactions as an oral genre | pp. 59–78
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Chapter 5. Making deals, blocking sales: Conflict talk in the marketplace | pp. 79–104
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Chapter 6. Buyer Beware: Assessment and knowledge in the marketplace | pp. 105–126
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Chapter 7. Relationships in the marketplace: On phatic communication | pp. 127–152
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Chapter 8. Market has a heart: Empathy in conversational storytelling | pp. 153–176
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Chapter 9. Language as a transaction cost: As market models evolve | pp. 177–194
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References | pp. 195–208
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The transcription conventions
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Appendix A. The transcription conventions | pp. 209–210
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Appendix B. Abbreviations | pp. 211–212
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Index | pp. 213–217
“It is a good read for readers who are well-versed in interactional or discourse studies that have interest in understanding the complexities of institutionalised talk (in the marketplace).”
Gregory Ang, Nanyang Technological University, in Chinese Language and Discourse 15:1 (2024).
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009030: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics